INDIAN MONK WHO WANTS A BILLION-DOLLAR …ijmrr.com/admin/upload_data/journal_Dr Priyankka Rawal 6oct16mrr.pdfmultinationals like Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble in

ISSN: 2249-7196

IJMRR/Sept. 2016/ Volume 6/Issue 9/Article No-6/1169-1181

Dr. Priyanka Rawal / International Journal of Management Research & Review

*Corresponding Author www.ijmrr.com 1169

INDIAN MONK WHO WANTS A BILLION-DOLLAR COMPANY: A YOGIC

BUSINESS REVOLUTION

Dr. Priyanka Rawal*1

1Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal (M.P), India.

ABSTRACT

India has always been known for its spiritual leaders who have not only guided the nation to

be unified, but have also preached peace and service to mankind. In the recent few decades

India has seen emergence of religious Gurus who are super influential and have become a

celebrity and a brand on their own. Be it consumer products, lifestyle or entertainment,

religious gurus are stepping into big business and are leaving no stone unturned in making

their way to experience success. Consumers of today are more health conscious and are

maintaining good quality of life. They have a preference to consume the products which give

them good state of their health as well as provide maximum satisfaction. The preference and

usage of a particular brand by the consumer over the time is affected by the quality benefits

offered by the brand particularly when the brand is from the category of eatables and

cosmetics. Failing to understand the changing consumer preferences towards safe and

healthy products by FMCG companies has given PAL an opportunity to make its presence by

giving its customers the widest product portfolio. Old ideology of market segmentation is no

longer found suitable for today's turbulent markets and thus is been replaced by marketing

strategy of Mass customization, in an era dominated by high individual customization. To

frame their value propositions companies choose from product leadership, operational

excellence, and customer intimacy which form the three value disciplines. An affirmation that

the company's products have the greatest performance impact or experiential impact for its

customers forms the product leadership discipline leading to the `best product' value

proposition. A declaration to be the `best total cost' bid, determines the operational excellence

where the combination of company‟s prices, product reliability, and hassle-free service is

matchless. The customer familiarity discipline leads in providing `best total solution' – an

affirmation that the company helps its customers recognize their accurate problem and the

best solution, ultimately taking charge of implementing it. Baba Ramdev through his product

offerings addresses all the three value disciplines offering a unique blend of Ayurveda and

Vedic philosophy to provide value for his customers. This paper attempts to study the success

story of Baba Ramdev's Make in India brand and how an Indian yoga guru‟s promising

consumer goods empire is making multinationals in Asia‟s third-largest economy sweat.

Keywords: Marketing, Health, Patanjali, FMCG, Ayurveda, Mass Customization,

Consumers, value and satisfaction.


Copyright © 2016 Published by IJMRR. All rights reserved 1170

INTRODUCTION

“Nestle ka panchi udne wala hai, Colgate ka gate bandh hone wala hai, aur Pantene ka pant

kharab hone wala hai “ are the words said by an Ordinary Indian Monk who has already met

customer needs by manufacturing products ranging from noodles and biscuits to shampoos

and toothpastes . Most of us know him as a yoga guru but in recent years, he has

metamorphosed into a 'baba' with a cause who co-founded Patanjali Ayurved with Acharya

Balkrishna in 1997 and is promoting all things swadeshi (domestic). Baba Ramdev is a

strong believer that all Indians should consumer Indian made products is aggressively

working towards creating a situation in which multinationals would be unable to sell

anything in India despite their best efforts to do so. The motto of Mass Customization is

"Aham Brahamasmi" which means that I am omnipresent and omnipotent; thereby catering to

the needs of all, irrespective of gender, age, caste, creed, culture and religion.

PATANJALI’S UNSTOPPABLE JOURNEY

Back in 2003, a comparatively obscure channel “Aastha TV” opened its early morning slot

for a yoga guru who could be seen bare-chested, dressed in a saffron dhoti, performing

various asanas twisting and twirling his body to eye-popping angles. With a humble setup

linked to India‟s best export to the world: Yoga led to the beginning of The Patanjali saga.

