Uniliver in India

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

Marketing Management

Case Analysis: Unilever in India: Hindustan Lever‟s Project Shakti – Marketing FMCG to the rural Consumer

Submitted to: Prof. Rahul Kumar Sett

Submitted By: PGP/14/258 PGP/14/280 PGP/14/303 Alok Kumar Mahtaab Kajla Shruti Kabdal PGP/14/279 PGP/14/283 PGP/14/304 Lokesh Singh Naveen Vyas Sneha Ramtake

Situation Analysis       Hindustan Unilever Limited is India‟s largest fast moving consumer goods and Services Company. Over 70% population of India resides in villages so tap this market company need to develop economically viable and efficient distribution channels in villages. Poor connectivity among villages and widely scattered consumers are main problems. Recently it has launched a project „Shakti‟ to penetrate the rural market for FMCG goods. About 12000 women entrepreneurs had been appointed, covering nearly 50,000 villages in partnership with nearly 300 NGO‟s. Company wants to scale its operation so to achieve a consumer base of around 100 million by 2006. It is estimated that this will require a network of about 25000 entrepreneurs. HLL has also introduced Shakti Vani to create awareness in villages about personal health and community hygiene.

Problem Identification  How to improve the distribution channels to gain a consumer base of 100 million by 2006.  The greatest challenge that Shakti face is costs and management control to make it profitable.  Building confidence/self-sufficiency among Shakti Entrepreneurs  To achieve the objective of contributing 15-20% of HLL‟s revenue by 1lakh entrepreneurs Project Shakti Challenges:         

Marketing Management | 06/09/2010

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