From Zero to Hero...

“I'm not telling you it's going to be easy - I'm telling you it's going to be worth it.”― Art Williams

Starting from Zero, building the business a liter by liter to reach a respectable quantity in six months time was demanding.

The day started at quarter to 4 in the morning everyday, and went on till 1 am after midnight. Day after day, I went to the office at 4 in the morning and ensured that deliveries were happening on time in a regular fashion, for that was the key to building a successful business - Customer satisfaction.

Ensuring that that there were no mistakes in the delivery sheets, that the orders were delivered as per the customers requirement, the mornings went in operations, and the day passed in streamlining the issues. The evenings were well spent in taking customer order changes and complaints.

Challenge was not in managing the freshly made setup, but in the fast turnover of the contractors and the money siphoned by them by way of being in charge of payment collection from the customers. The Exciting part was catching hold of them and getting the money back from them... Amazing right?

Hard work and consistency pays off. Slowly and steadily... building volumes day by day, we reached a magic figure digit in sales volumes... giving a total sense of satisfaction, but with even bigger challenges to look forward to in future. But we had decided, we will achieve...

Milk is a 24x7 business but, It was was possible because of the support of then designate SVP - Strategic Marketing. And the team had way to go !

"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."
-- Mark Twain

A Stirring Launch !

Launching is no big Deal... Is it ?

I mean, we all have played Angry Birds and Launched birds one by one !!

So, there is pre launch work associated with a Launch.

Two days before the launch date, whole day, we went roaming the entire city identifying the delivery addresses to which deliveries needed to be made on the day of the launch so that we are right on schedule. 

All Set.... Get Set Go =>

The distribution had to start at 4 am in order for the milk to reach the customers latest by 6 am, so the team was briefed to reach office by 3.30 am. I reached the office at the stipulated time, only to find my reporting manager, and the milk van waiting for me with 100 liters of milk. There was no sight of my delivery team. My heart sank. I started calling up the team and waking them up. It took them an hour, but they did reach office to start deliveries. 

Did I mention that it was raining heavily all night and my team had no clue how to start deliveries?

It isn't  so easy to Launch after all !

I gave my Jacket to one in the delivering team, set them off - giving them addresses and milk bottles to deliver. I started in my car and Distributing all the milk bottles among all the resources present, all departed for the deliveries. On the Dark roads, amidst heavy rains, the delivery boys set out, accompanied by hostess girls (thats what we called them then) to deliver sample bottles of milk to the prospective customers. What followed was even more difficult. The roads that we had explored the day before during the day time, were unidentifiable during the wee hours of the morning.... but the team persisted and returned only after all the deliveries were made.

Well, you may ask, why we couldnt postpone the launch, when the climatic conditions were so adverse ? My answer would be, its all in the mind !

Once we thought and planned, that the launch would happen on an auspiscious day... So be it !

Selling Milk…. Sounds Exciting ???

Mark Twain in his famous book "Tom Sawyer" has illustrated :

"Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. "

Thats precisely what happened here. I was not obliged to do anything, I had not been given targets (as I had been used to earlier) and no guidelines were laid out. Amazing way to get work done from responsible citizens !

Yet, I was restless. A Humongous task lay in from of me & I didn’t know where to start !

I spent the first few days on the farm to see how cows are treated at the farm, understanding how the distribution system should be, bringing the best value to the company and the consumer.

Milk business happens at odd hours of the day. So, Next step was to build a team that I could trust and bank on at any irrational time of the day. Building an all girl team of fresh MBA grads, who would be responsible for building a customer base, Conduct events for promotions and ensure deliveries to the customers, was only the initial preparation & was no simple task. Choosing from the pool to make the best self motivated team was no easy mission.

It took me two months to prepare for launch. The Launch Strategy, Customer acquisition strategy, ATL promotions, Press meet, Press release, Initial customer acquisition, BTL promotions, Collaterals, Visiting cards, Setting up customer support team, Accounts & Finance team and the Delivery team for logistics was all put in place. 

The launch date was decided to be 10^th August and we were all set, beaming with enthusiasm to embrace the occasion with open arms.

I realized, I was in a Startup mode, setting up the business from an idea, executing it on the way and bringing it to a conclusion!

