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ENTREPREUNERSHIP INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT Natural Ice Cream Executive summary: Natural Ice Cream, one of the most popular ice-cream brands among people all over the city began as a small, single store that now has a huge number of franchise outlets and the brand is a runaway success. It currently has 89 franchise outlets across West and South India: 47 in Mumbai, 29 in the neighboring urban clusters of Navi Mumbai, Thane and Pune, and the rest scattered across select cities of Maharashtra and neighboring states. Ten more will be opened in the current financial year.
Natural’s revenues have grown from Rs 14 Lakh in 1986 to Rs 40 crore in 2010/11. Established in 1984, Natural ice cream started as a 300-sq-ft ice cream parlor at Juhu, in Mumbai. This idea was conceptualized by Mr. R S Kamath, CMD of Klamath’s our times ice creams Pvt. Ltd. The store at Juhu has been renovated and expanded repeatedly, and is now more than three times its original size. Naturals has been the leader in manufacturing ice creams using only fruits, dry fruits, chocolates, milk and sugar without any preservatives or stabilizers.
Seasonal fruits are bought in bulk daily from the market, with only the best quality ones being chosen. The extracted pulp is heated, to get rid of unwanted bacteria, and then stored in aluminum-sealed packages. To ensure the quality of their product they have a single manufacturing hub located in another Mumbai suburb, Kandivali. Every morning, a fleet of trucks rolls out from the factory carrying the ice cream to all the Natural outlets, thus ensuring quality is not compromised.
However the measures Natural uses to enforce quality control, might be somewhat obstructing their expansion plans as Natural’s trucks can cover only a finite distance. This explains why Natural’s outlets are largely in Western India, and it has no outlet yet in the national capital, despite the obvious business opportunity Delhi presents Introduction: The ice cream parlour which began as a small initiative in 1984 stands in 2006 as an entity with profitability as high as Rs 1. 4 crore and with determination to double it in the subsequent financial year.
Mr. R. S. Kamath is the brainchild of one of Mumbai’s best known ice cream brands – the Natural Ice cream. Since its inception the company has managed to build its equity purely through word-of-mouth. Natural ice cream has gained the reputation as being the most sought after ice cream parlors in Mumbai especially among the young people. It enjoys a very substantial footfall at its outlets, making thus evident the facility and service orientation applied to it. Natural ice cream as a company has been registering a consistent growth over the years.
R. V. Mallya, General Manager, attributes this growth partially to the changing – lifestyles, eating habits and the increasing per capita income and significantly to the quality of the products offered by the company thus enabling customers to be retained and also augmented through a good word-of-mouth. Natural Ice cream started as a drop converted into an ocean in a quick span of time. It deals with ice cream manufacturing and also has several stores in Mumbai, Nasik, Pune and Ahmadabad.
It has a single manufacturing plant at Charkop from which ice creams are daily sent to all the outlets. Advantages: •The unique feature of the ice creams manufactured by Natural Ice Cream is that they contain no artificial flavours, no preservatives or stabilizers, only fresh fruit pulp or dry fruits. •He bought the best seasonal fruits and gave a wide choice to his customers. •He priced the ice creams for a reasonable amount and much lower than the other established brands. Continual development and upgradation through customer feedback and suggestion. •The freshness and quality of the ice creams is maintained and all the outlets get their ice cream from a factory in charkop, Mumbai. The ice cream is dispatched in batches to ensure only fresh produce is stocked at the outlets. Major concern that could adversely impact the business •The ice cream, which is made of natural flavor and also fruits, should be consumed within 10 days of manufacture. The problem they faced was from the competitors, lacking innovation strategies, proper segmentation and targeting. •Continually innovating and introducing new products coupled with consistency. •Competition from not only local players but also foreign players like Gelato, Amore etc •The journey to a strong market holding was not a smooth sailing one. The process of producing traditional Indian ice cream was not only slow but also laborious and had to be done manually. Suggestions: