Distribution Supply Chain Management of Amul
Distribution Supply Chain Management of Amul
Distribution Supply Chain Management of Amul
Management of Amul
SUBMITTED BY
Supreet Chabra 03
Vikas Lulla 05
Nisha Nihalani 08
Neeta Nihalani 07
THE COMPANY
AMUL means "priceless" in Sanskrit. A quality control expert in Anand suggested the
brand name “Amul,” from the Sanskrit “Amoolya,” Variants, all meaning "priceless", are
found in several Indian languages. Amul products have been in use in millions of homes
since 1946. Amul Butter, Amul Milk Powder, Amul Ghee, Amul spray, Amul Cheese,
Amul Chocolates, Amul Shrikhand, Amul Ice cream, Nutramul, Amul Milk and Amulya
have made Amul a leading food brand in India. (Turnover: Rs. 25 billion in 2002). Today
Amul is a symbol of many things. Of high-quality products sold at reasonable prices, of
the genesis of a vast co-operative network, of the triumph of indigenous technology, of
the marketing savvy of a farmers' organization and have a proven model for dairy
development.
Breadspreads:
• Amul Butter
• Amul Lite Low Fat Breadspread
Cheese Range:
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• Amul Chocolate Milk
• Amul Fresh Cream
• Amul Snowcap Softy Mix
Pure Ghee:
Milk Powders:
Fresh Milk:
Curd Products:
Amul Icecreams:
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• Nature's Treat (Alphanso Mango, Fresh Litchi, Anjir, Fresh Strawberry, Black
Currant)
• Sundae Range (Mango, Black Currant, Chocolate, Strawberry)
• Millennium Icecream (Cheese with Almonds, Dates with Honey)
• Milk Bars (Chocobar, Mango Dolly, Raspberry Dolly, Shahi Badam Kulfi, Shahi
Pista Kulfi, Mawa Malai Kulfi, Green Pista Kulfi)
• Cool Candies (Orange, Mango)
• Cassatta
• Tricone Cones (Butterscotch, Chocolate)
• Megabite Almond Cone
• Frostik - 3 layer chocolate Bar
• Fundoo Range - exclusively for kids
• SlimScoop Fat Free Frozen Dessert (Vanilla, Banana, Mango, Pineapple)
Brown Beverage:
Amul Plants
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THE CHANNEL NETWORK
Procurement Channel (Upstream flow)
Distribution GCMMF
Head office
MU…1 MU...n
VCS…1 VCS…n
Village…1 Village…n
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THE ANAND PATTERN
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This structure consists of a Dairy Cooperative Society at the village level affiliated to a
Milk Union at the District level which in turn is further federated into a Milk Federation
at the State level.
3. Dairy federations
All the dairy unions are affiliated to the dairy federations. The main role of the
dairy federation is to provide R&D, marketing, distribution, pricing &
promotional support to the dairy unions.
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Distribution channel
GCMMF Manufacturing
Head office
Depot...1 Depot...n
Second leg
WD…1 WD…n
Third leg
Retail…1 Retail...n
Downstream flow
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The Distribution Network
Downstream Channel, it is the distribution part of the supply chain, from the
manufacturing units to the retailers.
• First leg of transport is from the manufacturing unit to the company depots. This
is done using 9 and 18 MT trucks any lesser quantity will be uneconomical to the
company there fore is some time the quantity ordered is lesser then club loading is
done which means that the product ordered is supplied with some other products.
• Frozen food the temperature of these trucks is kept below -18˚C
• Dairy wet the temperature of these trucks is kept between 0-4˚C
• Second leg is from the depot to the WD’s, this transport is carried out in
insulated 3 and 5 MT TATA 407’s here a permanent dispatch plan (PDP) is
prepared where the distributor plans out the quantity of various products to be
ordered on a particular date.
• Third leg this is the flow of good from WD’s to retailers, a beat plan is prepared
and transportation is done on auto-rickshaws, rickshaws and bicycles.
Amul products are available in over 500,000 retail outlets across India through its
network of over 3,500 distributors. There are 47 depots with dry and cold warehouses to
buffer inventory of the entire range of products.
GCMMF transacts on an advance demand draft basis from its wholesale dealers instead
of the cheque system adopted by other major FMCG companies. This practice is
consistent with GCMMF's philosophy of maintaining cash transactions throughout the
supply chain and it also minimizes dumping. All GCMMF branches engage in route
scheduling and have dedicated vehicle operations Depots with dry and cold warehouses
to buffer inventory of the entire range of products
Wholesale dealers carry inventory that is just adequate to take care of the transit time
from the branch warehouse to their premises. This just-in-time inventory strategy
improves dealers' return on investment (ROI). All GCMMF branches engage in route
scheduling and have dedicated vehicle operations.
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SCM AND MARKET LOGISTICS
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THE BUSINESS MODEL
The strategy, design and practices in AMUL’s network are strongly driven by the
objective of establishing and operating an efficient supply chain from milk production
and procurement to product delivery to customers. Management of this network is built
around two key elements –
1. Coordination of the diverse elements of the network and
2. Use of appropriate technology that includes product, process and information
technology and managerial practices and systems.
Simultaneous Development of Suppliers and Customers: From the very early stages
of the formation of AMUL, the cooperative realized that sustained growth for the long-
term was contingent on matching supply and demand. The member-suppliers were
typically small and marginal farmers with severe liquidity problems, illiterate and
untrained. AMUL and other cooperative Unions adopted a number of strategies to
develop the supply of milk and assure steady growth.
• First, for the short term, the procurement prices were set so as to provide fair and
reasonable return.
• Second, aware of the liquidity problems, cash payments for the milk supply was
made with minimum of delay.
For the long-term, the Unions followed a multipronged strategy of education and support.
Only part of the surplus generated by the Unions is paid to the members in the form of
dividends. A substantial part of this surplus is used for activities that promote growth of
milk supply and improve yields. These include provision of veterinary services, support
for cold storage facilities at the village societies etc. In parallel, the Unions have put in
place a number of initiatives to help educate the members.
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Employees, third part service providers, and distributors are constantly reminded that
they work for the farmers and the entire network strives to provide the best returns to the
farmers, the real owners of the cooperative. It may be remembered that coordination
mechanisms have to link the lives and activities of 2.12 million small suppliers and 0.5
million retailers!
There appear to be two critical mechanisms of coordination that ensure that decision
making is coherent and that the farmers gain the most from this effort.
These mechanisms are:
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The extent of IT usage includes a B2C ordering portal, an ERP based supply chain
planning system for the flow of material in the network, a net based dairy kiosk at some
village societies (for dissemination of dairy related information), automated milk
collection stations at village societies and a GIS based data network connecting villages
societies to markets. Milk collection information at more than 10,000 villages is available
to all dairies (or Unions) to enable them make faster decisions in terms of production &
distribution planning, and disease control in more than 6,700,000 animals. This is linked
with information at all 45 distribution offices and 3900 distributors. This network is
being extended to cover all related field offices in the network. The GCMMF cyber store
delivers AMUL products at the doorsteps of the consumers in 125 cities across the
country.
Now, going back to the supply chain of Amul, Amul has gone the e- commerce way. The
1st
initiatives taken for an ERP system was in ’94. Tata Consultancy Services was hired to
guide in
its implementation. The implementation project was named as Enterprise- wise
Integrated
Application System (EIAS). Automatic Milk Collection System units (AMCUS) at
village societies
were installed in the first phase to automate milk producers logistics. Amul also
connected its zonal
offices, regional offices and member’s dairies through VSATs for seamless exchange of
information. Amul is also using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for business
planning and
optimization of collection processes. Indian Institute of Management – Ahmedabad
supplemented
Amul’s IT strategy by providing an application software – Dairy Information System
Kiosk(DISK)
to facilitate data analysis and decision support in improving milk collection. There are
plans to
introduce features like Internet banking services and ATMs which will enable the milk
societies to
credit payments directly to the seller’s bank account. Distributors can place their orders
on the
website www.amul2b.com especially meant for accepting orders from stockists and
promoting
Amul’s products via e-commerce
TQM (Total quality management) at the grassroots has been a strong movement to
develop leadership, operational and strategic capabilities in the entire network – farmers,
village cooperatives, dairy plants, distributors and wholesalers and retailers. Key
elements of this TQM movement have been:
• Friday Departmental Meetings : Each Friday, at a prescribed time, every one in
the network (from the farmers to the carry & forwarding agents) joins their
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respective departmental meeting to discuss quality initiatives and share policy
related information.
• Training for Transformational Leadership so that individuals are able to
control their thoughts, feelings and behavior and take more responsibility in one’s
life and surrounding environment.
• Application of Hoshin Kanri principles to bring about a bottom-up setting of
objectives – aligning policies for effective management of Unions & village
societies on hand with those of channel member on the other hand. ISO/HACCP
certification was obtained for all the Unions and each village society is in the
process of obtaining the same.
• Training for farmers and their families emphasizing the need for good health
care for not only cattle during its pregnancy and feeding but also for expecting
and feeding mothers and the whole family. This effort has brought about a
significant social change towards such issues in villages that have cooperative
milk societies.
• Retail Census: GCMMF undertakes a census of all retail outlets (over 500,000)
to evaluate customer perceptions and distribution efficacy of their network. This
is being done by wholesalers in their respective territories at their own cost. This
information is used for policy deployment exercise.
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The network
Milk is procured from the villages and collected at Village Cooperative Societies (VCS),
from there the milk is taken to manufacturing units where the milk is processed into
various products.
The products are then transporters to the company Depots located in various parts of the
country. The products are then sent to Wholesale Distributors (WD) and from there to the
retailers.
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AMUL PARLOURS (DIRECT DISTRIBUTION)
With products being highly perishable, the supply chain ought to have to maintain correct
temperature, humidity etc and the chain should move fast.
To reach out its consumers more directly and let them the total brand experience, Amul
has come up with Amul parlors. These are called “Utterly delicious parlors”. They have
come up in major cities like Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Baroda, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad
and Surat already, and many more starting up real soon. Till date there are about 400
Amul parlors across the country. These parlors are set at prominent locations such as
campuses of Infosys, Wipro, IIM-A, IIT-B, temples, Metros etc.
Amul has franchisee plans in regards of the Amul parlors. This might start pretty soon,
since the talk is almost at the end.
Facts
– 2300 Amul Parlors in 2007-08
– Goal of setting up 10,000 outlets by March 2010
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Selection, Motivation & Evaluation of Channel Members
Selection:
The company takes into consideration a host of factors while selecting the channel
members. This is because GCMMF believes that selection of channel members is a long
run decision & the rest of the decision regarding the supply chain depends upon the
efficiency & coverage by the channel members. The following are the host of factors
considered by the company in selecting the channel members:
• Proof of solvency which requires name & address of the channel member’s bankers
• Safety of the inventory, which means that the distributor/ dealer should get the stock
of the company insured.
• Inventory or the perishable goods kept by the distributor/ dealer should be in good
condition which means a detail of storage space & Refrigeration facility is to be
provided. Refrigeration system should have deep freezers, cold room & walk in
coolers.
• Details of the delivery vehicle, which includes Light Commercial Vehicles, Matador,
3 Wheeler Van, Tricycle Van & Hand/Push cart. The number & model of each of the
vehicle needs to be furnished to the company.
• GCMMF acknowledges the fact that it needs to be sensitive to the market demands.
For this it requires that a number of salesmen needs to be present on the field. The
salesmen too are divided into various categories like the Field salesmen & Counter
salesmen. Also the details of Clerical Staff & Mazdoors are to be provided. The
technical competence of the salesmen needs to be mentioned
• Details of the product kept of other companies have to be provided. The annual sales
of these products too have to be mentioned. Also details of complementary products
& product lines need to be mentioned.
• Dealers of the company must carry a good reputation. This is due to the fact that the
company believes reputation of the dealer affects the clientele.
• The company also requires the dealers to furnish any Advertising & Sales initiative
undertaken by them on behalf of the company.
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Motivation of Channel Members
GCMMF strongly believes in maintaining a good relationship with the channel members
so that they are genuinely motivated to work for the company. Also if the channel
members are motivated, they can also initiate advertising & sales promotion schemes on
behalf of the company. However to keep the channel members motivated to work, the
company has to incur certain costs but the benefits of it are felt in the long run. The
following are the motivation programs run by the company:
Distributors
• One of the main factors, which keep the distributors motivated, is the margin. Usually
the margins offered by the company are 8% & it is raised to 8.5%. Volume wise this
comes out to be a big figure since Amul’s product has a good demand in the market.
However compared to the other companies the margins are still lower since the new
players in the market offer a much higher margin. But the very fact that Amul’s
products have good demand in the market motivates the distributors to stock it.
