Group Project: Digitisation in Marico Ltd.

A report submitted to
Prof. Prakash Satyavageeswaran

In partial fulfilment of the requirements of the course

Business-to-Business Marketing

By
Group 39
Aditya Soni – 188015
Archita Agrawal – 188049
Vaibhav Savani - 188217

On
11-08-2019
Executive Summary
Marico Limited is one of the leading consumer products company in India and operates in the
wellness and beauty space. The company is currently present in 25 countries across the
emerging markets of Africa and Asia. The company identified five areas of transformation of
which IT and Analytics is a part. The company has taken several digitization initiatives-
1. Digitisation in trade channel (ETL tool)
2. Descriptive and predictive analytics (Pentaho, Tableau, assortment mix)
3. Automation across the value chain (Robotic Process Automation)
4. Manufacturing intelligence (SAP MII)
These initiatives taken by Marico have helped them to improve the organizational efficiency
as well as the overall consumer experience. The company has been successful in
implementing the digitisation initiatives. We would focus on the digitization initiatives on
b2b side of the business.

Introduction
Marico is a leading FMCG in India which has nurtured various brands in the categories of
skin care, health care, health foods, edible oils, fabric care and male grooming. The company
is present in 25 countries across the emerging Asian and African markets mainly in South
Asia, South East Asia, North Africa and Middle East and South and sub-Saharan Africa. The
company derives nearly 78 percent of its revenues from India and the remaining 22 percent
from other countries. Marico has revenues of INR6,333 crores and gross profit margin of
around 16 percent. The company’s strategies are based on four objectives-
 Grow the core
 Portfolio expansion in existing and new markets
 Strengthening the execution capabilities
 Driving ‘One Marico’ synergies by leveraging the centres of excellence
The company has focussed on five areas of transformation- innovation, go-to-market
strategy, talent value proposition and culture, IT and analytics, value management. Through It
and analytics, the company has brought about digitization and this has helped in innovating
business models, digitising operations and satisfying the end consumers. The company has a
Project EDGE which aims at improving efficiency and effectiveness of the business mainly
through use of technology.

Implementation and Analysis of Digital Initiatives

1. Digitisation in Trade Channel
The digitisation in trade channel has been bought by-
 Bringing the distributors on a common platform
 Heavy use of data rendered for sales performance management
 Use of analytics (for example- assortment mix)
  Geo-tags and route optimization
 Algorithmic remapping
To accomplish this, the company adopted a columnar database with Extract, Transform and
Load (ETL) tools. This helped them to gain proper insights about the data. There is a lot of
consumer insight data with the firm and also with the distributors. By using the real-time
sales data from the distributors, the company is able to augment its supplies accordingly.
With the use of analytics, it is able to gather information about its sales in different areas as it
tracks sales geography wise and at distributor level. Analytics has also helped in increasing
the sales route optimization by 15 percent. Geo-tagging has helped in optimizing the route of
the salespeople and thus helped in productivity. With the implementation of algorithmic
remapping, one salesman was able to cover a greater number of outlets over the same
distance which brought down the workforce deployed on the field.

2. Descriptive and Predictive Analytics

The company integrated visual dashboard to analyse the data for supply chain, sales and
marketing and finance. They used data warehousing with Pentaho and Tableau as the front-
end interface. This proved to be useful as data could be rendered visually and the actual data
that can give insights can be narrowed down easily. They reflect all the KPI’s from which
managers can extract the useful data. Marico uses demand sensing analytics to tweak the
allocation of resources- machinery and manufacturing capacity speedily. This helps the
supply teams to react according to the market changes and plan the production of overselling
and underselling products accordingly.
With the help of predictive analytics (sales assortment mix analytics), the company is able to
forecast the demands of various products. It enabled the company to predict which SKU
would sell in a particular channel in a particular outlet of a geography. With the
implementation of analytics, the forecasting accuracy has increased to 78 percent. This has
helped the company to attain a growth rate of 16 percent in past few years.
With the use of analytics and sensors, the process of decision-making has become faster and
thus enables faster action. This has improved the productivity and the turnaround time.

Predictive Analytics:
Roadmap (Marico)

The progress of the

company with the
implementation of
analytics is as per the
plan.

The realization of the

benefits from this is
underway.
3. Automation across the Value Chain
 Supply Chain

Copra Collection Process

The procurement process for coconuts (copra collection process) has been automated
with help of SMS-based bidding solution. It provided the buying rates directly to the
farmers. The farmers then shared their bid quotations directly with the company and
then brought the coconuts to the company’s collection centre. This created a
transparent procurement channel and helped with higher availability and increased
savings.

