Amul company: Vision :liberate our farmers from economic oppression and lead them to prosperity Mission 2020:

20: dairy cooperatives of Gujarat turnover of Rs. 27000 crores by the year 2020 Objective: is to ensure that the maximum share of the consumers rupee goes back to the milk producers

With the liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, and the subsequent entry of new players, there was a change in lifestyles and the food tastes of people. The new team that took over the management of the GCMMF in the mid-1990s hoped to take advantage of the change The management adopted Total Quality Management (TQM) and set for itself higher benchmarks (in terms of growth). They also diversified the Amul portfolio, offering a range of food stuffs such as ketchup, jam, icecream, confectionaries, cheese, and shrikhand[1]. According to some analysts, this diversification was probably not entirely demand-driven. Being a cooperative, GCMMF was compelled to buy all the milk that was produced in Gujarat. And with milk production having increased since the mid 1990s, GCMMF had to make use of additional milk, and hence the pressure to make and market more and more processed-milk products. Amul had to expand the consumption base of milk-based products in India. It planned to make its products (butter and cheese) a part of the regular diet in most households. Amul launched its new products with the intention of increasing the offtake of its basic milk products, including cheese. This in turn was expected to increase the earnings of the farmers. The pizzas were expected to increase the sale of its cheese. The entry into the confectioneries market was another avenue for increasing milk consumption. Amul's Business Model Amul followed a unique business model, which aimed at providing 'value for money' products to its consumers, while protecting the interests of the milk-producing farmers who were its suppliers as well as its owners. As milk was a perishable item, the farmer suffered a loss if it was not sold before the end of the day. Amul bought all the milk offered by the milk producer, made timely payment, and shared with the producers the profit generated from marketing the milk and milk products under the Amul brand name... Amul created two new distribution set-ups: a cold chain for ice-cream, and another for limited life fresh foods like curd. Expecting the demand for ready-to- eat foods to grow, Amul prepared to leverage the ice-cream cold chain for a new range of frozen foods, beginning with pizza. However, some analysts felt that as the pizza's would be made by the retailers, Amul would have little control over the quality of the pizzas. That was why Amul was marketing the pizzas under the brand name SnowCap. Said S K Bhalla, Chief of Quality Control, "The product has received premature hype. Meeting consumer expectations will be a challenge, until we make the frozen pizza in our own facilities." Diversification strategy : Seeking unfamiliar products or markets or both in the pursuits of growth. Secrets of Amuls Diversification Philosophy: Progressive addition of higher value products while maintaining the desired growth in existing products. Amul introduced products with consistent value addition but never left the core philosophy of providing milk at a basic, affordable price

Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new product categories. Research has proved that the success of brand extension depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that covers diverse kinds of products which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is identified only by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique identity and brand name. Nowadays consumers have become quite unpredictable in their newspaper-reading or TV-viewing habits, it is very difficult to assure the reach of messages to the target audiences. The advertiser has to use many broadcast and print media with high frequency to create the desired effect for every brand, which ultimately puts huge burden on the budget. Hence, companies consider it wise to maintain a minimum number of brands in their portfolio so that they can do justice to each by effectively distributing their investment for promotion purpose. Yes, umbrella branding is widely practiced. The Confederation of Indian Industry's second FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) conclave in 2003 almost declared that umbrella branding was the way to go in a competitive market environment. In an interesting anecdote, R S Sodhi, GM Marketing (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation l), compared the umbrella brand and individual brands to an Indian family, where in umbrella brands - like the Indian family, the father is the head, looking over the children. When they grow up and become independent, they hold the umbrella for the family. Individual brands on the other hand are like a western family, who grow up fast and leave the father behind. Amuls strategy of using umbrella branding has really paid off. Amuls advertising and marketing spend has never exceeded 1% of its revenues. Most other food companies spend 6-7% of revenues on advertising and marketing. They (GCMMF) are not big spenders compared to Britannia or Nestle. Despite a limited budget, Amuls creativesin the form of billboards or the Taste of India campaignhave always managed to evoke a larger-than-life brand feel, consistency and spirit of Indian culture in a contemporary way.