• Amul being a cooperative cannot afford to give heavy monetary incentives. Amul’s
products are considered to be value for money since the company does not believe in
charging high margins. In fact all monetary incentives are just the short run means to
promote the company’s product. In order to keep the Channel members motivated in
the long run, Amul builds on the concept of “Trade Marketing” which makes the
dealers & the distributors believe that the company’s products are worthy of being
pushed in the market.
• Vision and mission statement: the company cascades down the vision to the various
channel members, this is done through various events organized by the company at
different locations where the values of the company are made clear and enforced to
the channel members. Also the fact that Amul being a cooperative society cannot
afford to spend exorbitantly on such events therefore it has a very traditional way of
organizing these get together which leaves an impact on the members.
• Amul yatras: this includes taking the channel members on a guided tour of the
manufacturing and procuring facilities in Gujarat. So that the channel members can
have an experience of the working of the company and can pick up some quality
measures that can help them to synchronize and improve their own functioning at
various levels. This in turn help the company to co ordinate the entire value chain, as
the channel members understand the various constraints and liberties the company
goes through. The company has already got the Rajiv Gandhi award for quality.
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The Retailers
• Trade schemes: these are undertaken by the company only for the hard selling
items e.g. Ice creams, flavored milk etc. for these the company raises the margins by
2%, also schemes like good packaging incase of butter and cheese is undertaken by
the company. However this is only a short-term initiative to push the products of the
company.
• Glow boards: the company puts up glow boards at the retailer and pays the major
portion of the cost.
• Schedule of the salesmen: they provide the retails with this schedule so the
retailers can pre estimate the quantities of the various products needed.
• Beat plan: this plan is generated for the various product categories i.e. diary dry,
diary wet, Dhara and ice cream. A weekly schedule is prepared for various
markets and the retailers the turnover for each of the product is calculated for the
wholesale dealers.
• Target versus achievement: the performance and the targets are compared and
therefore the gaps are identified which help in evaluating the WD and planning
for the next year as well. This is done for each of the product category.
• Other criterion
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o Summary of the product wise monthly sales potential of institutions
Conflicts And Co-Operation Among Channel Members
Conflicts
• Stocking issues: The company doesn’t want the retailers to stock the competing
brand in the company leased fridges, which at times s hard to manage as retailers
tend to do it often.
• Credit policy: Compared to the market, the company’s credit period is less that
specially incase of institutional sales is very important.
• Packaging: The channel members for easy storing demand a better quality of
packaging.
• Margins: The Company provides least margins to all the channel members. For
e.g. The retailer’s margin in case of butter is 8% as compared to Britannia’s
12%
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Co-operation among channel members
• Amul quality circles: The members of the local channel meet together every
month to share issues and the achievements of the channel members. This is an
ongoing activity facilitated by the company offices in different locations; this
enables the channel members to learn together and reduces the horizontal
conflicts among the WDs.
• Pilot salesmen scheme: To reduce the financial burden of the distributors this
scheme is run whereby half the cost of the salesmen is born by the company and
the rest half by the distributor
• Scheduling of sales: The WD’s provides Schedule of the distributor’s sales men
to the retailers so that the retailers can plan out and place the orders in advance.
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OBSERVATION, COMMENTS AND SUGGESTION
Observations
• Amul has loyal cooperatives that provide milk only to them, over time the
relationship of trust has built up with these people that amul leverages now.
• Transport channel is another strength as the transporters have grown with the
company overtime the bonding with them enables the company to give least
margins when it comes to the distributors in the industry, lowering the costs.
• The company believes that there is an ongoing demand in the market and
therefore no promotions are needed to increase the sales, also the fact this would
affect the cost of the product the company doesn’t undertake many promotion
schemes.
• The not being a profit driven organization, is able to provide products at the least
price in the industry, and is able to give least channel margins as the channel
members earn through volumes and not through high margins.
• The company is enabled to push its new products into the market by hooking
them onto the fast moving products like Amul butter; they force the channel
members to carry the new products as well.
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Comments and Suggestion:
• Amul should go in for exclusive outlets in at least all the shopping malls coming
up these days and any location where footfalls are large in number. The
advantages of this channel will be:
• The company should start a home delivery where a particular household will
order full range of products required by it over a period of time. For this the
company could provide a deliveryman with cycle to reach the different houses.
• In order to motivate the channel members it is also very essential for the company
to increase the margins for the hard selling items e.g. Amul dahi where it faces
competition from Nestle & Mother dairy.
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