Popularly known as Swami Ramdev, he is the most accepted, energetic and the one who has

the power within him to virtually captivate the modern genre to connect them with Indian

ancient body of knowledge which is commonly known as Yoga and Ayurveda. Baba‟s close

associate Acharya Balkrishna harbored a dream of amalgamating the yoga guru‟s popularity

and his knowledge of ancient Ayurveda with best of breed technology giving birth to PAL,

which began manufacturing medicinal products and, gradually but progressively, ventured

into segments like dental care, cosmetics, and food products. The brand building of Patanjali

started when Ramdev decided to enlarge the healthy yoga empire to FMCG delivering

Cheaper Products with ‘Healthy’ Push. It is easier to convince a health conscious consumer

to use patanjali products, especially when suggested by the „well-being messenger‟ himself.

Aspires to be part of every SKU in kitchen this company is constantly working on a kitchen

concept, as part of which it will launch products that are used in the Indian kitchen such as

dish wash bar, ghee, rice, pulses, spices, mustard oil, flour and jaggery under the Patanjali

brand name.

Powerful endorsements by Baba Ramdev and word of mouth publicity through his yoga

camps helped build scale instead of relying on advertising for its scalability during its nascent

yearsAlso an exclusive store network operated by third party vendors proved a winning

strategy by providing nearly 10,000 consumer touch points as “Chikitsalayas” (Dispensaries)

and “Aarogya kendras” (Health centres). With hostile market conditions and rapidly

increasing competition, PAL is now relying on a bombardment of advertising campaigns

directed at end-consumers. To provide their customers place utility Patanjali partnered with

the Future Group, making use of the traditional distribution channels to offer the whole range

of products through Big Bazaar outlets across the country in October, 2015. As the Patanjali

brand continues to make headway into the consumer market distributors are more than keen

to stock PAL products. For a manufacturing company which was set up about 10 years ago,



achieving a 5,000-crore turnover is not an easy figure to achieve. Patanjali Ayurved, FMCG

major co-founded by televangelist Ramdev, aims to double its revenue to Rs 10,000-crore

revenue in 2016-17, after seeing the growth in sales coming to 150 per cent in the previous

financial year which was calculated to be worth Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion).The target

figure if achieved, will put Patanjali Ayurved ahead of some very well established

multinationals like Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble in India. With four

business divisions namely home care, cosmetics and health, food and beverages, and health

drinks Delhi-headquartered PAL to reach their growth target are planning to venture into new

categories such as animal feed and khadi garments for yoga. PAL will also be entering in the

dairy segment by 2016 with the launch of dairy products namely milk, cheese, butter milk

and paneer.

In 2015 PAL tied up with retail chains the Future Group and Reliance Retail. The company

has 4,000 distributors, 10,000 stores and 100 mega-marts with plans to increase its

distribution network in 2016-17. In order to meet the rising consumer demands the FMCG

firm will set up at least 4 new manufacturing units in 2016 with a budget costing Rs 1,000

crore along with six processing units in various parts of the country. Also the company is

planning to invest Rs 150 crore in research and development to understand the changing

consumer behavior towards FMCG products. High profits with minimum marketing expenses

are making patanjali compete with global FMCG brands like Emami Ltd., Marico Industries

Ltd., and Pepsi Co. Today‟s consumer market can be summarized in two words i.e.

“unlimited choice”.Baba Ramdev has got the pulse of the basic needs of people which is

more towards living a healthy lifestyle and has brilliantly managed to fine tune his

offerings to suit the needs of all. With mass customization strategy where each individual

feels that he is talking to him individually baba ramdev is ruling hearts of Indian consumers.