Freight Invoice Reconciliation process in procurement

Earlier the freight invoice reconciliation was a tedious process as it was manual as
well as repetitive. Now it is streamlined through Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
system which has reduced the amount of resources as well as time that was earlier
spent on activities related to procurement.

 HR Processes
In order to automate the recruitment process through Robotic Process Automation
(RPA), the company is piloting a bot which would receive the search criteria, then
download the resumes and profiles of the relevant candidates as per the search criteria
and then email the results to the team.
The company uses a chatbot- Marico Campus Connect to hire from business schools.
It has also implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to standardize
the HR practices. This has simplified the process of connecting and collaborating with
people.

 Finance
The company uses Robotic Process Automation (RPA) for budgetary control. The
technology has helped the company to streamline the process of budget control
thereby reducing the manual effort significantly thus improving the efficiency.

4. Manufacturing Intelligence
With the vision to make manufacturing process a competitive advantage, the company
implemented SAP Manufacturing integration and Intelligence (SAP MII) software. This
software served as the integration platform for prototyping at two plants. The machines at
these plants were integrated to get real-time actionable insights to improve efficiency and
productivity. As it reduced manual intervention, accuracy as well as data transparency
increased and it enabled faster decision-making.
Comparative Analysis
Value Based Comparison between Marico and Patanjali
Marico Patanjali
Benefit  Sales route optimization  Failed to match the demand and
 Geo-Tagging supply
 Algorithmic remapping (Workforce  Frequent stockouts (Opportunity
reduction) cost lost)
 Use of Robotic Process Automation
(Procurement Efficiency Increased)
 Analytics (Turnaround time
decreased)
 Manufacturing Intelligence (Manual
intervention decreased)
Cost  Vast variety of unnecessary
diversification (Extra cost to
distributors)
 Non-digitised method of
accounting took more time of
distributors

Price  Pricing of the Marico was margin  Low priced due to saving in the
based advertisement cost
 Left low margin to the
distributors

Patanjali has focussed more on demand creation rather than demand fulfilment. They also
launched several new products simultaneously which were not available to distributors. The
company did not have tools to forecast the demand as opposed to Marico which had
analytical tools to predict the demand. The demand creation and fulfilment gap of Patanjali
lead to stock-outs which further caused customer dissatisfaction.
Patanjali had a drop of 15 percent in revenues in 2017 due to the announcement of GST. It
was impacted due to the lack of digitisation while there was not much impact on Marico as it
could easily adapt to the new technological reforms.
The revenues of Patanjali grew exponentially till 2017 but showed a steady growth in 2018
and then started falling. The success can be attributed to the marketing strategy adopted by
the company but as it did not bring about much innovation, its sales started dropping. Lack of
digitation initiatives taken by the company may be a factor of drop in revenues.

Conclusion
Marico has been successful in implementing its digital initiatives. The digitisation has helped
the company to better forecast the demands and therefore tweak the supply plans accordingly.
the sales network digitisation of gathering real-time data from distributors to has helped the
company to augment the supplies at distributor level rather than at geography level. This has
enabled the condition of stock-outs. The data warehousing dashboards reflect KPIs which
have helped the managers to extract insightful information and act accordingly. The company
has used automation technology in supply chain, HR processes and financial decisions. The
company has gained a competitive advantage in manufacturing process using SAP MII. The
company had saved INR35 crores due to digitization in 2017. All these digitization initiatives
have helped the company in taking decisions quickly thus enabling faster action. This would
improve the efficiency and effectiveness and thus the productivity of the company along with
reduction in turnaround time. The company has well implemented digitization and is further
planning to take up new initiatives. It made good investment decisions in digital sector and
should continue to implement the latest technologies to improve the sales.
References
1.FMCG giant Marico’s digital initiatives help them save ₹ 35 crore
https://www.cio.in/cio-interview/fmcg-giant-maricos-digital-initiatives-help-them-save-rs-35-
crore
2. Marico- Harnessing Digital
https://marico.com/investorspdf/Marico_-_Harnessing_Digital_-
_Arisaig_Partners_Consumer_Symposium_2017_-_September_17.pdf
3. Marico- Annual Report
https://marico.com/investorspdf/Annual_Report_FY18.pdf
4. Marico sharpens focus on data
http://theevolutionconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Business-Standard-23-Nov-
2017-Art-on-Marico.pdf
5.https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/cons-products/fmcg/supply-distribution-
could-not-match-fast-growth-at-patanjali-acharya-balkrishna/articleshow/68041253.cms?
from=mdr
6.https://m.economictimes.com/industry/cons-products/fmcg/fmcg-cracks-the-patanjali-code-
naturally/articleshow/68589423.cms