How I Bagged one of the most exciting jobs of my career

Have you ever had plain white milk? If not, please try it. 

It had been years that I drank plain white milk. Reason ? The smell, the taste and texture of milk have not remained the same as they used to be in our childhood.

Milk is an important part of our diet, yet the adulteration that the producers and distribution channel brings along is unavoidable. To fight this cause, a direct farm to home milk was introduced first in Mumbai then in Pune. The team responsible for production, packaging and marketing of this milk, take pride in their product and hence their name.

My first encounter with this milk happened in 2012 when I was visiting the promoters of this company for a marketing related discussion. The chairman offered me a glass of this beverage to drink. Obviously, one cant refuse ! I reluctantly drank it, not sure of whether I will be able to swallow it neat! 

It was tasty! Even without mixing honey or Horlics to it, I relished the taste of it, which definitely proved the merit of it!

The chairman at the same instant decided to entrust the responsibility of setting up the distribution business of this milk in Pune to me. According to him, it was essential that a person who is working on the product should love the product.

There had been others contesting for this position but because they refused to drink the plain milk, they couldn't make it to this position! 

So, here I was, Sitting in my new office, (the office wasn’t new, but I was the one who was), thinking what to do to start this endeavour.

Lessons Learnt in Life

Life teaches you many lessons, but the best are those learnt in childhood. As we grow up, we tend to loose the essence of those learnings. However, Nature has got a magical way of bringing back Life’s crucial lessons to you by way of your kids.

“It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” — W. Somerset Maugham

Did we not learn this? Or we forgot it on our journey of growing up and encountering soul battering experiences in life.

It was on a bright sunny morning when, Nandika, her mausi and I, went shopping. Well, having nothing particular in mind to shop, we just went around window shopping. You get everything from clothes to footwear to accessories and all there is. We explored the far corners of the market and realized that Nandika is cooperating with us and playing along in our endeavour of aimless shopping and their negotiations. So we decided we should get her something as well. We approached a small establishment carrying watches of all kinds. We were trying out a very pretty watch for her, when she said, “I want purple watch”. My My… the shopkeeper did not have a purple watch but all other colours were there. There were various watches, simple, sober, cartoon watches, bright coloured ones but none Purple. So, we started moving further in search for a purple watch. One, two, three and four shops down the line, we encountered another shop having watches. We zeroed down on an interesting watch, which could project Barbie doll images. Yes, She liked it too! But, to our utter dismay, it was available only in pink!

Mumma – “Nandika, shall we take this one?”

Nandika – “Yes mumma, I Like this one, but I want a Purple Watch”

Mumma – “But beta, it is available only in Pink!”

Nandika – “But I want Purple.”

Masi – “Beta, Purple is not available anywhere”

Nandika – “But I want Purple.”

And Tears rolled down her cheeks. Mausi’s heart melted. We started looking for more. We were tired, but we went ahead forcing ourselves in the scorching heat in the midst of the masses, for a purple watch! We kept on exploring shop after shop for the purple watch, but without any success. We were nearing the last few shops of the market and we decided to head back to the car, since, the purple watch was nowhere to be found. As soon as we were at the last shop of the market, we saw it! There it was, hanging and dangling from a thread at the entrance of the shop. The projector watch, in Purple.

At Last, Mission Accomplished, but the learning was too big to be ignored.

And in the words by John Greenleaf Whittier,

Success is failure turned inside out, 
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far, 
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Cooking chocolates ??

Practices In The Cooking Chocolate / Bakery Industry

Bakery / Hotel industry is a very upcoming and rewarding field. There are huge investments involved but the return on this investment is commendable. The market for bakery items (like cakes, biscuits, pastries) and chocolates is growing many folds. More and more people are becoming aware of these products and have started consuming them. Thanks to the sweetness drive by Cadbury’s, more and more people are becoming aware of chocolates and like to consume them in various forms.