From being health conscious to maintaining quality life today‟s consumer prefer to consume

products which facilitate them to protect the good state of their wellbeing as well as provide

maximum satisfaction. This particular tendency has been accountable for astonishing

popularization of Patanjali products and thus has generated curiosity to find out the attributes

responsible for such revolutionary trends of Patanjali ayurvedic products. In a very short

period of time Patanjali products have gained noteworthy place in market and captured quite



a huge lot of consumers. With its annualized turnover expected to cross the Rs 7,000-crore

mark before the end of fiscal 2017 PAL is giving a tough fight to India‟s top most FMCG

majors heading to become the fifth largest FMCG company in the country, after Hindustan

Unilever, ITC, Nestle India and Britannia Industries.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Evolved from the Latin word spiritus meaning the breadth of life the word spirituality has

been defined as, “An individual‟s endeavors to explore and, intensely and importantly

connect one‟s inner self to the known world and beyond” (Kale, 2006).This implies that

every human being wishes to feel a connect to something greater than oneself and another is

to be able to benefit other people and the world around him. Spirituality and religion are

considered to be two different terms and treated as two different constructs in studies carried

out in past (Standifer et al., 2010). To understand spirituality it‟s necessary to consider the

dimension of yoga and pranayam into it (Corner, 2009).

Yoga has been derived from a Sanskrit word „yuj‟, which stands for achieving the goal of

salvation through physical and mental balance (Varambally and Gangadhar, 2012). One

aspect of yoga is it helps in strengthening body and mind; the other talks about business and

results in change of consumption behavior of people (Moran, 2006).In India spiritual gurus

have their own importance where generally, people follow the practices of their selected guru

for practicing yoga. Millions of people, even from foreign countries, are following the

spiritual gurus for spiritual enlightenment. These spiritual gurus are not only changing the

manner in which mass population is behaving but also are resulting in changing their

consumption behavior (Warrier, 2003). Marketing through spirituality also deals with

changes in the consumption behavior of consumers as a result of spirituality. Spirituality

attracts consumers and this spiritual behavior affects the buying behavior of the consumers.

(Kale, 2006).Spirituality has been discussed from the perspective of office spirituality or

spiritual business (Case and Gosling, 2010).

In its response to the growing need for healthy food the Indian food industry is no different

from the western counterparts. Indian consumer is now looking for the food products that

provide value like specific health benefits, the disease risk reduction ability, the cosmetic

benefit associated with the foods which extend beyond nutrition as a result of the fast

changing socio-economic indicators. Such kind of value propositions are been targeted which



is showing an increasing acceptance by the consumers across the food categories. Dramatic

shift in the demographics of the country along with the robust economic growth has been

witnessed in the last decade ultimately giving rise to a big base of middle class which could

be anything from 100 to 250 million (Sridharan, 2004). This middle class today faces diverse

set of health issues and wants to own lifestyle products to prioritize healthy living. Indians

consumers relate healthy food to traditional 2,000-year-old Ayurvedic practices which are

deep-rooted in everyday Indian cooking practice (Alagiakrishnan and Chopra, 2001). A range

of functional foods promoting healthy living has been launched by companies namely Dabur,

Himalaya, Amway and Patanjali (Yoga trust).Due to rapid westernization particularly in

urban areas an alarming increase in lifestyle related health problems such as cardiovascular

diseases, diabetes, obesity and hypertension is visible (Lajolo, 2002). Working professionals

are getting used to strenuous work culture involving very limited physical activity and odd

working hours due to technological advancements in every field (Ayyagari et al., 2011;

Kinman and Jones, 2005). A study conducted by WHO (World Health Organization)

estimates that about 80 percent of world population shows their dependency on natural

products for health care as an alternative to modern medicines mostly because of side effects

and its high cost (Sharma, Shanker, Tyagi, Singh, & Rao, 2008). By the year 2050 the

worldwide herbal market products are expected to reach $5 trillion (WHO & Kumar &

Janagam, 2011).Indians believe in doing good and are getting more and more inclined

towards spirituality. Buying behavior of the people is affected by spirituality (Standifer et al.,

2010).Digital age is triggering the Spiritual gurus to make use of up to date media in order to

stay connected to their devotees and play a significant role in creating a strong impact in their

consumption behavior (Warrier, 2003).

