DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL OF HUL

CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION OF HUL

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) formerly Hindustan Lever Limited (it was renamed in late June 2007 as HUL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Good company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20 distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages.

These products endow the company with a scale of combined volumes of about 4 million tones and sales of nearly Rs.13718 crores touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20 distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. The companys Turnover is Rs. 20, 239 crores (for the 15 month period January 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009).

HUL is also one of the country's largest exporters; it has been recognized as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India. The mission that inspires HUL's over 15,000 employees, including over 1,300 managers, is to "add vitality to life." HUL meets every day needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. It is a mission HUL shares with its parent company, Unilever, which holds 52.10% of the equity. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among 360,675 individual shareholders and financial institutions.

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Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) (BSE: 500696) is India's largest consumer goods company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is owned by the British-Dutch company Unilever which controls 52% majority stake in HUL. Its products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. HUL was formed in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Limited and came into being in 1956 as Hindustan Lever Limited through a merger of Lever Brothers, Hindustan Vanaspati Mfg. Co. Ltd. and United Traders Ltd. It is headquartered in Mumbai, India and has employee strength of over 16,500 employees and contributes to indirect employment of over 65,000 people. The company was renamed in June 2007 as Hindustan Unilever Limited. Lever Brothers started its actual operations in India in the summer of 1888, when crates full of Sunlight soap bars, embossed with the words "Made in England by Lever Brothers" were shipped to the Kolkata harbour and it began an era of marketing branded Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Hindustan Unilever's distribution covers over 2 million retail outlets across India directly and its products are available in over 6.4 million outlets in the country. As per Nielsen market research data, two out of three Indians use HUL products.

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Brands
HUL is the market leader in Indian consumer products with presence in over 20 consumer categories such as soaps, tea, detergents and shampoos amongst others with over 700 million Indian consumers using its products. Eighteen of HULs brands featured in theACNielsen Brand Equity list of 100 Most Trusted Brands Annual Survey (2012). The company has a distribution channel of 6.3 million outlets and owns 35 major Indian brands. Its brands include: Food brands:

Annapurna salt and atta Bru coffee Brooke Bond (3 Roses, Taj Mahal, Taaza, Red Label) tea Kissan squashes, ketchups, juices and jams Lipton tea Knorr soups & meal makers and soupy noodles Kwality Wall's frozen dessert Modern Bread, ready to eat chapattis and other bakery items

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Homecare Brands

ActiveWheel detergent Cif Cream Cleaner Comfort fabric softeners Domex disinfectant/toilet cleaner Rin detergents and bleach Sunlight detergent and colour care Surf Excel detergent and gentle wash Vim dishwash Magic Water Saver

Personal Care Brands:

Aviance Beauty Solutions Axe deodorant and aftershaving lotion and soap LEVER Ayush Therapy ayurvedic health care and personal care products Breeze beauty soap Clear anti-dandruff hair products Clinic Plus shampoo and oil Close Up toothpaste

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Dove skin cleansing & hair care range: bar, lotions, creams and anti-perspirant deodorants

Denim shaving products Fair & Lovely skin-lightening products Hamam Lakm beauty products and salons Lifebuoy soaps and handwash range Liril 2000 soap Lux soap, body wash and deodorant Pears soap Pepsodent toothpaste Pond's talcs and creams Rexona soap Sunsilk shampoo Sure anti-perspirant Vaseline petroleum jelly, skin care lotions TRESemm

Water Purifier Brand:

Pureit Water Purifier

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Hindustan Unilever Ltd

Type

Public

Traded as

BSE: 500696 BSE SENSEX Constituent

Industry

Consumer goods

Founded

1932

Headquarters

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Key people

Harish Manwani (Chairman),Nitin Paranjpe (CEO and MD)

Products

Foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products

Revenue

22,116 crore (US$4.03 billion)(2011-2012)[1]

Net income

2,691 crore (US$489.76 million)(2011-2012)

Employees

16,500 (2011)

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Parent

Unilever Plc (52%)

Website

www.hul.co.in

CHAPTER2: VISSION MISSION OF HUL

MISSION:
Unilevers mission is to add vitality of life. They meet every day needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. Our mission Enthused with Vitality.

