ANNAPURNA SALT CASE STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS:

 

1. What is the role of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) in BOP markets according to Prahalad? Do you agree with this position?

 

NGO's are the ones responsible for connecting the lower part of the community with the upper.

 

2. According to Rekha Balu of Fast Company, "poor people ... can become just as discerning about brands as rich customer". Do you agree with this statement? Is this applicable in the Philippines?

 

 

I agree with Rekha because for people in the middle and upper class wearing or using prestigious brands it is a sign of power and wealth.

 

3. What is the nature of the breakthrough of K15 Technology in your own words?

 

K15 technology is salty water keeping it from evaporating.

 

4. What are the issues/difficulties in branding something like salt according to Vishal Dhawan?

 

Though people want to have brands for salts with a higher quality, but it is impossible to differentiate in products like salt.

 

5. Why is the Annapurna evolution necessary according to Vishal Dhawan?

 

It is because Annapurna needs to give reasons for the market to expand and the life of a product is usually 18 months.

 

6. What would the nature of the "differentiator" for Dr. Amitava Pramanik?

 

This is to differentiate Annapurna from the others, which recognizes deficienfcy in other brands.

 

7. What is the effect of advertising for the marketing strategy for Annapurna with K15?

 

It was a successful with the use of a puppet show by which their advertisement is watched by their target market with an average of 4 times per day. In the future, Annapurna’s advertisements will be tracked carefully.

 

8. What are the innovations of HLL with regards to transporting salt?

 

They began to transport salts by rails by 12 rake sized carriages carrying up to 2,200 tons. Then the rail would load it to trucks by “salt buffer depot” step to transport it to the wholesalers or retail outlets.

 

9. What is Project Shakti and what are its goals?

 

It is a project which identified six new growth opportunities of HLL which are:

Confectionaries and sweets, Consumer health cares, SANGAM an e-retailing program for daily ordering and delivery, Addressing the needs of top-end consumers

, Water, Shakti a direct to consumer initiative targeted at individuals at the bottom of the pyramid in rural India.

 

10. How would you imagine SANGA, an "e-tailing program for daily ordering and delivery"? If you were its designer how would you describe it?

 

If  I was its designer, I would describe it as the system for HLL that would accept orders for delivery and records each transaction in a database and would be operated through the internet (worldwide web).

 

11. Project Shakti caters exclusively to men. There have been requests for men to becomeShakit dealers but HLL turned them down. If you were the decision-maker, would you allow men to become Shakti dealers? Why?

 

Yes, since I believe at the age of equalitarian that defines the equality among men and women where everything that a man can do is also applicable to women. If the women can have entrepreneurial skills, then a man can do it also through proper training.

 

12. What is i-Shakti? As an IM student how can you improve i-Shakti?

 

I-Shakti is an IT enabled rural community development initiative from Hindustan Lever Ltd and is a part of Project Shakti.

 

13. HLL's would-be competitors decided to have a watch-and-wait policy. If you were a would-be competitor for HLL would you decide to get into HLL's market? Why? How?

 

I would just do benchmarking but I will improve my business through new products and improvement on my IT systems since a good IT system is a good competitive advantage.

 

14. Should HLL keep their K15 technology proprietary? Why?

 

Yes, it is where all of their advantage started, and then it will be a basis for their further improvement.

 

15. Do you think a program like Project Shakti would succeed in the Philippines? What do you think would be some of the anticipated difficulties?

 

Yes, but having a country which is geographically distributed would be a challenge for synchronizing and updating the data.