Business Marketing Group Assignment

Company: ACC Limited

Submitted By:
Divyekant Gupta

2014088

Gunjan Shukla

2014099

Hasan Armoghan

2014103

Kunal Roy

2014141

Mohit Karode

2014163

Nitika Kedia

2014183
Section: ABC1

ACC LIMITED

ACC Limited is Indias foremost manufacturer of cement and ready mixed concrete with a
countrywide network of factories and sales offices. Established in 1936, ACC is
acknowledged as a pioneer and trendsetter in cement and concrete technology. Among the
first companies in India to include environment protection as a corporate commitment, ACC
regularly wins accolades for best practices in environment management at its plants and
mines, and for demonstrating good corporate citizenship. The quality of its products and
customer services make ACC the most preferred brand in the Indian cement industry.
Vision:
To be one of the most respected companies in India; recognised for challenging conventions
and delivering on our promises.
Strength:
Building strong and lasting relationships. Conducting everyday operations internally in true
team spirit. Acting responsibly with integrity and demonstrating strength of character.
Performance:
Delivering on their promises to each other and to the stakeholders. Always ensuring
excellence. Working together and striving to delight customers with best solutions.
Passion:
Caring, being dedicated, committed and passionate about everything we do, and
demonstrating excellence in everything we do.
The brand ACC enjoys a high level of equity in the Indian market. ACCs brand equity was
found to be the strongest among its key competitors as shown in a research study undertaken
by The Nielsen Company (India) during 2007 and 2008. A humbling revelation of this study
is that this brand enjoys among the highest level of equity in the global cement market. ACC
is a brand with meaning not just to customers but to other stakeholders such as shareholders,
employees and vendors. The name invokes an assurance of quality and trust. The Company
now plans to further enhance this equity and strengthen its sales and marketing potential by
building an effective sales organization, motivating channel partners and revitalising
customer services.
Products:
1. Cement
43 Grade Cement (OPC 43 Grade)
ACC Cement is the most commonly used cement in all constructions including plain
and reinforced cement concrete, brick and stone masonry, floors and plastering. It is
also used in the finishing of all types of buildings, bridges, culverts, roads, water
retaining structures, etc.
What is more, it surpasses BIS Specifications (IS 8112-1989 for 43 grade OPC) on
compressive strength levels.
ACC Cement is marketed in specially designed 50 kg bags.

53 Grade Cement
This is an Ordinary Portland Cement which surpasses the requirements of IS: 1226953 Grade. It is produced from high quality clinker ground with high purity gypsum.
ACC 53 Grade OPC provides high strength and durability to structures because of its
optimum particle size distribution, superior crystalline structure and balanced phase
composition.
It is available in specially designed 50-kg bags.
2. Blended Cement
Fly-ash based Portland Pozzolana Cement
This is a special blended cement, produced by inter-grinding higher strength Ordinary
Portland Cement clinker with high quality processed fly ash - based on norms set by
the company's R&D division. This unique, value-added product has hydraulic binding
properties not found in ordinary cements.
It is available in specially designed 50-kg bags.
Portland Slag Cement
This is a slag-based blended cement that imparts strength and durability to all
structures. It is manufactured by blending and inter-grinding OPC clinker and
granulated slag in suitable proportions as per their norms of consistent quality. PSC
has many superior performance characteristics which give it certain extra advantages
when compared to Ordinary Portland Cement
It is available in specially designed 50-kg bags.
3. Bulk Cement
Yet another first in their seven-decade history of cement in India has been the
introduction of Bulk Cement, an alternative to bagged cement, which is of particular
advantage to large consumers of cement. Internationally, the trend is to move cement
more and more in loose form rather than bagged. In fact, over 90 percent cement in
the USA, and other European countries is transported and sold in bulk, unlike in
India, where only one percent is transported in bulk.