Vitality is at the heart of everything we do. It's in our brands, our people and our values. Vitality means different things to different people. Some see it as energy, others view it more broadly as a healthy state of body and mind of feeling alive. Whatever their personal definition, millions of people around the world use our productsdaily to add Vitality to their lives - whether that's through feeling great because theyve got shiny hair and a brilliant smile, keeping their homes fresh and clean, or by enjoying a great cup of tea, satisfying meal or healthy snack. Ever since the 19th Century when William Hesketh Lever stated that the companys mission was "to make cleanliness common place; to lessen work for women; to foster health and contribute to personal attractiveness, that life may be more enjoyable and rewarding for the people who use our products," Vitality has been at the heart of our business.

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Vitality defines what we stand for: our values, what makes us different, and how we contribute to society. It's the common thread that links our brands and its central to the unique way we operate around the world.

VISSION:
The four pillars of our vision set out the long term direction for the company where we want to go and how we are going to get there: We work to create a better future every day We help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others. We will inspire people to take small everyday actions that can add up to a big difference for the world. We will develop new ways of doing business with the aim of doubling the size of our company while reducing our environmental impact. We've always believed in the power of our brands to improve the quality of peoples lives and in doing the right thing. As our business grows, so do our responsibilities. We recognize that global challenges such as climate change concern us all. Considering the wider impact of our actions is embedded in our values and is a fundamental part of who we are.

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CHAPTER3: DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL

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Product distribution (or place) is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. Distribution is the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries. The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing, and promotion.

The path through which goods and services travel from the vendor to the consumer or payments for those products travel from the consumer to the vendor. A distribution channel can be as short as a direct transaction from the vendor to the consumer, or may include several interconnected intermediaries along the way such as wholesalers, distributers, agents and retailers.

Each intermediary receives the item at one pricing point and movies it to the next higher pricing point until it reaches the final buyer. Coffee does not reach the consumer before first going through a channel involving the farmer, exporter, importer, distributor and the retailer. Also called the channel of distribution.

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Channels and Intermediaries

Distribution of products takes place by means of channels. Channels are sets of interdependent organisations (called intermediaries) involved in making the product available for consumption. Merchants are intermediaries that buy and resell products. Agents and brokers are intermediaries that act on behalf of the producer but do not take title to the products.

Channel Design

A firm can design any number of channels. Channels are classified by the number of intermediaries between producer and consumer. A level zero channel has no intermediaries. This is typical of direct marketing. A level one channel has a single intermediary. This flow is typically from manufacturer to retailer to consumer.

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CHAPTER4: EVOLUTION OF THE DISTRIBUTION MODEL

To meet the ever-changing needs of the consumer, HUL has set up a distribution network that ensures availability of all their products, in all outlets, at all items. This i n c l u d e s , m a i n t a i n i n g f a v o r a b l e t r a d e relations, providing, innovative incentives toretailers and organizing demand generation activities among host of other things. It has followed a strategy of building its distribution channels in a transitional manner; a n d i n d i f f e r e n t s u c c e s s i v e p h a s e s o f t h e e v o l u t i o n o f i t s d i s t r i b u t i o n s y s t e m , h a s penetrated well into the rural market.

Phase I The first phase of its distribution network had wholesalers placing bulk orders directlywith the company. Large retailers also place direct orders, which comprised almost 30 percent of the total orders collected. T h e company salesman grouped all these orders and placed an indent w i t h t h e H e a d Office. Goods were sent to these markets, with the company salesman as the consignee.The salesman then collected and distributed the products to the respective wholesalers, against cash payment, and the money was remitted to the company.

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Phase II The focus of the second phase, which spanned the decades of the 40s, was to providedesired products and quality service to the companys customers. In order to achieve this,one wholesaler in each market was appointed as a Registered Wholesaler, a stock pointfor the companys products in that market. The company salesman still covered themarket, canvassing for orders from the rest of the trade. He would then distribute stocks from the Registered Wholesaler through distribution units maintained by the company.The Registered Wholesaler was given a margin of 1 per cent to cover the cost of warehousing and financing the stocks held by him. The Registered Wholesaler system,therefore, increased the distribution reach of the company to a larger number of customers. Phase III The highlight of the third phase was the concept of Redistribution Stockiest (RS) whore placed the Registered Wholesalers. The Redistribution Stockist was required to provide the distribution units to the company salesman. The Redistribution Stockist financed hiss tocks and provided warehousing facilities to store them.

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The Redistribution Stockist also undertook demand stimulation activities on behalf of the company. The second characteristic of this period was the changes brought in as the company realised that the Redistribution Stockist would be able to provide customer service only if he was serviced well. This knowledge led to the establishment of the Company Depots system.