THE 3 PRINCIPLES VITAL FOR GROWTH

Patanjali Ayurved is an incorporated company under the Companies Act – Patanjali Ayurved

Limited having the business ideology inspired by Swami Ramdev‟s ideologies to touch every

life through Patanjali by offering consumers with a better product at a better price. Following

are the three main principles which the organization adheres to:

(1) Delivering world‐class products to consumers by assuring that the company does not add

any preservatives or makes use of natural preservatives as far as possible. Patanjali strongly

believes not producing products that are detrimental to the health and lifestyle of the people.

(2) Adopting a reasonable pricing strategy by manufacturing products in the most

cost‐effective manner.

(3) Profits earned by the company are ploughed back into business for investing the same

for launching new products, maintaining cost effectiveness or can be further utilized for

capacity expansion.

THE BUSINESS FACET (BUSINESS-RAMDEV=NIL)

Patanjali Ayurveda Kendra Pvt. Ltd. is one of the SBU established by Baba Ramdev which is

a sole distributor of the various units of Divya Yog Mandir (Trust) Haridwar, India. A broad

category of products which are marketed by the company can be segregated into three areas

namely- Medicinal Value Products (Ayurved & Herbs); Food Products (food and Juices);

Cosmetic products. In the month of April 2012, PAL announced its entry into the retail sector



by launching 100 products in the category of body care, healthcare, home care, digestive,

cosmetics and toiletries to name few. Patanjali products are available not only in Patanjali

branded stores and arogya Kendra‟s, but the company also distribute its products at kirana

stores (Pop & Mom stores) across the country. In order to ensure the products reach every

household PAL sells its products with open market distribution of its products. Also the

brand ensures distribution to one lakh swadeshi seva Kendra‟s in rural India by self-help

groups & Acharaya Balkrishna asking people to use swadeshi products. Baba Ramdev is

basically a television and video phenomenon and fired the imagination of an entire segment

of TV viewers, who tuned out of daily soap opera to tune into and do yoga practices as

guided by him. The social image of the Baba Ramdev has phenomenal effect on the people

which made them believe that the vegetables like 'lauki'(bottle gourd), 'karela' (bitter gourd)

and aloevera and walnuts can cure the diseases giving rise to a very unique and different

business model.

MARKETING STRATEGY – PAL

Positioning of Patanjali Yogpeeth: Swamiji (Baba Ramdev) is a yoga guru who has always

canvassed for good health. Brand success can be attributed to its positioning on health. Let‟s

have a closer look at the activities, through which PAL wants to project its image in the

minds of people:

1. Ascetic Lifestyle (Sadhna): Being influenced by the ideology of Maharishi Dayanand

Saraswati, Baba Ramdev lays great importance on Sadhna.Also as a spiritual organization a

lot of focus is promoting Sadhna by organizing Yog Shivirs (camps), broadcasting through

TV channels, making CDs and DVDs of yoga, etc. are adopted to promote yoga and

pranayam. This holistic approach to yoga though Gyanyog, Dhyanyog, Bhaktiyog and

Rajyog is adopted by Swamiji as he wants to see country becoming Yogic India.

2. Education (Shiksha): Patanjali Yogpeeth is trying to establish traditional system of

teaching by establishing Patanjali Ayurved Colleges, University of Patanjali, Gurukul at

Rewari and many other institutes which incorporate education with Indian culture that will

take care of nation‟s economic, social and spiritual needs. The main purpose behind all the

activities is integration of knowledge and wisdom by courses which inculcate among youth

character building, moral boosting and awakening of national pride.

3. Health (Swasthya): One of the founding objectives of Patanjali family is Health

Revolution where the brand is trying to promote Ayurveda system of Medicine and also by

practicing ancient Indian Treatment system which includes Panchkarma, Naturopathy, Yajna

therapy etc. Patanjali Arogya Kendra and Patanjali Chikitsalayas are set up in various cities

across the country to make ayurvedic medicines accessible to the people.

4. Spiritual Entrepreneurship (Swawlamban): Indigenous entrepreneurship among Indians

and to reduce the reliance on the west is what Patanjali aims to promote. Patanjali Food and

Herbal Park is established to make available pure and herbal products to people along with

bringing an agricultural revolution in the country giving farmer‟s best price for their produce.