4. ACC READY MIX CONCRETE

ACC set up India's first commercial Ready Mix Concrete (RMC or RMX) plant in
Mumbai in 1994. ACC Concrete is one of the largest manufacturers of RMX in India

with over 50 modern plants in major cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata,
Chennai, Delhi. Hyderabad, Goa, Pune and Ahmedabad.
CUSTOMERS:
ACC is essentially a peoples brand of cement and its customer base represent the masses of
India- individual homebuilders in small towns, rural and semi-urban India. The customers of
ACC can be broadly classified into the following sectors
1. Government sector
2. Industrial sector
3. Infrastructures sector
4. Engineers and other related professionals
5. Individual home builders

COMPETITORS
ACCs brand equity was found to be one of the strongest brands in cement industry. ACC has
a number of competitors in the cement industry. The major competitors of ACC are as
follows
Major Domestic Competitors:
o Ambuja Cements Ltd.
o Ultratech Cements Ltd.
o Grasim Cements Ltd.
Other Competitors:
o JK Group
o Shree Cements Ltd.
o India Cements Ltd.
o Jaypee Group
o Madras Cements Ltd.
o Birla Corporation
o Century cements Ltd.
o Binani cements Ltd.
International Competitors:
o Holcim Group (Switzerland)
o Italcementi Group ( Italy)

o Heidelberg Cements (Germany)

Ten golden rules of competence to make its sales force well equipped. It is as follows
1. Apply due diligence
2. Seek assistance
3. Report to their legal department
4. Maintain a firm standard towards competition
5. Draft with care
6. Avoid business contacts with their competitor
7. Do not unduly restrict their dealer
8. Do not force their dealers into dealings
9. Do not unduly obstruct their competitors
10. Don not exploit a dominant position

Best Practices of ACC Limited in Business Market

1. Manufacturing Excellence:
The objective in their manufacturing excellence programme has been to achieve
reduction in the cost of production both on an overall basis and at each plant.
Dedicated project teams were formed to drive improvement projects on important cost
performance indicators across all plants. In addition, companywide communities of
practice were set up for key performance indicators to achieve improvements in the
clinker factor, thermal and electrical efficiency. These initiatives created a basis for
providing opportunities for regular sharing of best practices and ideas across the
organisation as well as for internal and external benchmarking. A notable feature of
the programme is the creation of model plants characterized by their best
performance, best practices, and infrastructure and setting up a good training culture.
They have also targeted improvements in the Coal Value Chain to address their fuel
bill. Coal is among the most critical inputs for cement. Accordingly, they examine
sourcing strategies for different types of coal, identifying the optimal coal mix for all
plants and creating a roadmap for plants to use their optimal coal mix. New
benchmarks in performance have been created by several plants with notable
achievements in reducing specific thermal energy consumption, specific electrical
energy and outstanding results in reducing the percentage of clinker factor. A new
milestone was also achieved by one plant when it successfully switched to 100 per
cent use of petcoke.
2. Enhancing customer value:

New methods and tools have been designed to assess and benchmark marketing
performances. There are new systems in place to garner customer feedback and
insights as well as to gauge customer expectations. Simultaneously action has been
initiated to improve customer service levels.
The companys core customers continue to comprise the individual house builder in
the cities and towns. At the same time, urbanization and infrastructure development
unfold new growth segments for their cement and concrete.
3. Logistics Excellence:
Cement is a vital building material that demands well-organized distribution and
timely delivery. Inward and outward transportation form a significant share of their
overall costs. Through a structured programme launched last year, the company
aspired to achieve best-in class logistics performance in terms of cost-to-serve and
time-to-serve. This called for active collaboration between all internal and external
stakeholders from the plant and sales offices to transporters, railways, clearing agents
and channel partners. The guiding principles are simple - move less, handle less,
move efficiently, contract efficiently and manage growth. Each of these generated
several operational and strategic improvement initiatives across the company. Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technology
are being deployed in their logistics operations in phases to identify and locate
vehicles both within and outside the plants. These help in minimising in-plant loading
time and in tracking vehicles in transit to end-consumer destinations, thus cutting
down delays, enhancing vehicle turnarounds. RFID and GPS solutions hold the
promise to revolutionize cement logistics operations. Safety in logistics received
special focus through concerted interventions in people development. Health and
safety checks in their plants are being carried out in phases with the help of external
consultants who examine aspects such as truck parking yards, traffic flow for inbound
and outbound material, storage points, packing house, road and rail infrastructure and
guidelines for safe and efficient evacuation management. Additionally, driver training
and health camps are also carried out at all plants.
4. Among the first companies in India to include commitment to environmental
protection as one of its corporate objectives, the company installed sophisticated
pollution control equipment as far back as 1966, long before pollution control laws
came into existence. Today each of its cement plants has state-of-the art pollution
control equipment and devices.
5. ACC plants, mines and townships visibly demonstrate successful endeavours in
quarry rehabilitation, water management techniques and greening activities. The
company actively promotes the use of alternative fuels and raw materials and offers
total solutions for waste management including testing, suggestions for reuse,
recycling and co-processing.
6. The marketing team of ACC mainly concentrates on region wise marketing strategy.
Under this the whole market of the company has been divided into five major
regions--North, South, West, East and Central regions.

7. Advertising Activities:
ACC has two levels of advertisement team to manage and perform the advertisement
activities. -National team -State level sales unit team. The national team in cooperate
office - Mumbai looks over the large scale advertisement activities, all India level.
i.e., in television, radio, newspaper and other mass media. The sales unit in states
looks over the advertisement activities such as local outdoor advertisement, building
bus shelters, wall printing, and local television channels and radio.
8. Payment and Collection Methods:
ACC adopts 100% e-payment methods in paying and receiving money in its business
activities. RTG and Fund transfer are the two main methods adopted for financial
transactions. ACC does not use demand draft or cheque for financial transactions.
ACC has direct contact in financial transaction only with its Premium dealers and
Authorized dealers.
9. Sales Promotion:
ACC has adopted several sales promotion programs for its dealers. ACC Lakshya
is one among them. Its a loyalty program for the premium dealers and authorized
dealers. The dealers get points into their accounts as they purchase cement from ACC
Limited. At the end the dealers can redeem points for bikes, laptops, handy cams etc.
After a fixed period of time every dealer obtains some belts and thus they can add
more points to their account. ACC is also providing several incentive schemes for
dealers as they perform financial transactions towards ACC at the earliest.
10. Customer Relations:
The Company is known to promote ethical and fair practices in its supply chain. The
companys commercial terms, procedures are professional and transparent. ACC is
popular with its customers and suppliers. Their marketing and sales practices envisage
the promotion and encouragement of all dealers including small traders and retailers,
particularly those in interior places. In addition, the company fosters a tremendous
sense of belonging not only among employees, but also among its customers, dealers
and associates. The important differentiator which helps ACC to compete and win
over other brands is the phenomena of customer service. The level of customer
services has been appreciably increased through the expansion of their sales network
and sales force. The Regional Offices of ACC have Customer Services Cells manned
by qualified Civil Engineers who interact either customers to assess their needs and
problems, offer advice before and after sales including educating users and customers
on correct usage of cement and concrete and good construction practices.
a) Regular Interactions: The Company has a regular practice of interacting with
customers and end-users as well as members of their distribution channels such as
dealers, sub-dealers and retailers. Through these interactions they use to build

relationships and seek to educate customers about cement, common complaints and
pit-falls in usage and other aspects of construction.
b) Surveys: Market surveys are organized at regular intervals to ascertain perceptions
about ACCs brand image, marketing and distribution procedures, thier sales force,
channel management and relationships with customers, dealers and influencers. A
brand equity study carried out by a well-known market research firm of global repute
indicated that ACC is the most preferred and recommended brand of cement in India.
The brand stood way ahead of all other competitors in this comparative analysis.
c) Interactive Websites: In the last few years, a host of new customer services were
introduced to assist customers in selected cities and towns. These include an
interactive website for solving out all construction related quarries of customers. Most
were devised for individual home builders who constitute a large group of their endusers. An interactive website was launched primarily for the benefit of small retail
consumers and home builders. The site provides online inputs on a host of useful
topics related to home building and is proving to be quite popular. The websitewww.askacc.com is visited by about 10,000 persons from different parts of the
country.
11. Quality Control:
The Marketing Department in coordination with Quality Control Department provides
a high quality services to their customers. The weekly test certificate indicating
characteristics and quality of cement dispatches is sent to Regional Marketing Office
(RMO) and these test certificates are issued to the needy customers by marketing
office (ACC also issue directly to customers on specified request. Quality control
personnel go to the site for assisting the marketing personnel in investigation. They
collect sample if available and prepare a report and submit to RMO and Production
Manager. These samples are tested at laboratory to evaluate any non-conformance of
product and the genuinty of complaints. Customer is compensated or material is
replaced if test prove any non-conformance and then non-conformance is recorded for
further references and corrective/preventive actions to avoid reoccurrences of same.

12. New Product Development:

Product development has always being an important activity at ACC arising out of a
focus on quality and process improvement. It has been a constant partner, driving
research, innovation and evaluation. In 1964, a centralized research complex now
renamed as ACC Thane Complex, spread over an area of 8000 sq m has modern labs
with the latest equipment and manned by highly qualified scientists and technologists
who carry out product development work in cement and allied fields.

13. Business Risk Management:

The Company has implemented a Business Risk Management process under this
internal control systems that systematically identifies risks and opportunities. The
BRM process supports the Managing Committee in strategic decision making. The
process is robust and is a rolling exercise with a consistence annual review at the
Regional level and the corporate level, to examine and evaluate risks and
opportunities. A detailed mind mapping of the risks is carried out, so as to identify the
root cause of the particular risk, to enable the management to take effective steps to
address/mitigate such risks. The risks are plotted on a likelihood matrix and then
integrated into the annual business plans as well as the audit plan of the company as
relevant.

Flawed Practices:
1) There is a lot of resistance to change: Old Company therefore difficult to challenge
convention. Hierarchy plays a major role, independent thought not paid importance.
Capacity expansion not as per the demand, thus the company lost a lot of market share
and profit. ACC has not been able to perk up capacity so that the market can be
captured to the fullest. Especially, in the north-east region, the company has lost a
historic opportunity by not acquiring or developing a plant. The benefit has been
reaped by small regional companies. ACC cement industry being a synonym to
cement industry needs to gear up for expansion and gain control on losing out to
competitors.
2) Low Cement Supply at Peak season: Due to aforesaid reason, it leads to mismatch
between demand and supply. This happens especially during peak season of demand,
when they have lot of order to cater to and because of the constraint of resources and
restricted capacity, ACC Cement ends up disappointing its customers.
3) Paper work is very much: Managing this ever-growing abundance of documents
requires a system to ensure that information is filed, found and retrieved quickly and
efficiently. ACC relies on a paper-based document management system to deal with
these processes. There are lot of disadvantages to it: lack of storage space, prone to
damage, supply costs, poor environmental credentials, editing problems. However,
ACC is working towards of Online System of Invoicing for smooth flow of process
and also all the information related to processing and billing of orders is readily
accessible to customers. They only accept RTGS and NEFT mode of payment and not
demand draft or likewise
4) Managers only interested in fulfilling own self-interests at the expense of all.
Lack of coordination between departments results in losing hold on market: A
gain at one side, which is either buyer or seller is made at the expense of other.
Negotiation done is in Distributive fashion and not Integrative where in both the
parties co-operate to achieve maximum integration of interests into an agreement
there by both creating and claiming value. Managers are those invisible hand that
hand holds the overall functioning and hence performance of the organisation. So
ACC should work towards improving this practice by encouraging employees /
managers to align their goal with the goal of the organisation. They should progress
towards being self-responsible and not self-centred.

5) Cost Structure and Price Sensitivity: The performance of ACC is more sensitive to
price than sales volumes because of its cost structure. The cost structure of ACC is
showing an increasing trend which results in the high cost of production. ACC has
the highest sensitivity to cement prices and its fragmented capacity results in not
being able to influence the price in any significant manner. Even in Karnataka, despite
having the highest market share ACC cement is priced lower than ultra tech cement.
In addition to it, ACC was not wise in choosing its customers and that resulted in bad
sales which led to great losses for the company. Hence an informed decision needs to
be made when choosing your customers and forming your pricing strategies.

Missing Practices of ACC:

1) ACC Cement has failed to expand its capacity geographically, despite enjoying good
brand name in the Cement industry. It should thus expand its production capacity in
order to capture the market being eaten away by its competitors. This will also build
trust and enhance the confidence of the existing business clients as the company
would be in growing phase and help to capture new clients as well.
2) ACC cement uses effective modes of advertising and offers promotional tools like
electronics, gift, diaries, etc. to the distributors and other channel members/influencers
in order to push sales. However, they are not very focused towards the business
market clients and hence are unable to retain them. Also, the business customers are
extremely price sensitive and their willingness to switch to competitors product is
high. So, in such a situation ACC lags giving proper incentives and schemes in order
to retain the business customers.
3) Company is fully focused towards consumer market and less towards business
market. It invests 80% in consumer market and only 20% in business market.

REFERENCES:

Company Contacts
Mr. Amar Porwal
Marketing Head ACC Cements Limited
Email amar.porwal@acclimited.com

Mr. Satish Venu

Marketing ACC Cements Limited
Phone - 9880596637

Web Portal:

ACC Cement Annual Report(s)

CemWeek