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timely development of
projects and maintaining
good corporate governance
practices – all of which
should strengthen the
confidence of the buyer
leading to greater offtake.
Sanitation:
The
Government’s goal to make
India open defactation free
by 2019 (as per the Swachh
Bharat Mission) has made
reasonable progress. But
needs to cover significant
ground over the coming
years at an accelerated pace.
For India has constructed
about 1.32 million toilets (by
March 2016) against a target
of 2.5 million by 2019. This
drive holds potential for
increased demand for tiles
over the coming years.
These path-breaking policies
and ambitious programmes
hold significant promise for
healthy growth of the tile
industry over the medium
term.
Given this sectoral optimism,
Kajaria Ceramics initiated
important measures in
2016-17 to strengthen its
competitive advantage.
Capacity:
Following
GST, we expect sectoral
consolidation to emerge. We
will look to partner quality-
conscious manufacturers to
enlarge our manufacturing
infrastructure apart from
Greenfield/brownfield
initiatives.
Products:
We will continue
to enrich our product basket
with unique designs aligned
with global trends. In 2016-
17, we added more than
500 designs across product
verticals. In addition, we
ensured that each product
segment possesses trending
sizes resulting in a product
for every enquiring customer.
Value-addition:
2016-
17, we launched a number
of a number of large-format
tiles and niche products.
Awareness of these products
is expected to grow through
innovative out-reach
communication, translating
into a larger offtake of more
profitable products.
Dealers:
Even as we make
product basket additions,
we recognise that our
dealers are often unable to
showcase all our products
due to funding constraints,
impacting their business
and ours. In view of this, we
embarked on the decision to
create distribution channels
dedicated to specific product
verticals on the one hand
while widening our dealer
network on the other. The
heartening initial response
provides us with the
encouragement to sustain
this initiative.
Visibility:
Even as the
Kajaria brand generated
a strong urban recall, we
have still not fully covered a
significant part of the market
in Tier 1-3 cities and towns.
We took two definitive steps
in this regard; we increased
our visibility through
branding and promotions in
prominent public locations
(airports) and events (IPL,
international cricket matches
and other national sporting
events); we increased our
distribution network through
the addition of new dealers
in 2016-17 with a focus on
strengthening our presence
and visibility in Tier 1-3 cities
and towns.
Chetan Kajaria
Joint Managing Director
In 2016-17,
we launched a
number of large-
format tiles and
niche products.
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