National Food

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

Allah Almighty:

First of all I am thankful to God who gave me strength to work and due to His blessings
finally I am able to complete this project on time.

“Praise to be ALLAH, Lord of the worlds, the beneficent, the merciful,

Lord of the Day of Judgment, thee (alone) we worship, and Thee
(alone) we ask for help. Show us the straight path, the path of those
whom thou hast favored. Not the path of those who earn thine wrath
nor of those who go astray.”

Mr. Jahangir Sadiq:

I would like to thank my respected teacher for giving me this opportunity to work for
the National food project. In this project I learned a great deal about the marketing
concepts that I have been studying.

My Parents:

I am also very thankful to my parents who support me in every walk of life and always
encourage me to work hard. No one can survive without the prayers of his\her mother. I
am very thankful to my mother specially and I wish her a long life.

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About The National Foods:

National Foods is a well-known name in market. It was founded in 1970 and started out
as a Spice company. 3 decades later it has diversified into a versatile Food Company with
over 150 and above products and 100 and above SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit) for the
domestic market and over 100 different products for the international markets.

The vision to see National Foods as a professionally managed Human Resource

company, set more then 7 years ago, was realized by transforming a local company into a
very dynamic and progressive management structure in line with industry practices.
Competent Human Resources from within the company have fuelled tremendous growth
by excelling in Functional Management. Even after 3 decades the company's focal point
still remains on Customer's needs through Product development in line with the
changing market trends.

In this innovative age of ever changing lifestyles, fuelled by the rampant development of
technology; consumers have been compelled to change their eating habits. National
Foods responds to this challenge of developing innovative food products based on
convenience and fast preparation in line with modern lifestyles and yet retains traditional
values through its impressive collection of food products.

The brand delivers its ultimate promise by consistently delivering value to its consumers.
National Foods enriches family relationships by bringing people together for family
traditions, feasts, and seasonal holidays and of course - everyday life.

We bring value to all our customers by enriching their experience of using our products in
ways that help them become the center of attraction for their family that wins praise
every time.

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Company Mission:
 To deliver consistent quality to our customers using pure ingredients,
authentic recipes and the best available technology

 Dedicated to continuous improvement through active alliances with

international companies to expand technological and product horizons

 To maintain close and direct contact with our customers through consumer
insights and dedicated service

 To provide external and internal customer service by excelling in functional

management

 To promote professionalism at all levels through education, training and

development for all human resources

 To deliver annually a fair return to our valued investors and shareholders in

line with industry and economy

Vision Statement:
 To be an innovative, marketing and research oriented company
 To be a leader and take advantage of our leadership position in all categories of
products
 To develop products in line with market potential through the means of
indigenous technology using R&D
 Market our products globally

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 To target innovative segments of the food market

 To become a global brand

Launching A New Product:

These are the questions which one should ask him self while launching a new product.

 Who are our customers?

 What benefits are we going to give to our customers?
 What feelings do we want to evoke in our customers?
 What action are we trying to generate from our customers?
 How are we different from our competitors?

Keeping in mind all these questions, We, National foods has a R&D team who work on
all these issues and then bring a new trend in market. We always look for the customer’s
benefits and quality products.

Product Specification:
Home cooked meals are a daily tradition in Pakistani homes. Meals that calls for hours of
preparation in chopping, peeling and grinding. Frying onions and tomatoes. Now National
has simplified this entire process into three simple steps with the introduction of a
complete recipe cooking paste. Just add meat, cook and voila, enjoy some of Pakistan’s
most delicious cuisine.

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Product Brand:
As National food is a known name in market, it
has already different brands in market like Jams,
ketchup, Achar, Kheer mix, Custared powder, etc.
Now National food is introducing a new brand
named Rivaaj.

National food is introducing the six different

Rivaaj pastes.

Biryani Paste

Bombay Biryani Paste

Karahi Paste

Quorma Paste

Shahi Curry Paste

Chicken Jalfrezi Paste

Product marketing strategy:

 Raise consumer brand awareness, excitement and involvement
 Promote a special offer or incentive
 Stimulate product sampling and trial
 Demonstrate product/service benefits
 Generate in-store or online site traffic
 Stimulate media interest and industry buzz

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Marketing mix
Four Ps are the most important factors for any company in making the marketing plan. To
be specific, these 4 Ps are

1) Product - your product(s)and services

2) Price - what you'll charge customers for products and services
3) Place (distribution) - how you will bring your product(s) together with your customers
4) Promotion - how you will promote or create awareness of your product in the
marketplace

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Now we discuss each of these Ps regarding National food. Each of 4 Ps has significant
importance and each will be discussed separately.

