Hardeep Chopra, was the Sales Director- India, in a multinational into kitchen appliances. The company was a market leader and had its distinguished presence in 13 countries, with a turnover of €220 million. In India, the company had a strong network of over 100 distributors and 2,000 retailers.

To grow the market share in India, Hardeep used to track the domestic market meticulously. He regularly studied the information obtained from a local market survey agency. But their reports seemed to have a missing link, as the reports consistently ranked them as the leader in their product range, but their internal audit showed stagnant growth in India.

This has been going on for a few quarters now, and questions were being raised, as India was a huge consumption success story. There was clearly some gap in the reports that the local market research company was providing.

Hardeep, shared his dilemma with a friend, Sameer who was heading supply chain in another consumer durable multinational. He advised him to study Indian import report on chimneys. For which he suggested Infodrive India. He asked him to compare it with the reports from their existing market research company.

Taking Sameer’s advice, Hardeep got connected with Raakesh Saraff, Director, Infodrive India.

After listening to Hardeep, Raakesh assured,

“I understand, but do not worry, give me a day, I am sure we will find an answer. We have helped many of the leading brands in a situation like yours, with the help of our India import intelligence reports, our clients have been able to create the right strategy and grow their business.

Raakesh dedicated a team to get the relevant data and prepare dashboards, that best suited Hardeep’s needs. He assorted all the shipments of the listed products, models and prepared charts based on the importers, price bands, volumes and ports.

Within 48 hours, Hardeep had the report, He was very impressed with the crisp charts he had received, clearly and neatly placed needful data on the pie charts. In a glance he could compare the volumes and products imported by their competitors as well.

And what did he find out? His worst fears came true, volumes reported by Infodrive India reports were double, compared with the reports sourced from local agency. Although Hardeep’s company was one of the leading importers of kitchen hoods in India, Hardeep observed a shocking pattern, he could identify three competitor companies importing large volumes of these products. It was quite alarming, as they were lagging by a large number. He was finding it hard to believe these numbers and called Raakesh.

“Raakesh, your data shows the huge volumes of imports by three other competitors, which put together is almost equal to ours. It is insane that I could not trace these names in the previous reports I was getting from my agency. Seems impossible!” wondered Hardeep.

Raakesh smiled patiently, He was used to such reactions in his career spanning 24 years. The data Infodrive India provided had helped many top-class brands to discover many astounding patterns, and they always led to some big transformations eventually. So, Raakesh calmly carried on with the call,

“Hardeep, be assured of accuracy. Authenticity is our hallmark, the reports we have generated are 100% dependable. I suggest you check out the highlighted competition in the market, it might reveal something that you may be missing. It has happened with many of our clients.”

Hardeep was finding it hard to believe, but he did not have much choice either. He called on his sales team and asked them to find about new competitors in the market, as pointed out by Infodrive India.

Hardeep sat confused in his office. The sales team reported these new competitors in the market, but there were no dealers or distributors, except brand showrooms in top 50 cities. Hardeep kept wondering, in absence of distributors and dealers, how could such volumes be generated from just 50 odd outlets.

He asked his market survey team to investigate more to unmask the cause of this aberration.

The survey team started probing further. Very soon they were out with the right answers to the questions that baffled Hardeep. It was observed that these brands were selling their products on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal etc.

This was such a big miss!

Hardeep could not believe how they had missed this. He regretted doubting the data provided and aligned up for taking the needful actions. Very soon they had a digital strategy in place, and they tied up with major e-commerce platforms.

Since the brand was already very well-known and was backed by service centers all over the country, it was an instant hit and they could beat the competition easily.

Undoubtedly, it brought wonders to their business. Their volumes as well as their profit margins surged dramatically. It also aided them in expanding their product range. The information helped them to further expand their markets within India, as well as in many new regions of Asia.

Hardeep’s hard work was duly recognized, and he was promoted from Sales Director-India, to Regional Sales Director- South-east Asia. He became a fan of Infodrive India. A huge anomaly detected due to Infodrive India, paved a way for a whole new channel of distribution for him and also saved him from embarrassment.