Aquaguard-on-the-Go: Purified Water Anywhere Anytime

Abstract

Shapoorji Pallonji Group’s Eureka Forbes has reached 15 million customers in 550 cities of India and 35 countries globally (Sharma, 2014). Harvard Business Review has cited Eureka Forbes among six most successful sales and marketing companies in the world (Legal Era, 2012). This home appliances company has expanded its footprint by introducing a mobile water purifier Aquaguard-on-the-Go under the brand Aquaguard. Marzin R. Shroff, Eureka Forbes CEO, has claimed that Aquaguard-on-the-Go is ‘an important milestone in the history of brand Aquaguard which will take their market leadership in India to the next level’ (Business Line, 2014). The company is excited about this product, but the question is how the company should reach target customers of this product in Indian market.

Keywords

Aquaguard Aquaguard-on-the-Go AquaSure Eureka Forbes portable water purifier

Introduction to the Indian Water Purification Industry

In India, approximately 85 per cent of water is utilized for irrigation, 10 per cent is used by municipality, industries and in construction work, and only 5 per cent is consumed for drinking (Press Trust of India, 2012). Furthermore, around 70 per cent of water supplied in India is sewage effluent and groundwater which is considered to be unsafe for drinking as it contains fluoride, salinity, iron and arsenic more than the tolerance level. These impurities have been found in every third of 600 districts in India (Cottney, 2014). Electrical and non-electrical purifiers are available in market to remove these impurities from water. In this scenario, overall water purifier industry is growing at the rate of 25 per cent per year (Press Trust of India, 2012), and home water purifier industry is also on rise at the rate of 20 per cent per year (Value Notes, 2014).

Eureka Forbes

Eureka Forbes, pioneer in direct selling in India, deals in domestic and industrial water purification systems. The company has started its operations since 1982 and has a turnover of US$261 million with 15 million customer base in India (Tech247news, 2014). The company is providing solutions across 1,800 cities and towns in India through strong network of 15,000 dealers (Eureka Forbes, 2015a).

Eureka Forbes offers water purifiers, vacuum cleaners, air purifier, solar lighting and fire extinguishers to its customers. The company is consistently working on providing solution according to the need of consumers and marked its presence on various platforms such as retail, e-tail, rural, institutional, community and franchisee (Ravikumar, 2014). Company sells its water purifiers in Indian market through two brands: Aquaguard and AquaSure. Initially, Eureka Forbes started selling its water purifiers under the brand name of Aquaguard. Aquaguard is a direct selling platform of Eureka Forbes. Eurochamps, the salesmen of Eureka Forbes, use knock-on-doors-and-sell strategy to sell its products such as water purifiers, vacuum cleaners and air purifiers. Aquaguard as water purifier brand has helped Eureka Forbes in achieving 58 per cent and 57 per cent market share in term of volume which has mounted its recall among customers up to 92 per cent (Gangal, 2015). Similar to Aquaguard, Eureka Forbes also introduced a fighter brand AquaSure in 2005 to provide affordable water solutions to target customers. Through AquaSure brand, company sells its product in Indian market using channel sales. Apart from these channels, Aquaguard and AquaSure sell their products through common online channels as well (Chatterjee, 2010).

As far as the preference of customers is concerned, approximately 162,000 doctors and 15 million mothers have chosen Aquaguard as most trusted purifier among all other available brands in market. This brand of Eureka Forbes is also endorsed by the Indian Medical Academy and achieved Super Brand Award, Water Digest Award and Readers Digest Trusted Brand awards (Eureka Forbes, 2015a).

Aquaguard-on-the-Go

Approximately, 10 million travellers fall sick every year with gastrointestinal distress resulting in diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid and hepatitis (CG NewsDesk, 2014). Bacteria and virus found in polluted water is the root cause for such health problems. To meet the need of purified water outside home, Eureka Forbes has introduced its one of its kind portable non-electric purifier Aquaguard-on-the-Go (Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StHEHUoj8dE). Aquaguard-on-the-Go is an affordable and adaptable purifier that enables safe drinking water anytime anywhere (Ganesh, 2014). It is easy to use purifier and beneficial for travellers, school/college going children, and sports enthusiasts (Business Line, 2014). This economical personal purifier is the result of 7 years rigorous research and is expected to be a game changer for Indian water purification industry. The purification process of Aquaguard-on-the-Go is 100 per cent chemical free and removes 99.9 per cent bacteria and virus from contaminated water. The Bureau of Indian Standard has certified the quality of Aquaguard-on-the-Go’s purified water with IS 10500:1991 Standards (Chowdhry, 2014).

The market cost of Aquaguard-on-the-Go is around US$8.6 only, and can purify approximately 600 litres of water. Thus, the small pocket purifier provides purified water at the cost of US$0.01 per litre. Depending on the use, the cartridge of this purifier can be changed on the cost US$6.7 (Pani, 2014). Its cartridge life last up to 600 fills and contains a natural shut-off which slowly reduces the flow of water indicating that the cartridge life is over and need to be changed. This cartridge is certified by the Water Quality Association (WQA) that is US certified water testing laboratory. This purifier bottle is also found suitable for input water having total dissolved salts (TDS) up to 500 parts per million (PPM). It is very easy to use and can decontaminate any type of water. The company claims that the plastic used in this bottle is nontoxic and has antimicrobial properties. This purifier is available in four colours, that is, black mystery, pink beauty, pearl white and racy blue. The functioning of this purifier is very simple and the purified water, filled in this bottle, can be consumed immediately (Eureka Forbes, 2015b).

Competing Options: LifeStraw

LifeStraw (http://lifestraw.com/) is a portable purifier that can remove harmful bacteria from contaminated water and make it drinkable. This chemical free purifier retails for US$19.95 and can filter up to 1,000 litres of water (Cerra, 2011). It can remove 99.9 per cent waterborne protozoan and bacteria from contaminated water (Marshall, 2011). Its parent company, Vestergaard Frandsen, claimed it as a user-friendly purifier that is valuable for consuming purified water during mountaineering, camping, travelling and in emergency. It can be used by placing the tube into contaminated water and sucking purified water from top of the tube (Vestergaard, 2015). LifeStraw is not very popular among Indian customers. In India, it is available from Amazon.com.

Challenges Ahead

Aquaguard, one of the successful water purifier brands, has helped Eureka Forbes in achieving huge share in water purifier market. Considering the increased need of purified water among every segment, the company has introduced a portable purifier Aquaguard-on-the-Go. The product is looking promising and do not have any competition in Indian market. Thus, it has great chance to enjoy its leadership in the Indian Water Purification Industry. However, most important challenge for Eureka Forbes is to formulate successful marketing strategy for Aquaguard-on-the-Go as the target audience will not be similar to that of usual water purifiers. So, the question arises that what should be the go-to market strategy of the company for its mobile purifier? Should the focus be more on indirect channel or direct? How to decide price and promotion?

Footnotes

Note

References

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