Godrej, one of India’s largest and most respected conglomerates with businesses spanning industrial engineering, appliances, FMCGs, furniture, security solutions, agri-care and real estate, and a pioneer, innovator and key player in refrigerator manufacture, launched its hi-tech, and stylishly designed range of refrigerators. Recently, Diptendu Bhattacharya, senior general manager and head, Institution Sales and Exports Godrej Appliances visited Nepal. In an interview with Siromani Dhungana of the New Business Age, Bhattacharya, who has been with the Godrej for over 10 years, speaks about Godrej’s brand value and features of its products. Excerpts:

 

You are now familiar with Nepali market trend. What is your assessment of the Nepali market? 

Nepali market is quite evolved and it has many similarities with the Indian market in terms of the customer’s product requirementsand their usage habits. Definitely the numbers of brands competing in Nepal are far more than that in India. It is more open market and you have refrigerators, washing machines and even air conditioners coming from India and also from china and other countries. So in that way it is a very crowded market. However India’s major brands like LG, Whirlpool, Samsung, Godrej, Videocon, among others, present in the Nepali market, are in leading position here also. This is quite natural as India has some preferential logistical advantages and also some tax treaties with Nepal. This enables us to do better than other countries’ products. 

 

So you mean there is neck-to-neck competition between renowned companies in Nepal? What is your market share in terms of sale?

We believe that we are among the top four brands of refrigerators in Nepal. Our market share would be over 10-12 per cent.

 

As a person who has been part of the Godrej brand for ten years, how do you think brand image can be established and maintained? 

We must consistently deliver a brand experience, which is of a very high order and exceeds customers’ expectations. If this is done consistently year after year, a brand is established and gradually accepted as the leading player in the market. We work very hard along these lines. Our brand has its design by curiosity so we always try to study our customers’ habit, their way of using the products and exactly where they feelsome inadequacies in the current products. We try to fill those gaps in our new designs in order to make our customers more satisfied and happy with their Godrej experience.

 

How do you evaluate brand consciousness in the Nepali and the Indian customers?

I believe that in both of these markets brand consciousness is in a very high order. Customers are very clear about their brand preferences. It is also true that you have a huge section of younger customers who are ready to switch brands and loyalty is no more as strong as it was in the past and so it poses a greater challenge for us to always see that one remains relevant and gets their preferences.

 

There are so many products in the markets and customers have a number of choices. Why should one choose your products?

I think we are trying to create much differentiation between the others and us that will attract our customers. For example, in refrigerators we have launched H Pro series, which is 15 per cent higher energy efficient than any of the competing products. We have seen that it has got 50 per cent much faster ice making capacity compared to our competitors. These are real benefits and advantages, which our customers will appreciate. In washing machine we have the feature called Dac sense. This feature enables the washing to turn on and wash the clothes within, if the user wants, when Dac senses availability of water supply and the power supply. But in other washing machines a user has to manually check for the power and water to come before turning the washing machine on. 

 

What about its durability ?

Godrej is known for its reliability and durability and we have many customers in Nepal and India who have been users of our refrigerators for 25 years plus. This is the testimony to the durability of our products.

 

Environment friendliness of the equipment is considered an important aspect nowadays. Where do you see your products in this regard?

I am proud to say that we are leading brand in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka in terms of adopting environmental friendly guidelines. We have been using gas, which is pure hydrocarbon since year 2001. However until 2012 our competitors were using gas which were considered environment unfriendly. Recently they have switched to hydrocarbons, but we have one decade lead in this regard. In air conditioners too we have only a few manufacturers in the world who have adopted hydrocarbon technology in air conditioners by using R290 gas. This gas does not have any green house effect and zero ozone depression effect and this is again something that our leading competitors in India have not been able to do. We are proud to say that we are exploring all the opportunities to try to be as much environment friendly as possible both in our products and manufacturing processes.

 

What is your message to your Nepali customers?

We are really grateful to your support to the Godrej brand and we assure you that we will stand by you all through the years ahead. We will continue trying to deliver environment friendly products. We will always try to gain your trust. We are a brand with over a hundred of years of presence in the market and we have partnered with the Chaudhary Group, which has over150 years of experience in the Nepali market. Together we think we can do wonders for the Nepali customers and we can assure you that we won't disappoint you.