Product:
Product is a term covering goods , services , places , persons and ideas .

Design and physical characteristics:

We are introducing a radical design that hasn’t been introduced in the market so
far. It will be a multi shades rapper, which has cooking paste inside. Just add meat, cook
and voila, enjoy some of Pakistan’s most delicious cuisine.

Price:

Keeping in view the economic conditions of the country and the purchasing
power of the people it won’t wise of to introduce a very expensive product specially
when introducing a new product so our product’s price will be affordable for all the
classes of people . from middle class to elite class .

Quality:

Price and quality go side by side normally the thing that happens is that most of
the low prices goods are poor in quality but as we are introducing a new product so our
first main objective to pant our foot in the market so we won’t go for higher profit but we
will go for better quality in low price.

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Classification of product :

As we all know that there are two types of products :

1) Consumer goods
2) Business goods

Our product will fall in the category of consumer goods .

Classification of consumer goods:

Consumer goods can be divided into following categories:

1) Convenience goods
2) Shopping goods
3) Specialty goods
4) Unsought goods

Convenience:

Our product falls in the category of convenience goods, these includes the
goods for which the customer doesn’t have to put a lot efforts.
Products like shaving creams, toothpastes and food items fall in the category of
convenience goods

Product development:
Product development procedure includes the logical sequence of
one-time activities.

The activities include:

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 Idea generation
 Screening of idea
 Business analysis
 Prototype development
 Market testing
 Commercialization

Idea generation:

Idea should be innovative it should something which hasn’t been

introduced the market before, our idea of a complete recipe cooking paste is a radical
idea, although there are powders available in market but our trend of cooking paste is a
new trend, now no need to make paste of powder, just open the packet and use it.

Screening of idea:

Screening is done by management on the basis of experience .we have

experienced staff in this field, which will screen out the idea.

Business analysis:

The screened idea is then expanded in the form business proposal. In

this step we analyze whether we’ll be able to implement the idea or not.
So in our products business analysis we’ll keep in view product classification, product
characteristics, market segmentation.
We’ll analyze our products markets on the basis of our target. We will definitely target the
elite class of the society first because of their buying practices and their behavior.
Our target market is mainly the ladies specially house wives.

Prototype development:

Prototyping is developing of a product as a sample. If the business

analysis comes out to be successful then we make a sample or prototype.

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Market testing:

This is the most important stage for the product development. After
making the prototype, we start to market the sample on test basis. We can market it on big
stores with something for free so that the customer can get used to it. Or we can market
our samples through our own stalls in big stores.
By doing this we can gather the response of the customers.
If the test doesn’t come out to be successful we can go back the problem area that is on
any previous step that we have performed before this.

Commercialization:

Next comes the launch stage of the product, and this is done after
receiving the good response. If the response is successful we’ll go for full scale
production. There’s no concept of half scale production when it comes to market the
product.

Product adoption:

Product adoption phase includes the following steps:

 Awareness
 Interest
 Evaluation
 Trial
 Adoption
 Confirmation

Awareness :
For a product to be successful we should generate awareness amongst the
people. The awareness can be before the, launch of the product or may be after.

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And the best way to generate the awareness is through proper marketing and
advertisement.

Interest:
As it happens not all the people of the target market will get interested so we have
to develop the interest amongst the people, and this will again be done through proper
marketing, as our target market is ladies, so we would market our product by giving the
proper incentive because the house wives are attract by incentives. We can hire people to
stand on our stalls who will promote the product with proper advertisement.

Evaluation:

Next phase in product adoption is the evaluation; the prospects that showed
interest in our product will now judge our product on the basis of price, quality and
advantages as well. This the phase in which the prospects compare different products as
we have produced a quality product with low price so our product will definitely have an
edge over the other products available in market.

Trial:

If the prospect’s evaluation comes out to be positive then comes the trial phase in
which he buys the new product on trial basis. This is where the success story of any new
product starts, that is if he was to buy 4 food powders for the whole month then he would
try our new paste for the delicious food as well.

Adoption:

Next is the adoption phase and this is more of the monitoring phase on the part of
the company because they keep the track of the customers that have bought the product
and check if the sales are increasing then it means that the product is being adopted by
the customers.

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Confirmation:
If we like the new product then we recommend others to buy it and this
will result in more sales.

