Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies: Article Information
Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies: Article Information
Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies: Article Information
fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies such as Patanjali, Dabur, Marico were Indore, Indore, India.
banking on ayurvedic and herbal components in their various key products such as
toothpaste, shampoo and hair oil to expand their market share and some of these Indian
companies seemed to be growing faster than bigger multinationals including Hindustan
Unilever and Procter & Gamble (Bhushan, 2016). For quite some time now, Mitesh was
continuously reading articles which discussed how there has been a positive shift in the
consumer preferences for products having herbal and ayurvedic ingredients. It was
observed that customers normally used the words ayurvedic and herbal interchangeably
and often Mitesh had to train his sales representatives on the difference between herbal,
natural and ayurvedic products so that they are able to make an effective sales pitch.
Herbal products made of plant extracts, plant roots, leaves etc. are very different from
ayurvedic products which are more medicinal in nature and their production includes the
use of herbs as well as heavy metals such as gold, silver, copper, tin, mercury, sulphur etc.
Natural products on the other hand are made from plants and minerals that occur in nature
and have not been produced in a laboratory and are not man made. Mitesh recalled how
his grandfather had started Anju Pharmaceuticals with the manufacturing of three products
in 1983 and today the company manufactures 29 ayurvedic products spanning seven
categories such as skin care, pain relief, general health, digestion and metabolism, oral
care, ear and throat care and hair care. Despite being more than three decades into this
business, the company had still not been able to make a mark in the market but with the
positive changes in consumer perception towards ayurvedic, natural and herbal products,
Mitesh was hopeful that if he could gear up his distribution it would result in improving the
bottom-line of the company. He was also very much aware that to improve his bottom-line
just relying on efficient distribution would not suffice and he would need to come up with
strategic alliances and newer ways of doing the business rather than just following what
had been the norm for the last few years. He wanted his company to ride the FMCG herbal
wave but how? and at what cost? were the big questions facing him. Disclaimer. This case is written
solely for educational
Fast-moving consumer goods herbal wave in India purposes and is not intended
to represent successful or
unsuccessful managerial
FMCG or consumer packaged goods are products that are sold quickly and at relatively decision-making. The author/s
low cost. Examples include non-durable goods such as soft drinks, toiletries, may have disguised names;
financial and other
over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, processed foods and many other consumables. As per the recognizable information to
reports published by India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), the Indian FMCG sector is protect confidentiality. Names
of employees mentioned in the
categorized into three broad categories of Household and Personal Care, Health Care and case have been changed to
Food and Beverages. The Household and Personal Care comprising of oral care, hair care, maintain confidentiality.
DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-01-2017-0008 VOL. 7 NO. 3 2017, pp. 1-26, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2045-0621 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 1
skin care, cosmetics/deodorants, perfumes, feminine hygiene and paper products, fabric
wash and household cleaners is the leading segment accounting for 50 per cent of the
market share. In total, 31 per cent of the FMCG market share was of health care products
which comprised OTC products and a range of pharma products termed as ethical. Finally,
19 per cent of the FMCG market share was for food and beverages which comprised health
beverages, staples/cereals, bakery products, snacks, chocolates, ice cream, tea/coffee/
soft drinks, processed fruits and vegetables, dairy products and branded flour. As per the
IBEF reports, the rural FMCG market was anticipated to increase at a CAGR of 17.7
per cent to reach US$100 bn during 2012-2025. The reports also stated that the favourable
demographics and the rise in income levels would give a boost to the Indian FMCG market
to grow at a CAGR of 20.6 per cent during 2016-2020 (Ibef.org, 2017; FMCG, 2017).
Consumers around the world are going organic and the Indian marketplace too has
witnessed a growing preference for products having natural ingredients. Baba Ramdev the
yoga guru who founded Patanjali (brand named after ancient Indian scholar who compiled
the yoga sutras) has turned out to be the most disruptive force in the last two decades for
the consumer goods industry. Patanjali started in 1997 as a small pharmacy in the holy
town of Haridwar in the state of Uttarakhand, India, making healthcare products and was
incorporated in 2006 as a company to sell personal care, food and beverage products
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Patanjali outlets (Bhatt, 2016). To remove this bottleneck, Patanjali Ayurveda started
working extensively on penetrating deeper into the Indian market by strengthening its
distribution network so as to achieve its target of doubling its revenues to Rs.10,000 crores
by the end of March 2017. There were reports on the firm leasing 1.2 million sq ft. of modern
warehousing space across top 20 cities in the country and had plans to ramp this up to over
2 million sq ft. by setting up five to seven large distribution centres in key locations (Sharma,
2016). Besides having 1,200 Chikitsalayas (Clinics), 2,500 Arogya Kendras (Health
Centres), 7,000 Open Stores in villages and 5,600 marketing vehicles, the Patanjali team
was also reported to be working on launching 250 megastores in tier-1 and 2 cities.