Bulk chocolates are used for various purposes. The target group consists of various consumers – Bakeries, Hotels, Restaurants, Caterers, Mithai walas, in house chocolate makers, ice cream makers, cake / pastry makers, exclusive chocolate shops, kulfi vendors, milk shake stalls, Biscuit, confectionery, pharmaceuticals, snacks cafeteria etc. Depending on the usage of the product and the quality required, they could be briefly classified as below:

1. Making moulded chocolates, confectionery and decorating them to be sold for gifting purposes – This requires a fine quality and taste of chocolate.

2. Making Icing on cakes – Again requires fine quality of chocolates which gives a smooth finish, luster and adds aroma to the cake.

3. Making chocolate cakes & biscuits – Good Hotels may require fine chocolate powder for the purpose, others may do with a less fine / smooth texture also.

4. Mithaaee waalas – use cocoa powder for making chocolate burfis.

5. Kulfi Vendors, Milk shake people – the roadside vendors may want to have cheap quality product which is economical for their usage.

6. Pharmaceutical companies – some of the pharma companies use a lot of cocoa powder in their manufacturing process.

There are various players in various categories of products viz. Margarine, whipping cream, Chocolates, Fillings for the bakery items, baking gels etc and the list goes on. These products are promoted in various ways depending on the expenditure planned by the company on these products. Some of which are described below:

1. Brochures – Colorful Brochures for the product are printed and the sales team visits the target outlets and explains about the product.

2. Product Sampling – The next step is reaching out to the customer with the samples of the product. The customer may not show much interest in the product only by seeing the brochure, unless he / she see the product for himself / herself.

3. Product Demo – After the product, the next most important thing is giving demonstration to the target group, so that their interest is created or at a later stage maintained in the product. This is a continuous process because interest once created needs to be maintained otherwise there are various other brands which take away the limelight.

4. Support – If the bakery people need guidance and support in using the product, the guidance is available at a phone call’s distance. In case they are having any difficulty in usage of the product, a representative from the company gets in touch with them and solves their problem.

5. Booklets / books – Distribution of various recipe booklets and method of preparing dishes and desserts using your product is important. The outlet wants to learn how to make preparations using your product. It is only natural to be eager to learn and grow your business.

6. Gift items with the product – Every one likes to be gifted. There are various moulds or bakery articles like knives, spreading spatula, to name a few, which are used in the industry for preparation of moulds or decoration articles for the cakes / other items. These are continuously being gifted by the companies to the clients to keep them happy and occupied with their product. Such articles create interest in the product of the company and vendors to try out to use them, to make articles using these gifts.

7. Product Quality – All product quality is good. It depends on the usage and the requirements of the target outlet. The same product could be very good for the biscuit industry as they may not need very fine particles and granule size could be big for them. On the flip side for the home made chocolates, it may not go so well, as it may not give that fine texture, glaze or smoothness. Thus the practice in the market is to give a product to the client as per their needs. This means that if a biscuit manufacturer needs chocolates at Rs. 76/- per kg, they do not want a very fine quality, thus the prices are adjusted according to the needs and quality required by the client.

8. Service – In Pune, Morde, Angadi, Pitambari etc have their factories in the vicinity of the town. So as and when the order is placed with the producer, the stock is delivered to the WD / the party within a day’s time. The stocks may take up to one hour for local to one day for up country markets.

9. Pricing – The pricing for the products is variable depending on the client and the quantity he offers to take. The price for Dark compound ranges from as low as Rs. 76/- a kg (as told by Classic Foods personnel) to Rs. 110/- per kg (to the distributors) to customers or distributors who are taking directly from the company. After the cut in the excise duty, the basic prices of the products are the same in the market. The excise has been reduced from 14.42 % to 10.30 % thus reducing the rates of the chocolates in the market.

10. Credit – The Bakery / Hotel business is one which demands credit. The chocolate companies thus have put in the distributors and companies using their product, into a habit of getting credit period from a week to a month (depending on the type of client).

Any organization intending to enter this market, and wishing to sell a similar product needs to identify the special qualities in their product. For example, if A is an established player in the market and has good relations with the clients/ customers / distributors, giving those rates and quality as per their needs and requirements, it needs some special efforts at the organization’s end to pursue the clients to use their product. Although difficult, it is an interesting and glamorous product and has a large market to pursue; keeping in mind that the efforts required to capture this market would be huge in the beginning.