Adoption categories:
1) Early adopters
2) Late adopters

Early adopters:

They include innovators and early adopters; innovators are the groups of
people who are the first ones to adopt any new product or style. Although they are very
less in percentage but they hold the key to products success because they lay the basis for
the rest of the people falling in this category, which are the early adopters, and early
majority people. Both of the last two groups in this category belong to more or less the
middle class society of our country and this is a huge group to target.
The center of our target will be the innovators because they are from elite class of the
society, which are not afraid to experiment, and if we managed to home them, we can
easily capture the other groups as well.

Late adopters:

Although they comprise of the 50 % of the total adopters but there

response towards the adoption is extremely slow. They include the common man of our
society who doesn’t have enough money to experiment. And it also includes the group of
people called laggards. They are the last ones to adopt any new product; the reason may
be due to their brand loyalty. So in the beginning they may not be in our target group but
with continued advertising and marketing campaigns we can make them adopt our
product too.

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Pricing:
This is another very important aspect in marketing a product. Because most of the people
in our country adopt or buy any product because of its low price and high quality so our
main objective is to make a low price and high quality product.

Selecting the pricing objective:

Every firm has it’s own pricing objective it may either may
to.

 Survive in the market

 To maximize their profits
 Market share maximization
 Market leadership

Well the pricing objective of our company in the beginning would be to capture mass
amount of market share because if we manage to do so then automatically with the
passage of time we can become the market leaders and can maximize our profits.

Determining demand:

The determination of market demand is another very important

factor in pricing, the demand can be either elastic or inelastic .
I think the demand our kind of products is elastic because there are a lot substitutes
available in terms of other food mix of other company. So if we introduce a high price
product the greater chances are that our product won’t be very successful.

Estimating cost:

This is the most important step in pricing, and is a combination of fixed

cost and variable cost.

Total cost =fixed cost +variable cost

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Fixed cost:

This is the one time cost and will only be extended when we are to extend
the business. It includes the cost of machinery, land, and setting up of infrastructure etc…

Variable cost:

This includes the cost on monthly and daily basis like raw material, labor,
printing, utility bills, printing, promotional budget etc …

Analyzing the competitors price:

Another important phase in pricing of the product is to
determine the competitors price we can set the price either close to competitor, higher
than the competitor or lower than the competitor.
As our main objective is to introduce a quality product with lower price so we can set the
price close to our biggest competitor that will be the market leader.

Selecting the pricing method:

Pricing can be of two types.

1) Cost oriented pricing

2) Retrograde pricing

We will go for retrograde pricing because there are a lot of alternatives available and
competitors are also there in the market. We have to establish our selves in the market so
it will be better to set the market price and then analyze it whether it is suitable or not
after taking out the profit margin.

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PLACE:
Determining the place is very important process because it is the distribution channel, and
the role of distribution channel is to take the product to its target market. Company
decides how, when, how much quantity and where to place the product so that it is easily
accessible to the customers.
Our target is to sell our product in almost all the big cities of Pakistan, but we will take
start from Karachi.

Distribution Channel
Role of Distribution Channel:

Middleman is of lot of concern for the distribution of our product. Middle man
involvement is necessary for our product because our product is not that kind of in which
we direct contact with end user, so that’s why we need the role of middle man which
specifies the role of our distribution channel.

Type of Distribution Channel:

Our product is a consumer good. So our distribution chain is:

Producer Wholesaler Retailers End user/Consumer

This distribution chain will be for Karachi. In Karachi those wholesalers will be selected
who deal with the major markets and big stores of all the parts of Karachi.

Producer Agents Wholesaler Retailers Consumer

This distribution chain will be used out side Karachi for different other cities. From
where agents will be used to distribute our product in different other cities.

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Intensity of Distribution Channel:

We can say that intensity of our distribution channel will be selective, so that we can
spread our product throughout Karachi. Because our goal is to capture the maximum
share of market.

PROMOTION:
Promotion is to inform, persuade and remind a market of a product an organization is
selling in a hope to influence customer feelings and buying behavior.
By adopting the promotional method we want to inform the market about our new
product, with the hope that it will influence the customer feelings and buying behavior.

Promotional Strategy:
Both pull strategy and push strategy will be executed to make a good image in the minds
of consumers and to promote the sale.

Push Strategy:
For an effective push strategy wholesalers and retailers will be advised to increase the
sale of our product. For this purpose we will offer them different incentives and good
profit margins so that they convince their customers to buy our products.

Pull Strategy:

Through advertisement on different Medias and promotional campaigns we will make an

image in the minds of end user about our product. Because we are launching a new
product in the market and there are number of competitors in the market, so emphasis is
to capture the maximum market share. We will concentrate on our pull strategy so that we
can make leader in the market of this kind of product.