Patanjali also entered into modern trade tie ups with Big Bazaar, Reliance Retail, Star
Bazaar (Tata Group), DMart, Spencer Retail, More (Aditya Birla Retail) and Apollo
Pharmacy, thus making its products available in over 4,500 stores across India (Baruah,
2016). Reports from these modern retail stores point out that products such as ghee,
honey, chyawanprash, juices, instant noodles and shampoo were the top selling brands in
their respective categories and owing to such an overwhelming consumer response these
retailers have put up standalone racks, counters or bays depending on the size of the store
to stock Patanjali’s grocery products (Bhushan and Mukherjee, 2016). The company also
has an online presence via e-commerce sites apps such as Amazon, Big Basket and
Grofers although research carried out by Nielsen India concluded that not more than 1
per cent of Indian consumers bought FMCG through e-commerce and traditional retail
outlets or kirana stores constituted 90 per cent of the FMCG business. According to
business analysts, the rise of Patanjali would pose a serious challenge to companies that
had dominated the consumer space for years. Shares of Nestle dropped about 29.5
per cent, Colgate-Palmolive declined 21.7 per cent, Emami had fallen 12.5 per cent while
Dabur lost 6.7 per cent in the financial year 2015-2016 (Baruah, 2016).
Pain-relief products
Anju Balm (12 gm): head-ache, cough and cold, muscular pain, joint pain, swelling,
back-ache, rheumatic pain, arthritis, sciatica pain, sprain, frozen shoulder etc.;
Mekado Pain Balm (10 gm): muscular and joint pain, common cold, headache;
Pain Cure Ointment (15 gm tube): Quick relief from sprain, strain, shoulder pain, hip,
knee and muscular pain, cervical and lumbar spondylitis, sciatica and lumbago; and
Pain Off Oil (10 ml roll on): effective cure for injury, muscular pains associated with
fevers, joint pain, nasal and chest congestion, back-ache, pain because of spondylitis,
lower back pain, rheumatic pain, arthritis, sciatica, insect bite, frozen shoulder,
shoulder pain, sprain, lumbago.
Anju Cough Syrup (60 ml): effective cure for common cold, cough; and
Karn Priya Tel: provides immediate relief from ear pain.
company and showcasing all the products manufactured by the company which could lead
to upselling of products.
In 2014, Mitesh had his fingers burnt when he experimented with selling his products using
the e-commerce platform of e-bay, Snapdeal and Flipkart to catch up with the changing
consumer preferences for online shopping. In cases where the customer requested only
one pack of the product on e-bay, it turned out to be a big loss for Anju Pharmaceuticals
as the cost associated with selling online, sometimes turned out to be more than the market
retail price of the product. Then there was change in the government directives which
banned the sale of medical products online and hence all ayurvedic preparations even if
they were for non-medicinal use such as hair oil, skin cream etc. were prohibited from
selling online. Flipkart required a number of documents and certificates from the
proprietors to sell their products online. Arranging for the documents and certificates took
a backseat when Mitesh had another bitter experience with an e-commerce company by
the name of Sattviko.com. They had a couple of transactions worth 1,000 rupees but even
after six to seven months the margins from the e-commerce company had not been
disbursed.
It is not that ayurvedic and herbal products were not available online. Rather, there were
more than 150 ayurvedic and herbal brands available at amazon.in, snapdeal.com and
ayurvedmart.com. Companies dealing in ayurvedic and herbal products also had their own
websites where all the products were listed. Although Anju Pharmaceuticals too had its
website with detailed product information but nowhere in the website was a mention of the
price of the products. Even while placing an online order on website, a customer did not
come to know the price of the product and the order was sent to the manufacturer who later
got in touch with the customer. This was pointed out to Mitesh by few customers but no
action in this regard was taken to make the website more customer friendly. Mitesh was
more interested in building a network of distributors who could make the product available
at various geographies and because of a few not so good experiences with online retailing
Mitesh did not pay attention to catering to small ticket orders. Other websites for example
that of Maharishi Ayurveda had a detailed listing of their products on their own websites
and also a customer could search the relevant product by using search option based on
the symptoms of the ailment (Maharishi Ayurveda, 2017). Unlike Anju Pharmaceuticals,
various herbal and ayurvedic companies such as Roop Mantra, Ozone Ayurvedics, Himali
Ayurveda, Baidyanath, Zandu, Organic India etc. made sure that their products were
felt that by going in for third-party manufacturing he would never be able to establish the brand
identity of Anju Pharmaceuticals. Mitesh was aware of the opportunity that there were just one
or two herbal products manufacturers in Madhya Pradesh and that was the reason why he was
approached for getting into third-party manufacturing alliances with some established clients
when he had registered in Indiamart and Tradeindia portals. Mitesh was sceptical in taking a
decision favouring third-party manufacturing as he would have to compromise on the margins
received in third-party manufacturing as compared to the margins realized by selling products
under the banner of Anju Pharmaceuticals. Further, Mitesh thought that by going in for
manufacturing for third party he would become dependent on the third party for orders.