This system helped in transshipment, bulk breaking, and acted as a stock point to minimise stock-outs at the Redistribution Stockist level.In the recent past, .significant change has been the replacement of the Company Depot bya system of third party; the Carrying and Forwarding Agents (C&FAs). The C&FAs actas buffer stock-points to ensure that stock-outs did not take place. The C&FA system hasalso resulted in cost savings in terms of direct transportation and reduced time lag indelivery. The most important benefit has been improved customer service to theRedistribution Stockist.

RSNet
An IT-powered system has been implemented to supply stocks to redistribution stockists on a continuous replenishment basis. The objective is to catalyze HULs growth by ensuring that the right product is available at the right place in right quantities, in the most cost-effective manner.

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For this, stockists have been connected with the com pany through an Internet-based network, called RSNet, for online interaction on orders, dispatches Information sharing and monitoring. RS Net covers about 80% of the company's turnover. Today, the sales system gets to know every day what HUL stockists have sold to almost a million outlets across the country. RS Net is part of Project Leap, HUL's end-to-end supply chain, which also includes a back-end system connecting suppliers, all companysites a n d stretching right up to stockists. Powered by the IT tools it has i m p r o v e d customer service, while ensuring superior availability and impact visibility at retail points.

Rural Areas and Tier 2 Cities

Lux has high penetration in the urban and semi urban areas. However, it has only 19.8% penetration in the rural areas. The rural market has great untapped potential, which is notconcentrated on till now. Consumers are becoming more and more aware and undergoinga surge in disposable income. This huge opportunity can be explored by Lux. It already has a strong distribution channel in almost all regions. What is needed here is a change inthe communication strategy to reach out to the rural customers. The various channels of communication should be made more appealing to this rural segment of customers.Over the past two decades, the company has built a remarkable distribution system thatmoves its soaps to every corner of India.

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Now it has started to leverage that valuable infrastructure to expand its reach to a huge and overlooked group of consumers: the rural poor.F o r r u r a l I n d i a , H U L h a s e s t a b l i s h e d a s i n g l e d i s t r i b u t i o n c h a n n e l b y c o n s o l i d a t i n g categories. In a significant move, with long-term benefits, HUL has mounted an initiative,Project Streamline, to further increase its rural reach with the help of rural sub-stockists.As a result, the distribution network directly covers about 50,000 villages, reaching about250 million consumers.

CHAPTER5: CHANNEL OF DISTRIBUTION of HUL

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1. Manufacturer_Customer: This is also known as direct selling because no Middlemen are involved. A producer may sell directly through his own retail stores, for example, Bata. This is the simplest and the shortest channel. It is fast and economical. Small producers and producers of

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perishable commodities also sell directly to the local consumers. Big firms adopt direct selling in order to cut distribution cost and because 274 they have sufficient facilities to sell directly to the consumers. The producer or the entrepreneur himself performs all the marketing activities.

2. Manufacturer _ Retailer _ Customer: This is one stage distribution channel having one middleman, i.e., retailer. In this channel, the producer sells to big retailers like departmental stores and chain stores who in turn sell to customer. This channel is very popular in the distribution of consumer durables such as refrigerators, T V sets, washing machines, typewriters, etc. This channel of distribution is very popular these days because of emergence of departmental stores, super markets and other big retail stores. The retailers purchase in large quantities from the producer and perform certain marketing activities in order to sell the product to the ultimate consumers.

3. Manufacturer _ Wholesaler _ Retailer _ Customer : This is the traditional channel of distribution. There are two middlemen in this channel of distribution, namely, wholesaler and retailer. This channel is most suitable for the products with widely scattered market. It is used in the distribution of consumer products

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like groceries, drugs, cosmetics, etc. It is quite suitable for small scale producers whose product line is narrow and who require the expert services and promotional support of wholesalers.

Cutting-edge Distribution Network

HULs distribution network is recognized as one of its key strengths -- that which helps reach out its products across the length and breadth of this vast country The need for a strong distribution network is imperative, since hul has to gain the visibility and has to capture the minds of Indians every here It has 2000+ suppliers and associates 7,000 stock list and direct coverage in around million retail outlets across India. To meet the ever-changing needs

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of the consumer, hul has set up a distribution network that ensures availability of all their products, in all outlets, at all times. This includes, maintaining favorable trade relations, providing innovative incentives to retailers and organizing demand generation activities among a host of other things. It boasts of placing a product across the country in less than 72 hrs. The first phase of the distribution network had wholesalers placing bulk orders directly with the company. Large retailers also placed direct orders, which comprised almost 30 per cent of the total orders collected. Today, the goods are transferred from the factory to the company warehouses and are sent to the distributor from there on a daily basis. From the distributor, the stock reaches the market through daily sales. Typically, these include the salesman registering the order of a retail outlet and delivering the goods the next day. Recently it has changed its traditional way distribution and came out with a new strategy of distribution.