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Promotional Campaign:
A survey conducted by National food advertising agency owned by company itself shows
that correct media selection has helped company achieving communication goal. As a
combination of different types of media used (TV, Radio, Newspaper) by national food,
50-70 % people are accessed out of whole population of Pakistan.
National food spends lots of efforts on promotion of its products as management thinks it
is the essence of marketing that you communicate effectively with your target customers.

Following campaigns will be used for the promotion of our product.

Sales Promotion:

Advertisement will be done in such a way that people will be waiting anxiously for our
product. We will start giving a surprise to people that something useful for them is
coming to serve them. We will adopt this way because our product is going to be
launched for the first time in the market.
We will also use billboards to promote our product.

Newspapers:

We know that newspaper is very effective and inexpensive media to convey the message
to target market. Newspapers will be extensively used to promote our product. General
awareness and advantages of our products will be given to the prospect users.

Seminars:

To start with an effective sales promotion some introductory seminars will be conducted.
In which all the wholesalers will be invited from different parts of City and Country.
They will be introduced with our product and sales and promotional plans. We will brief
them about the incentives we are going to offer them. We will convince them about the
strength of our product.

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Television (telemarketing):

We know that TV is very effective media now days. We can convey our message to all
the prospects very effectively. Different ads and commercials will be run at different
times preferably during family programs (dramas). To use TV intensively is our long term
strategy, which will last the image of our product in the minds of customers for a long
span of time.

Public relation and Publicity:

Doctors will be invited in the TV advertisement. They will discuss about our product
because this product related to food so this could convince to the health conscious people.
Through Doctors we will generate the idea about our product that how much it is
necessary in our daily life. Through this we will establish an effective link between our
product and user.
Our relation campaign will also target different cooking schools to generate awareness
about the use of our product. We will try to make ladies our advocates.

National food also arranges different types of funfairs, cat walks, cooking competition,
kids show, singing competition etc… to promote its products and invoke the interest
among people.

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External environments
Demographics:

As we all know that the size of population and the growth rate in our
country is very healthy so it means we won’t have future threats regarding the less growth
rate, because if the growth rate of the country is low the company may have problems is
selling their product in future. Age distribution won’t be a problem as well because our
main target market is ladies and we all know that there’s no shortage of young aged ladies
in our country, house hold size may cause a bit of concern to our product because the
lesser the house hold pattern the higher would be the sales.

Economic conditions:

Economic conditions won’t have a great deal of effect on our

product because we are only dealing a small product which is of daily use, the only things
that will effect our product economically would be the price and government taxes.
Because as we all know our per capita income is very low so introducing a very costly
product won’t be successful in order to gain a bigger market share. Plus the greater the
government taxes the lesser would be the profit margin.

Competition:

Competitors are always the biggest threat to any product this threat could
be in terms of brand competition, substitutes, image competition and rival companies.
Although the product, which we are introducing, is new in it’s kind although there are a
lot of food powders that are for food but this will be unique in it’s kind because it is a
new trend in paste form. We are increasing the product line of an organization so
definitely our company already possesses an image in the market. Although there are a lot
of substitute brands that have powders in the market and would give us tough time but the
competition will be only in terms of powder mix and not the other features.

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Social and cultural forces:

We won’t have to fight against the social or cultural norms of

the society because there’s no opposition to the rivaaj paste, everyone uses different
masala mix in his house. Our geography, norms, values, climate, traditions etc … does
not posses any opposition to this .

Political and legal forces:

Political and legal forces will affect our product. For instance if
the government is business oriented then definitely they would promote the business, the
government would give more incentives to business companies in order to boost the
economy. The incentives could be the in the form of less wealth taxes etc…

Technology:

Technology plays a very vital role in the product success .use of technology
helps in attracting people and making a better quality product.
We will definitely use the latest technology, and in our product the use to technology will
be in making product design and logo. In the beginning we hire some company to print
our logo and design. But later on we can develop our own printing section.

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Internal environments
Human resources:

Human resources include the social capital that we hire for our
company, the employee that we hire are skilled and experienced because we are
launching a new product so we need to have experienced staff which can help us in
achieving our objectives in less time. National food has its proper R&D team who works
only on the product development and to maintain the quality as well.

Financial resources:
Arrangement of finance is a core issue, and for that we won’t rely
totally on private capital because a large amount of money will be required so we will
take loan as well.

Information resources:

Information about the market when introducing a new product

plays a very vital role in the success or failure of the product. Right kind of knowledge
and information about the market leads to success, information can be in terms of
competitors, and the people of our target market.
The best information source will be through communication with the normal people that
kind of paste does they like and as our target market mainly are ladies so definitely they
would go for something attractive.