Presently, his company was manufacturing around 29 ayurvedic products and Mitesh wished
to increase the product portfolio in the next five years.
The bottleneck at Anju Pharmaceuticals however was the lack of funds for going in for
advertising of products and till the time awareness was not created among the customers
for the various products of the company, sales volumes could not be attained. A lack of
market penetration resulted in a low sales volumes and this resulted in the factory not
functioning at 100 per cent capacity because of unsold inventory. Mitesh was also against
going in for any sort of debt for pumping in more funds in marketing communications and
expanding distribution network. He felt that the brand image of products manufactured by
Anju Pharmaceuticals would be diluted if he entered into third-party manufacturing
alliances.
Mitesh wanted his company to ride the FMCG herbal wave and see the bottom-line of his
company improve but how? and at what cost? were the big questions facing him.
Questions
Q1. What advantages and disadvantages for the client and the manufacturer do you see
in third-party manufacturing?
Q2. Are the apprehensions of Mitesh against going for third-party manufacturing justified?
Why/Why not?
Q3. Should Anju Pharmaceuticals reconsider selling its products using online e-commerce
platforms?
Q4. What other ways can Anju pharmaceuticals use to cash on to the positive customer
perception and attitude towards herbal products?
Baruah, B. (2016), “High valuation FMCG stocks face earnings downgrade risk”, The Economic Times,
Bangalore ed., 11 March, p. 11, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid⫽
31815&dt⫽20160311&Ar⫽1 (accessed 5 June 2016).
Bhatt, S. (2016), “Could distribution be patanjali’s achilles heel?”, The Economic Times, available at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/brand-equity/could-distribution-be-patanjalis-
achilles-heel/articleshow/52306425.cms (accessed 20 May 2016).
Bhushan, R. (2016), “Indian FMCG companies find a natural way to grow”, The Economic Times, Delhi
ed., 7 July, p. 5, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid⫽31816&dt⫽20160707&
Ar⫽1 (accessed 7 July 2016).
Bhushan, R. and Mukherjee, W. (2016), “Patanjali products get exclusive space at stores as sales
soar”, The Economic Times, Delhi ed., 7 January, p. 8, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.
com/index.aspx?eid⫽31815&dt⫽20160107&Ar⫽1 (accessed 5 June 2016).
Dharmananda, S. (2017), “The ayurvedic medicine industry in India”, available at: www.itmonline.org/
arts/ayurind.htm (accessed 12 February, 2017).
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Francorp (2017), “Ayurveda: the next big opportunity in retail & franchising”, available at: www.
francorp.in/ayurveda.php (accessed 12 February, 2017).
Malviya, S. (2016), “L’Oreal to launch natural hair care products”, The Economic Times, Mumbai ed., 16
June, p. 5, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid⫽31816&dt⫽20160616&Ar⫽1
(accessed 7 July 2016).
Malviya, S. and Tyagi, N. (2016), “Patanjali injects a new dose of life into herbal market”, The Economic
Times, Bangalore ed., 23 February, p. 1, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?
eid⫽31815&dt⫽20160223&Ar⫽1 (accessed 5 June 2016).
Malviya, S. and Tyagi, N. (2016), “Colgate to take on Patanjali with herbal toothpaste”, The Economic
Times, Delhi ed., 1 August, p. 8, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?eid⫽
31817&dt⫽20160801&Ar⫽1 (accessed 2 August 2016.
Rangan, G. (2016), “The sceptic-FMCG disruption: Baba Ramdev, the Black Swan”, The Economic
Times, Bangalore ed., 19 February, p. 13, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.
aspx?eid⫽31815&dt⫽20160219&Ar⫽1 (accessed 7 June 2016).
Sharma, R. (2016), “Patanjali aims to double revenue to Rs. 10kcr. by March, gobbles up space”, The
Economic Times, Mumbai ed., 2 August, p. 5, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.
aspx?eid⫽31818&dt⫽20160802&Ar⫽1 (accessed 12 August 2016).
Vyas, J. (2016), “After Patanjali comes Sri Sri,- FMCG companies will have to be on guard”, The
Economic Times, Bangalore ed., 17 March, p. 12, available at: http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/
index.aspx?eid⫽31815&dt⫽20160317&Ar⫽1 (accessed 2 June 2016).
Further reading
Anju Pharmaceuticals listed in Indiamart.com (2016), available at: www.indiamart.com/
anjupharmaceuticals (accessed 16 June 2016).
Anju Pharmaceuticals listed in tradeindia.com (2016), available at: www.tradeindia.com/Seller-1124283-
Anju-Pharmaceuticals/ (accessed 19 June 2016).
Exhibit 1
Exhibit 4