Source: http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/analysis-how-does-brand-

patanjali-stack-up/articleshow/50576644.cms

PATANJALI’S USP

PAL strongly believes in and is constantly coming up with product solutions which aim at

creating a "Disease Free Society ". Since 2002, Baba Ramdev has been daily declaring on

Indian television channels, that patients suffering from incurable diseases like diabetes,

weight related issues, cancer and other ailments should without more ado should start

practicing rhythmic breath control techniques for complete cure. Millions of people have now

got aware and have realized the importance of yoga and pranayama where they can reach

their fitness goals without the intake of any medicines or undergoing any surgery, this is the

USP of Baba Ramdev.This yoga guru is working not only hard but smartly towards making

yoga a mass movement in the country, where nearly 35,000 persons have been trained to

conduct yoga classes in different parts of the country. this number will be one lakh instructors

so as to impart training to one crore people in next five years, which is again working

towards creating a new USP in which any requirement of the customers can be attended to

without any hindrance.

PAL believes in creating a holistic Brand Philosophy with a focus on Blue Ocean strategy

where in contrast to other FMCG companies which were focusing on market share and small

packaging, Patanjali‟s focus was to create authentic organic products at value pricing.

Company also believe in investing in complete Value Chain where they have invested in

Farms through Government schemes and successfully created their own distributor

channels.Baba Ramdev has already touched millions of hearts and has made a lot of impact in

the life of rural Indians and tier 2 audience. Hence the rise and reach of Patanjali as a brand,

has created an empire which is indeed a very well strategized and brilliantly executed brand

expansion in India. Urbanization and globalization are driving the Indian consumer markets

where the need for a healthy food variant is felt by the consumers want to come out of an

unhealthy lifestyle. The market for functional foods, is growing at a fast pace and presents a

http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/analysis-how-does-brand-patanjali-stack-up/articleshow/50576644.cms




remarkable growth opportunity for food companies. In long run, for achieving consumer

acceptance the marketers will have to focus on understanding consumer expectations, well

thought-out product development, proficient distribution system and an effective

communication strategy.

Balancing the Controllable Marketing Mix elements of the business:

Product strategy (A Package to cure various ailments)

March 2012, saw the entry of Patanjali into the FMCG sector and herbal retail markets with

their 'swadeshi' line of products. It is necessary to offer products in various pack sizes

including the small sizes with cheaper rates to target the lower income groups as they buy

less but more frequently (Dubey & Patel, 2004).Claimed to be 100% natural, made from

effective herbs available in the Himalayas, with no or negligible side effects Swami

Ramdev's Divya medicines have proven extremely useful for fighting all forms of diseases.

Along with this, Swamiji recommends his patients to practice pranayam, to fasten up the

healing process. The product mix also comprises of the FMCG products to diversify in the

market having a wide range of customers. We can understand the diversification strategy of

any organization by the application of more than fifty year old marketing tool (Richardson

and Evans, 2007). Ansoff‟s Matrix (Ansoff, 1957) as shown in Figure-1 below can be used to

analyze the product/market strategy of the Patanjali group where, from the matrix we can

easily conclude that in order to be the industry leader and capture the market segments

Patanjali Yogpeeth has diversified itself from ayurvedic medicine to FMCG products.

Fig. 1: Ansoff’s Matrix for Patanjali Yogpeeth

PROMOTIONAL STRATEGIES

When you want your brand to be fit, it's got to exercise regularly and that‟s where the role of

advertising comes which affects consumer decision making process. It is also believed that

promotion of products associated with desired health benefits should not be complicated and

full with scientific information about the ingredients (Menrad, 2003) .Instead the focus



should be more on messages which are simple to interpret conveying the differentiated health

benefit as consumers need to be aware of the benefits, not the science behind the product. In

the year 2002 when Sanskar TV channel started airing Baba Ramdev's yogic classes they

became a passion where hundreds of followers morphed into thousands. Later on channel's

rival Astha channel signed him which within a time span of two years time was a hit .His

presence now can also be seen in other news channels like Aaj Tak, India TV and Sahara

One. One of the strategies is to telecast Yog Yatra, which will be a biopic on the life of Baba

Ramdev, his efforts to popularize yoga, and the rationale behind the founding of PAL. Apart

from these promotional material sets of DVD, books on yoga, pranayam and herbal remedies

are also available easily to the customers.PAL is making use of various alternate media for

brand promotion to reach its customers:

‎Buzz‎ Creation : A company claiming to be the best gains believability merely between 20

to 49% , but word of mouth publicity where people speak good about the brand the same

believability jumps to almost 70% and can reach 90% when the words come from close

friends and relatives. This finally leads to reduction in expenses on Advertising & Sales

Promotion.