Customers:
All the companies have to keep updated study of their customers and in case of National
food the company has always maintained excellent customer retention. Value of
customers for National food can be understood by the factors that National food spends
lot of efforts (financial and human resource) on customer research.

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Intermediaries:
Marketing intermediaries help the company to promote, sell and distribute its goods to
the end users. Intermediaries include resellers, distribution firms and marketing agencies.
All over Pakistan National food has strong dealers network that are working constantly to
provide National food products as well as taking care of after sales services.

SWOT Analysis:

SWOT analysis plays an important role to evaluate the performance of any organization.
This is most commonly followed set pattern to analyze the strength, weakness,
opportunities and threats. For any company strength and weakness are internal elements
and threats and opportunities always come from outside the organization.

Now we perform a detailed SWOT analysis considering the National foods.

Strengths:

• Broad product line:

National food has very broad product line that includes different types of Masala
powders, Kheer mix, Ketchup, Custared powder, Pastes, Achar and many more..

• Broad Market Coverage:

National food occupies 80% market share in powder mix market and one very obvious
reason for that is strong and very broad market coverage. According to Sales and
purchase Manager National food, they have excellent market coverage all over Pakistan
and citizens of each city have easy access to sales and display centers.

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• Manufacturing Competence:

National food has engineering and technical staff of the highest caliber that is capable of
manufacturing such products that differentiates National food products from its
competitors. National food posses specific manufacturing competence for example use of
imported machinery and a high quality ingredients in manufacturing of powder mix that
maintain the quality of product.

• Good Marketing Skills:

National food’s efficient marketing team in Pakistan has over the years played a crucial
role in developing public awareness. National food has its own in-house advertising
agency for promoting all National food’s products.

• Enhanced Research and Development:

National food emphasizes on Research and Development department to a great deal.

Chief executive of National food has hired a team of R & D himself and he makes sure
that on going improvements in the existing National food products range is a continuous
activity. Efficient R and D department is considered as a vital strength of company.

• Brand Name Reputation:

National food is among those few brand names that have earned a lot on the basis of its
brand reputation. However the fact is that company has seen tiring 34 years of hard work
to achieve this brand image. Brand name is a source of vital strength for the company and
is known all over the market place.

• Appropriate Organizational Structure:

Organizational hierarchy at National food is very functional and appropriate. Company

top management consists of the Chief executive and Managing director. Then there are
middle managers of concerned departments like Marketing, Production, R&D and
Finance.

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Company believes strongly on good relationship with its human resource.

• Good finance Management:

Finance department of National food is efficiently working to allocate resources to each

of its business portfolio. Good finance management is yet another strength of company
that is helping company out in assessing the exact financial situation.

Weakness:

Currently National food is operating with its full capabilities and Company’s sales
manager does not think that there is any internal weakness in the organization. Because
Company has a good repute in market and working with full concentration to improve its
image in the minds of people.

Opportunities:

• Expanding into foreign markets:

The biggest opportunity for National food currently is exploiting new market segments.
After achieving good market coverage all over Pakistan, National food is now trying to
expand its business in Middle East and Central Asian states.

• Expansion of core business:

National food started as powder mix producers but soon after gaining rapid market shares
in powder mix, Company considered expansion of core business as a major opportunity.
Today Company has wide range of products that it has achieved by expanding the core
business.

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• Entering Related Business

Entering those new businesses that are related to current business is a high potential
opportunity. For example company has entered the related businesses like Kheer mix,
Ketchup, Custared powder, Pastes, Achar and many other things.

Threats:
• New Entrants:

The biggest threat for the Company has been the entry of new competitors in the
market has made National food management think that they will have to adjust the
pricing or to provide some handsome incentives to customers in competition with
other brands in market because Company does not want to lose its market share.

• No barriers on Entry:

Government has not fixed any hard rules upon the entrants in this industry. Any group of
companies that is financially strong can enter this industry without facing any strict
barriers. This is another threat for National food that more and more entrants coming in
this industry and the profit margin shrinking gradually.

• New form of Industry competition:

In Pakistan, some other companies like Star has started competing National food with its
Custared powder and Achar. It has formed a new form of industry competition. Star is
producing its products at a cheaper price and price war is already on.

• Government Legislation:

The production department of National food uses special machinery that has to be
imported from abroad. Government has fixed a quota system that company cannot import

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it more than a specific ratio. This quota system is creating a threat for company and soon
company needs to find an alternative.

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