Dabur sees growth in overseas markets
New Delhi: With intense competition in a sluggish FMCG market, Dabur India is casting its eyes on overseas markets. The company saw sales of its popular brands decline last year despite restructuring its business midway to focus on five key brands - Dabur, Vatika, Anmol , Hajmola and Real. Despite this, sales of its Hajmola Candy actually decreased last year despite this being one of the focus brands of the company.

While hair care as a category grew by 4.7 per cent, Vatika Anti-dandruff shampoo recorded moderate growth while sales of Vatika Cream Conditioning Shampoo were stagnant. Dabur India has outlined a multi-pronged strategy for the company to focus on international markets. For West Asia, Dabur proposes to build and rebuild brands and customise products for these markets. The focus on West Asia, including Egypt, will be mostly Dabur's personal care brands while Bagladesh will be catered to by both personal care and healthcare brands.

International business contributes about 10 per cent to the company's consolidated sales and this share is expected to rise significantly this fiscal. Dabur has been consistently forging joint ventures across several countries to increase its grip over global markets. First, it acquired UAE-based Redrock Ltd, renaming it Dabur International Ltd. Through this acquisition, Dabur now owns manufacturing facilities at Sharjah; Dabur International has also taken charge of Dabur Egypt Ltd and its manufacturing facility at Cairo. Besides, Dabur International has forged a joint venture in Bangladesh and is in the process of setting up similar JV operations in Pakistan and Nigeria.
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IOC banks on e-procurement for growth
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is laying down a technology framework for using e-procurement to bring down the cost of purchase of materials. IOC had started hosting notices inviting tenders on a dedicated web site four years ago and since February this year it has institutionalised reverse auctions as part of its standard procurement process. It has also started a web-based document exchange system through a pilot project on e-tendering. In addition, the petroleum refining and marketing company had engaged Tata Honeywell for a supply chain management package that would be in addition to the company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) package.

Sources said the company has set up an exclusive group for optimising the hydrocarbon supply chain since an integrated planning model will help it identify the right combination of crude oils to be procured based on prevailing crude oil and product prices. Different crude oils yield different combination of petroleum products and refining companies need to match the raw materials with the demand for different finished products to avoid being saddled with some products in surplus and a shortage of others.
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Samsung India eyes over 30 per cent increase in turnover
New Delhi: Samsung India Electronics has chalked out aggressive strategies to capture the South-West Asian market with India as its hub. It is banking on quality and not price to succeed in the region.

The company is targeting an increase of over 30 per cent in turnover this year. Samsung India closed 2003 with a turnover of about Rs4,000 crore. According to the Interbrand Brand Equity Survey, Samsung's brand increased to $10.85 billion in 2003 from $8.31 billion in 2002, an increase of 30 per cent.

The company has made India its export hub to Asian countries excluding Pakistan. Samsung is targeting exports of Rs80 crore, Rs90 crore and is looking to export to the CIS and SAARC countries. The company clocked exports worth Rs40 crore last year.
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Foreign firms keen on investing in Bengal, says CM
Kolkata: According to the Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the West Bengal Government has received several proposals from foreign companies who are willing to join hands with the state authorities for infrastructure development projects.

He said several organisations from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore had submitted proposals for housing development projects and some are even willing to set up satellite townships. He said the government would take a final decision on this matter shortly
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Maxima Quartz to expand franchisee outlets
Mumbai: US-based watch company, Maxima Quartz plans to set up 100 franchisee outlets across the country and add about 800 new watch models. The company is also exploring the possibility of introducing two new brands. The company plans to enter the mid and the premium segment of watches.

At present, the company has three company-owned outlets and about seven franchisee outlets. The company would add two new units to its currently existing seven manufacturing units by the end of 2004-05, he said, adding that the company was looking to export to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Africa and South American countries. The company plans to increase the share of exports in its turnover to 40 per cent from the present 20 per cent in next two years.
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Daimler initiates campaign against fake brands Pune: DaimlerChrysler India has initiated a campaign in India aimed at protecting the image of brand to ensure genuine quality parts and accessories of Mercedes-Benz vehicles. This is part of an ongoing global campaign. Recent raids across Pune, Mumbai and Delhi have revealed the presence of counterfeit spares, components, machinery and parts as well as Formula-1 apparel. Counterfeit Mercedes-Benz parts were being 'manufactured' and sold with false trademarks and batch-numbers.

These counterfeit parts were distributed through illegal channels in the national and international markets. Officials said the counterfeit parts market in India is alarming and proliferation of spurious auto parts has also resulted in erosion of the market base for OEMS. This also affected customers as it led to reduced fuel efficiency, increase in pollution and shorter life span of the vehicle apart from risk of road accidents due to poor performance of safety-sensitive auto components.
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Tata Steel among world's most respected cos
Kolkata: Tata Steel figures among the world's most respected companies for corporate social responsibility in a survey, jointly conducted by Financial Times and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Tata Steel is the only Indian company to feature in the list and stands at the 34th rank. It has also been declared the joint third most respected Indian company after Hindustan Lever and Telco. The survey which is the sixth annual global survey of corporate reputation drew on views of over 1,000 CEOs across 20 countries and selected a cross-section of fund managers, NGOs and media communicators to show which companies were setting pace in building 'reputational capital.'
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SET India to launch new channel
Kolkata: SET India is launching a new, 24-hour satellite pay channel Animax. The new channel targeted at kids and young adults is a property of Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks. The last channel to be launched by SET India was Sony MAX around five years back. Animax, which draws blood from the Japanese animation genre, 'anime', is a frontline channel in Japan, Southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia and Taiwan.

The channel will be launched in India July this year and will be launched as a dedicated India feed, dubbed both in Hindi and English. The One Alliance package covers the basket of SET channels, Discovery, Animal Planet, NDTV 24x7 and NDTV India. Recently, the MTV and Nickelodeon channels have also come aboard the Alliance platform. The Animax Asia brand will have sports programme slots like Kids Hour , Youth Hour, Mega Zone, Super Maniax and Weekend.
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