Public Relation‎: Baba Ramdev remains the face of Patanjali and is the „celebrity‟ endorser

of his brand. He is always in the news which speaks about the success of patanjali and its

growth figures which are growing in leaps and bounds giving a tough fight to all FMCGG

players. When the Press writes about him and his company the associated brands get

publicity & benefits from it.

Events: He holds innumerable Yoga camps (events) where he demonstrates the yoga poses

and subtly introduces the brands by highlighting their numerous features & the resultant

benefits they offer. And request his „followers‟ to try & experience the benefit themselves.

Till date approx 70 million people have been benefitted from his yoga camps and it is

estimated that this figure can increase to 200 million in times to come. This gives a clear

indication of the potential reach Patanjali brand has on their target customers without much

mainstream advertising. Thus through his Yoga camps (events) Baba has already proved his

worth.

Digital Platform: As consumers are 24*7 available on this medium thus promotion

through his website is extremely effective and engaging. Besides being accessible with retail

chains and under its own distribution centers the brand has made its visibility into e-

commerce. Not only the company but Baba himself has gone digital. On Twitter his followers

are around 541k and on face book people liking his page are more than 5.7 million.

Television& Print Ads: On & off while demonstrating a Yoga pose, he finely introduces

patanjali brands on „Sanskar‟ Channel. As per Broadcast Audience Research Council

(BARC), Patanjali‟s advertisements appeared 17,000 times during the time period between

23rd Jan

and Jan 29th Jan

. Patanjali‟s informative print advertisements not only aid in brand

recall but also make their presence widespread.

https://web.facebook.com/hashtag/buzz?source=feed_text&story_id=1080073102016531

https://web.facebook.com/hashtag/publicrelation?source=feed_text&story_id=1080073102016531



Source: http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/analysis-how-does-brand-

patanjali-stack-up/articleshow/50576644.cms

PRICING STRATEGY

India is a price-sensitive market where any new player who enters the market tries to make a

dent by crashing the price. Yoga guru Baba Ramdev-backed brand Patanjali Ayurved delivers

premium product but with an economical price tag. As compared to its competitors who price

their products in consideration to their expenses for hiring Brand ambassadors, heavy market

promotions expanses etc Patanjali Ayurveda‟s products are available on 20-40% cheaper

prices adhering to the “Value For Money” concept .In case of Patanjali Ayurveda,Baba

Ramdev has been highly successful in being the Brand Ambassador conveying a very strong

message that a well known film/ sport star does not guarantee brand success ,instead an

effective message which can explain invisible & secondary benefits (invisible emotional

factors ) of products leads to building of a very strong brand image. The pricing of FMCG

products is a mix of skimming and penetration strategies where some products are costly than

other competitive brands and some are cheap. Baba Ramdev uses penetration strategy where

cost of the product is very less. He convinces people not to lose hope depend on expensive

treatments, instead guides them by using appropriate products which if backed by pranayam

and yoga can treat all the ailments completely without costly medicines, operations or

surgery. As per the IIFL Institutional Equities report, Patanajali has come up with a price

revision where there has been an increase in prices of popular products such as toothpastes

and shampoos over the past few years. One of its top-selling products Dant Kanti toothpaste

now sells its 100 gm tube for Rs 40 against Rs 28 earlier. On the other hand Patanjali has

followed a different strategy for a product which has been marketed as a premium product

called Ghee. When compared with a 1000 gm jar of Amul Ghee which sells for Rs 390 the

same quantity jar of Patanjali Ghee comes for Rs 450.





