MARKET ANALYSIS OF LUBRICANTS & UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS BUYING PSYCHOLOGY

Presented By: Premdip Dhar, MBA 2010-12 (Marketing), Bengal Institute of Business Studies,Kolkata.

OBJECTIVES OF THE TRAINING

Understand customers psyche, their preferences Gather feedback of the products of Total Lubricants from the market that may aid in taking strategic marketing decisions in the future Boost sales for greater revenue generation Promote MCO and PCMO products of the organization

PREPARATION TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES

Induction on the company Total Oil (India) Pvt Ltd provided Learnt about lubricants - the what and why factors Learnt about the three product categories Aftermarket, Workshop and Industrial Learnt about the three after-market segments MCO, PCMO and DEO Campaigning mainly for MCO and PCMO

PREPARATION TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES (Contd)

Product Portfolio: 1. After-market (a) Motorcycle Oils (MCO) Moto4Gold 20W40/20W50 , Moto 4 Fuel Eco 10W30, Moto 4 XT Tech, Moto 4 Pro 20W40, Moto 2 Champ (b) Passenger Car Motor Oils (PCMO) Quartz 3000 20W50, Quartz 5000 15W40, Quartz 7000 10W40, Quartz 9000 Energy

PREPARATION TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES (Contd)

Product Portfolio: 1. After-market (c) Diesel Engine Oils (DEO) Performance 3D 15W40, Super HDB Turbo 15W40, Super HDB Ultra 20W40 (d) Gear Oils, Greases and Coolants such as Lex3, Cooltech , Gearelf 90EP/140EP,etc. 2. Workshop Quartz SMC, Quartz 7000 GMO, Rubia 4200 15W40, Rubia 2500 20W40, etc. 3. Industrial Acantis HM, Preslia, Drosera In, etc.

PREPARATION TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES (Contd)

Learnt technical terminologies involved (such as Grade, Viscosity, Specification, Sum, etc.) Types of Grade Monograde and Multigrade Acquainted with various Specifications offered by API, JASO, ACEA, NLGI; Spark for Petrol, Combustion for Diesel Got hold of DLP and MRP lists to understand the profit-margin of dealers Acquainted with organisation structure of Total Oil India Pvt Ltd

PREPARATION TO ACHIEVE OBJECTIVES (Contd)

Learnt about the distribution channel structure of the company, which is as below: CompanyCFADistributorDealerConsumer CFA Das Enterprise, Balitikuri, etc. Distributors Esdy Lubes, Gupta Automobiles, etc. Dealers Bijoy Enterprise (Rashbehari), Chandra Auto Service (Behala), Emkem Enterprise (Wellington), etc. Took Total T-shirts, gifts (keyrings & pens), banners, leaf ads for campaigning purpose Learnt that a bag is available with Moto 4 XT Tech and Quartz 9000 Energy

ACTIONS TAKEN TO IMPLEMENT THE SAME

Analyzed basic professional selling and campaigned at Bijoy Enterprise, Chandra Auto Service and Emkem Enterprise in three separate days respectively Studied the lubricant-market one day in the South Kolkata areas of (Garia-Tollygunge-Prince Anwar Shah-Lords-Jadavpur-BaghajatinGaria) and (Taratala-Thakurpukur) totaling 36 nos. of dealers Tried to push and sell Total products Tried to convert competitors engine-oil users towards our brand Total (Brand-shifting) Tried to analyse customers lookout (brand,price,quality,etc.) in an engine oil totaling 107 nos. of customers Kept a note of dealers reactions (if any) on disclosing our identity during market-survey

ACTIONS TAKEN TO IMPLEMENT THE SAME (Contd)

ACTIONS TAKEN TO IMPLEMENT THE SAME (Contd)

Stock-information gathered from the three dealers where campaigning being done Research Methodology: - Primary Research (raw data) - Sample size : 107 (consumers) 36 (dealers) Talked about specification, colour of oil, service (in kms.), grade (viscosity) in order to convince customers

ACTIONS TAKEN TO IMPLEMENT THE SAME (Contd)

Approach to dealers during market-survey: Me: Provide me with a 1 lt. of bike oil Dealer: Mostly Castrol Activ 4T Mostly Castrol Power1 Sometimes Elf Few times (Veedol/Gulf/Bajaj) Me: Whats the price? (applicable for whichever oil being provided) Dealer: Rs. xxx/Me (to Elf-providers): Good, keep up the work. We have come from the company Total, Mumbai and just doing outlet-visits Dealer: Smiled and contented Me (to Other-providers): Actually, we have come from the company Total, Mumbai and just doing outlet-visits. And if you would had provided us with Elf, you could have received some gifts. Dealer: Started giving excuses for not providing Elf at the first instance

RESULTS
73 units of the firm Total got sold in a three-days time ( M4G = 51; Quartz = 7; Others = 14 ) Market-survey of one day revealed dealers feedback Customers feedback also collected from the three dealer-points Totals market-share (based on the 112 units of engine-oils sold from the three dealer-points) = 58/112 = 51.79% Brand-shifting done = 33/107 customers = 30.85% ( towards Total )

RESULTS (Contd)
Customers seekingbrand = 30/107 = 28.04% Customers seekingprice = 19/107 = 17.76% Customers seekingquality = 60/107 = 56.08% Presence of Elf bike engine oil (based on 31 nos. of dealers contacted during market-visit) = 21/31 = 67.75% Analysis of dealers first choice of MCO (based on the 31 nos. of dealers visited) : Elf = 8/31 = 25.81% Castrol = 19/31 = 61.30% Others = 5/31 = 16.13%

CUSTOMERS LOOK OUT FOR

30 Brand Price 60 19 Quality

COMPARATIVE SALES AT THREE DEALER-POINTS

70 60 50 40 30 Total 60

Castrol
17 8 6 17 12 Others

20 10
0

2 0

Bijoy Chandra Emkem Enterprise Auto Enterprise Service

PROPORTION OF SALES OF PRODUCTS OF TOTAL

14 7 51 M4G

Quartz
Others

BRAND-CONVERSION STATUS

33

Brand-shifters (towards Elf) Brand-shifters (towards others)

62 12

Brand Loyals

MARKET-SHARE

25.90%

51.79%
22.33%

M4G + Quartz

Castrol
Others

DEALERS FIRST-CHOICE MCO

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Elf Castrol Others 8 5 19

AVAILABILITY OF ELF

10 Present Absent

21

MAJOR FINDINGS
If motor-mechanics are controlled, market-share will improve Durga Puja had a positive impact on sales (eg., at Emkem Enterprise) 4Ps of Marketing applied Price-variation exists in different areas of Kolkata Many dealers are doing business back-to-back and are not into proper business by opening of accounts with the distributors

MAJOR FINDINGS (Contd)

Opportunity for sales exists since many new cars are coming up A few dealers require Glow-Sign-Boards (GSBs) such as A.S. Motors, Gachtala Importance of relationship-building

RECOMMENDATIONS & SUGGESTIONS

If feasible, alternate channels of sales should be seeked for in order to boost sales If feasible, dealers should spend some quality time explaining the product details to customers visiting their stores If feasible, connect with those dealers not keeping Elf as their MCO, thereby expanding business

LEARNINGS
Could get a feel of the corporate environment Should be high on observation Importance of team-work Importance of social networking It is important to have a smile on face Proper etiquette to converse with dealers & consumers Total Lubricants is in the growth stage of PLC

THANK YOU!!!