Its because of the change in buying pattern of the consumer due to more disposable income. There are different channels of distribution like Modern Trade, which covers al chains of super markets , who get the stocks directly from the company. Wholesalers and second leg of big retail outlets called Super Value stores come under the surveillance of the distributor along with the mass retail outlets. There is also this new concept in the its distribution channel called Kiosk. Kiosk is a small shop that sells only s a c h e t s a n d l o w p r i c e d i t e m s ( b e l o w R s . 1 0 / - ) . K i o s k

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a l s o d o e s n o t c o m e u n d e r t h e surveillance of the distributor. In addition to the ongoing commitment to the traditional grocery trade, it is building a special relationship with the small but fast emerging modern trade. Its scale enables it to provide superior customer service including daily servicing, improving their range availability whilst reducing inventories. It is using the opportunity of interfacing more directly with consumers in this retail environment through specially designed communication and promotions. This is building traffic into the stores while yielding high growth for the business.

CHAPTER6:THE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK IN RURAL MARKET

The strategy of distribution should take into account the purchasing habit of the rural people. While consumables are purchased in the village shop or Shandies or in bigger villages, the consumer durables are purchased only in Mandi centers, large towns or nearby cities. Hence the distribution center has to take the purchasing habit of the rural people into account, so that

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product may be available at the appropriate location. In villages beyond the reach of the distribution system, the shopkeepers make their own arrangement for the procurement. Most of them commute to the nearby town to get the supply. But the expenses incurred resulted in the village shopkeepers charging consumer more than the maximum retail price. Generally, the village shopkeeper invest their fund sin purchases and rarely ever get credit facilities, which if available is made available for very short duration only. Since the quantum of purchase by the village shopkeeper is verysmall, the margins are also very meager. The ultimate consumer product reflects the lack of distribution network.

Distribution Strategies in Rural Market

1. Coverage of Villages:
With improved communication facilities, it is possible to reach distribution van to the villages. The frequency of visits may be fixed, depending upon the off- takes or sales realization, so that the distribution cost can be minimized, but not at the cost of cutting down or rural population. These distribution cabs can be used for promotion works also. For villages with very less population, the distribution can be left to the initiative of the shop keepers and deal ers in larger villages and to the shopkeepers of the small villages. The distribution arrangement requires

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serious consideration by manufacturing andmarketing men, if they have to exploit the potential of the rural market

2. Use of Cooperative:
Over three lakh cooperative society operate in the rural are as for or different purposes like, marketing cooperatives, dairy corporative, farmer service corporative societies, consumer corporative and other multi purpose corporative. Given the number of such societies, there is at least one corporative society of one form or another for every two or three villages. These societies are linked to higher level of society like taluk, district, or state level. Thus these corporative have an arrangement for centralized procurement and distribution through their respective state level federation. Such state level federation cans be motivated to procure and distribute consumables items and low level durablesitems to the member societies for selling to the rural consumers

3.Utilization of Public Distribution System:

The Public Distribution System(PDS) in the country is fairly well organized. The revamped PDS places more emp hasis on reaching remote rural areas like hills and tribal areas. Effective utilization of the PDS system should be explored by the manufacturing and marketing men, since they already have a distribution set up.

4. Distribution to Feeder Markets / Mandi Towns:

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The villagers visit these to what regular intervals not only for selling the agricultural produce but also for the purchase of cloth, jewellery , hardware, radios, torch cells and other durables and con sumer product. Lux has established a good distribution network in theidentified feeder market and mandi towns. From the feeder market and manditown, the stockiest or wholesaler arranges for distribution to the village shop in theinterior places.