Table 2: Pricing of Patanjali products versus other consumer goods companies

Source: Edelweiss research

FMCG products should be made available to serve high-volume distribution channels like

supermarkets, general retail stores or discount retailers (Menrad, 2003). Food companies in

India have developed deep rooted distribution system to make products available to their

target consumers not only through large supermarkets but also through millions of Kirana

stores (mom & pop stores). Brokerage firm known as IIFL Institutional Equities has projected

the Patanjali brand's sales to reach Rs 20,000 crore by fiscal 2020 and thus to achieve the

huge a target the company should place its products where ever their consumers are.

Company is distributing its products through three types of medical centers namely Patanjali

Chikitsalaya which are clinics having doctors to consult with, secondly are Patanjali Arogya

Kendra‟s which are health and wellness centers and then products are sold via Swadeshi

Kendra which are non-medicine outlets. PAL products are also distributed through general

retail stores and big format supermarkets like Big Bazaar, Hyper City, and Reliance Fresh.

Customer convenience is making their presence online by selling products on Amazon and tie

up with online retailers such as bigbasket.com giving them an access to growing middle class

in India and also reducing the distribution and display cost. Using franchisee model Patanjali

has made the product appear limited in quantity and helped develop an exclusive brand

image. PAL has its own branded outlets all across the country instead of selling to the retail

trade through distributors, but the growing popularity of the products Patanjali is now selling

through the Future Group's network as well. Digital platform is making convenient for

consumers to order products online through patanjaliayurved.net. To enhance its overall

distributor coverage Patanjali invites applications for distributorship of its products where

instead of a single distributor managing both food and cosmetic category company now

wants separate distributorship for each due to growth in demand for its products.

ROAD AHEAD!!

Within a very short time frame, Patanjali has made a gigantic success and has become a well

known brand in the FMCG sector not only in Indian market national but also at international

level. To target the mass population worldwide Patanjali Yogpeeth is fully utilizing this

spiritual competitive advantage by making efforts to imbibe good health in masses through

yoga and ayurveda.Patanjali is enjoying its advantageous position in the market either due to

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/IIFL%20Institutional%20Equities



reasonable pricing strategy of by the ability of its products to cure the numerous health

related problems.Sri Sri Ravi Shankar , Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Pujya Bapuji Sant Shri

Asaramji Ashram , Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha to name

some are the emerging FMCG players who are coming up with offerings to the same market.

According to a report by brokerage Edelweiss, by 2017 Sri Sri Ayurveda is planning to

expand its reach from 600 to 2,500 stores. Digital presence can be seen through Sri Sri

Ayurveda app for Android and iPhones which will definitely aid growth but what's needed is

expansion of physical distribution. Future Group has no problems in distributing products of

Sri Sri also along with patanjali, and this may be an alarming signal for Baba Ramdev who

wanted to enjoy this exclusive tie up.

By the end of 2016, Baba Ramdev‟s Patanjali home worship products will hit stores as

Patanjali Ayurveda will roll out more than 100 one hundred products to stake claim in the Rs

8,000-crore well thought-out home worship category, under the brand name Patanjali

Astha. Worship is a fast growing category having online players like Amazon doing

extremely well by reporting high double digit growth of worship products. Some of the

products which include agarbatti, dhoop, puja samagri, lamps and brass diyas to name a few

can help the company create a strong brand “Astha”. To make the availability widespread

these spiritual products will be exclusively distributed by Pittie Group and under Shubhkart -

an online marketplace that caters exclusively to products which are religious and

spiritual. Hence, there is no full stop by this growing company in terms of satisfying the

needs and wants to the consumers and if this pace continues, without a doubt Patanjali will

outperform their own set targets.

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http://www.vccircle.com/news/fmcg/2016/02/20/decoding-patanjali%E2%80%99s-popularity

http://edlivetoday.com/?p=1176

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-03-09/news/71346539_1_swadeshi-products-swadeshi-chyawanprash

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-03-09/news/71346539_1_swadeshi-products-swadeshi-chyawanprash

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