Product-Mix & Product Line Analysis(United Phosphorus Limited)

COURSE:Agri-Input Marketing(PGDM2011-13),

Indian Institute of Plantation Management,Bangalore

Presented by-

Bidhu Bhushan Binit(11PGDM08)

UPL- a brief introduction UPL is the largest manufacturer of agrochemicals

in India. It offers a wide range of products that includes Insecticides, Fungicides, Herbicides, Fumigants, PGR ,Rodenticides and Industrial & Specialty Chemicals.

UPL, Advanta and UEL, the three companies in the group, are listed on the Indian stock exchange, with a combined market capitalization of approx $2.5 billion. 

It operate in every continent and have a customer base in 123 countries with own subsidiary offices.

It ranks amongst the top 5 post patent agrochemical industries in the world.

Product-Mix

AcetaCyrux

Insecticide

DoomFegoGuruJosh

Kardon4GLancer

&10 more

items

Rodenticide

Ratol

PGRAishwary

a Granules

Industrial chemicals

WP/YPRP

PCL3PCL5TMP

&24 More items

Produt-mix width

Four dimensions of UPL’s product-mix1. Length: 61

Average length = total length / no of lines

= 61/6

=10.1

2. Width

Its product mix width is of six product lines.

3. Depth

Since products under Industrial and specialty chemical line are offered according to the need of customer, means customization is there. So, we can’t exactly calculate the depth of products of this line particularly.

Total no of products (except Indus.& Speciality Chemicals) = 33

Total number of Variants = 97

So, Average depth of Product-mix(excluding Industrial&specialty Chemicals) = 2.9

4. Consistency

UPL’s product lines except Indus. & Specialty Chemicals, are consistent in two ways- End consumer of these product lines is same i.e. farmer. Distribution channel is same for these product lines.

 

Target Customer of each Product lineSerial no

Product line

Target customer

Profile

Crop Country/importer

1 Fungicides Farmer Maize,bajra,paddy,tobacco,mango,grape

,vegetables

2 Herbicides Farmer Paddy,Wheat,Tea,Coffee,Rubber,Sugarc

ane

3 Insecticides Farmer Cotton,paddy,soyabean,sugarcane,sunflo

wer,pulses,

Vegetables

4 Rodenticides Farmer Paddy,Wheat,maize

5 PGR Farmer Paddy,veg.,Tea,cardem

6 Industrial &

Specialty Chemicals

Agro-Chemical

product manufac.

Mostly importers of more than

100

Countries.

Core, Tangible and Augmented product of UPL’s offerings(Herbicide product line)

expected

CoreDestruction of

unwanted weeds

Scope for improvement in Augmentation Number of players is increasing and farmers

have more choices. Definitely UPL has to think over it. It must bring augmentation in its products. If we talk about herbicides, company can offer free farm visits by experts to give technical assistance.

Brand Building UPL (in India) is far below than other big players of

industry in sales and revenue. Its market share is very low, somewhere between 1 to 2 per cent. It needs to make efforts on brand building, both product brand building and corporate brand building:

• UPL also deals in Industrial chemicals( B2B) from which it gains a large revenue. In this segment, corporate branding matters and it has built it successfully. Company needs to use this expertise in B2C( in first five product lines).

•  Since, pesticide products still having longer life cycle than other input products, UPL needs to focus on product branding. Its product brands are not much familiar amongst farmers. Many products are named according to their formulation which sounds technical like UNIQUAT,SF-10, METSY, UTHANE and many more. It should be changed to catchy ones.

Product line analysis(herbicides) Product map for herbicide product line(used

for Rice)

Non-selective

selective

Pre-emergence

Post-emergence

U BS

SS

B

B=Bayercrop, S=Syngenta,U=UPL.

Suggestions1. Lengthening the existing herbicide product line by line filling: For rice, company is not offering any product in selective post emergence and

non selective post emergence categories where major players are offering. Attack on these two particular categories will increase UPL’s market share.

For plantation crops, UPL should fill the line by introducing herbicides in selective post emergence and in selective pre emergence.

2. Line Stretching of herbicide product line Introduce herbicide products for vegetables and Soyabean. 3. Customer Awareness Programs Filling more products leads to confusion amongst customers. When it comes

to farmers, it becomes more challenging. The only method is intensive awareness programs to make them educate about noticeable differences between products.

4. Line modernization for herbicide product line Common design of packaging/ labels etc so that farmers could recognize

easily. Many products of the existing product line is named technically. It must be

renamed which could sound attractive.  

 

THANK YOU