Comparative analysis Rural: For rural India, HUL has established a single distribution channel b y c o n s o l i d a t i n g categories. In a significant move, with long-term benefits, HUL has mounted an initiative, Project Streamline, to further increase its rural reach with the help of rural sub-stock lists. As a result, the distribution network directly covers about 50,000 villages, reaching about 250 million consumers. Consolidation has to be done in the rural setup as the road and transport facilities are not very good hence one channel is used. Urban An IT-powered system has been implemented to supply stocks to redistribution stock lists o n a c o n t i n u o u s r e p l e n i s h m e n t b a s i s . T h e o b j e c t i v e i s t o c a t a l y z e H U L s g r o w t h b y ensuring that the right product is available at the right place in right quantities, in the most cost-

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effective manner. For this, stock lists have been connected with the company through an Internet-based network, called RSNet, for online interaction on orders, dispatches, information sharing and monitoring. RS Net covers about 80% of the company's turnover. In the urban setup there is no consolidation as there is fast communication and available transport and road facilities.

CHAPTER7: HUL SET TO STREAMLINE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

Pune: Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), the countrys largest household and personal care products maker by sales, is expanding its so-called go to market (GTM) initiative, launched in Mumbai last year, in an attempt to revamp its national distribution network and streamline its supply chain. The project has been a success in Mumbai, where it was started in June, and will be rolled out in 42 cities and towns across India by the end of 2009, Hemant Bakshi,

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executive director for sales and customer development at HUL, told Mint in an interview. Leveraging strengths: Hindustan Unilevers Hemant Bakshi. The Mumbai pilot is now complete and has delivered significant improvements in customer service. We are now in the process of rolling out the project in other towns with population of eight lakh-plus, Bakshi said. It is a very important project for us and Unilever and we will roll this out eventually in (global) markets that are at a similar stage of development.

HULs GTM initiative in Mumbai was aimed at rationalizing its distribution network, make it more efficient, deliver stocks to retailers faster and reduce inventory on their product shelves. It farmed out the task of stock deliveries to logistics provider Mahindra Logistics as part of the Mumbai project. In Mumbai, the company consolidated its 21 distributors into four mega distributors, who now account for sales of about Rs480 crore, another senior HUL executive said. Bakshi said dealership reduction has been an ongoing exercise, but declined to provide figures about the pilot project.

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The GTM initiative has been internally labelled by parent firm Unilever Plc. as one of its 10 most important initiatives said the senior HUL executive, as well as an executive with a firm that does business with HUL. Both of them declined to be named as they were not authorized to comment on the companys operations. A top management team from Unilever, including outgoing chief executive officer Patrick Cescau, his successor Paul Polman, and HUL chief executive officer Nitin Paranjpe, are believed to have assessed the success of the pilot plan last month and given in-principle approval to take the project to key cities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Unilever has said it is looking at global savings of 1.5 billion (Rs9,855 crore) annually by 2010 through the restructuring operations. The HUL executive and the HUL business associate added that the company is restructuring other aspects of its operations as part of the GTM project and that it would cut back on losses and in-transit theft. The consolidation is aimed at giving the distributors, who typically operate on a 4% profit margin, a bigger share of the pie at a time when they are being wooed by other sectors. At least a couple of our distributors are now owners of close to Rs100 crore companies, up from the Rs8-10 crore business they had just under an year ago, the HUL executive said. Our distribution network is changing from being one driven by entrepreneurs to becoming large professional distribution houses with service orientation, Bakshi said.

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Our biggest strength in the market is our distribution network, our knowledge of the market and our strong brands. We now want to leverage these, ensure that our distributor-partners make sustainable returns and be prepared for the emerging market of 2013. HUL had revenues of Rs13,913.40 crore in 2007like its parent company, HUL follows a calendar year for declaring resultsand sells some of the countrys most recognized brands such as Surf Excel detergent powder, Lux soaps, Ponds and Dove skin care products. As part of its effort to streamline distribution, HUL has also started outsourcing most of the sales team to professional staffing firms. Traditionally, bookings from retailers was the responsibility of the distributors sales team. Distributors salesmen have generally been not very competitively paid and have no job security and decent working conditions. While they have traditionally been paid between Rs4,000-7,000, the new salesmen are graduates wherever available and are paid Rs7,000-11,000 and are from a staffing services company, said the HUL business associate, adding that HUL is now asking distributors to use their own resources to upgrade staff offices and training. Currently, about 2,400 distributors across the country employ 9,000 salesmen to take weekly orders from a million retail outlets. Enlisting Mahindra Logistics led to a system being put in place that has cut seven-day inventory to one day . Orders are logged in the evening by distributors staff and delivered by the company the next evening to the distributor. Mahindra Logistics delivers stocks to retailers the next

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morning. Essentially this frees distributors resources that are otherwise tied up in stocking excess inventory and preventing losses due to in-transit damage. Consumers get fresher stock from retailers. The system also ensures that products that languish on a retailers shelves are not supplied, eliminating losses from expired stock. The shift from dependence on the unorganized sector to an external logistics supplier will also reduce loss due to pilferage, one HUL executive said Mahindra Logistics managing director Sanjay Sinha declined to comment. The GTM pilot in Mumbai, meanwhile, could make HUL distributors more visible to retailers because sales people are required to now visit retailers regularly instead of waiting for orders to come in.

The consumer products business works on personal relationships and it helps for retailers to have an equation with the distributor, the HUL business associate said. With retailers now putting a range of global products in every segment on their shelves, HUL, a major player in the food, personal care and home segments, faces the threat of shrinking market share. A May report from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and industry, before the crash in financial markets and a global economic slowdown, projected Indias

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household and consumer care products market to grow 16% this fiscal year to Rs95,150 crore. First Published: Fri, Jan 09 2009.

CHAPTER8: FINDINGS

The new Hindustan Lever see an exciting opportunity for growth. They have 35 powerful brands covering all segments, with leading market positions in most.

Today, these are stronger and more relevant to the consumer than ever. The people are energized by the scale of the opportunity and determined to seize it.

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The scale of the business and operations gives them the resources needed.

They are delivering good services and the changes they brought in the products are welltaken by the customers, by this they are generating sustainable profitable growth.

Distribution channel of hul is systematic.

Hul is giving a good priority towards its distribution channel.

Hul sees that retailer as weel as consumer get proper benefits.

Hul believes proper channel of distribution gives an impact on the company. It affects its growth. If the channel is not properly managed then the company may face loss in profit.

Hul tries that to full fill the requirement of the people involves in distribution channel.

Distribution channel is an integral part of an organization.

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Hul is giving more importants to its channel

Hul has well organized channel of distribution.

CHAPTER9: CONCLUSION

HUL works to create a better future every day and helps people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others.

With over 35 brands spanning 20 distinct categories such as soaps, detergents, shampoos, skin care, toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, tea, coffee, packaged foods, ice cream, and water purifiers, the Company is a part of the everyday life of millions of consumers across India. Its portfolio

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includes leading household brands such as Lux, Lifebuoy, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Ponds, Vaseline, Lakm, Dove, Clinic Plus, Sunsilk, Pepsodent, Closeup, Axe, Brooke Bond, Bru, Knorr, Kissan, Kwality Walls and Pureit.

These products are manufactured over 40 factories across India. The operations involve over 2,000 suppliers and associates. HUL's distribution network comprises about 4,000 redistribution stockists, covering 6.3 million retail outlets reaching the entire urban population, and about 250 million rural consumers.

HUL distribution is a key strength for the company to supply their products to anywhere in the country. This includes, maintaining favourable trade relations, organizing providing demand innovative incentives to retailers and

generation activities among a host of other things.

Each business of HUL portfolio has customized the network to meet its objectives. The most obvious function of providing the logistics support is to get the companys product to the end customer. The HUL distribution network has seen a lot of evolvement over time. From Wholesalers placing order directly with the company, to Registered

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Wholesalers, to Redistribution Stockist (RS), the network has grown to cover a major part of the Indian urban and rural population.

In recent years, the FMCG sector declined due to down trading. Also because of presence of large number of companies trying to seize this opportunity, this force the old HLL for the change and thus, their transformation has resulted in a new HLL, which has successfully faced this challenge and reversed this trend.

It has done so by substantially strengthening their brands and building capabilities. This has already begun to yield benefits and they are returning to growth. Volume growth is being followed by value growth, which in turn is bringing profit growth. India is one of the most exciting markets offering great potential.

Over the next 10 years, the per capita income in India is likely to double. In FMCG, there is an opportunity to catalyze penetration, increase usage, and upgrade consumers.

As a result, the FMCG market is expected to grow to over Rs. 100,000 crores from its current base of Rs. 40,000 crores. The new Hindustan Lever sees an exciting opportunity for growth. They have 35 powerful brands covering all

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segments, with leading market positions in most. Today, these are stronger and more relevant to the consumer than ever.

The people are energized by the scale of the opportunity and determined to seize it. The scale of the business and operations gives them the resources needed. They are delivering good services and the changes they brought in the products are well taken by the customers, by this they are generating sustainable profitable growth.

CHAPTER 10: BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.WIkepedia.com

www.HUl.com

www.Fmcg.com

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www.livemint.com/.../ HUL -set-to-streamline- distribution - network .ht .

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Hindustan_Unilever

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