Shree Cement to focus on rural markets

Kolkata: With the recent slowdown in the real estates market and upcoming additional capacity of 3 million ton (mnt), Shree Cements has turned its focus on the relatively untapped rural market to be the next growth driver for the company in coming years.

Rural market's share in the company's overall sales has witnessed a steady increase of 7 per cent annually in last two years and is expected to touch 10 per cent annual average growth during the next five years.

It will manufacture an additional 3mnt in two new factories in Chattishgarh and Madhyapradesh with an investment of Rs 2000 crore. The company has chalked out an expansive rural marketing plan for marketing this additional capacity in the villages of Rajasthan, Haryana, West Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. It had plans of taking up its cumulative capacity to 20mnt per annum by 2012.

Shree Cements has roped in a specialised agency that will help it in Hindi heartland markets. At a micro level, rural marketing entaildrives will entail increasing retail presence inside smaller villages, kasbas and mini-towns apart from visual merchandising at retail points together with rural and highway wall painting exercises that could make the brand visible in markets where mass media still has a poor reach, said the company.

Coupled with this, the company is also launching mass contact programmes it called identification of 'purchase stimulators' in the rural market. This will include conducting product training programmes for masons, local construction contractors among others. 'We have adopted a lot of Below the Line Marketing tools to drive rural growth', said H M Bangur, managing director of Shree Cement.

'We have earmarked Rs 5 crore this year towards rural marketing,' he added.