In combat mode

From a dying household
28 February 2004

Korean groups, such as Samsung and LG, have been dominating several white goods: categories in India and Electrolux is not amused. It is, after all, the world's largest maker of home appliances and outdoor equipment such as chain saws, lawn mowers and garden tractors. Electrolux Kelvinator Ltd., the Indian unit of AB Electrolux, a US$17 billion, Stockholm-headquartered home appliances company, is preparing for battle.

Rajeev Karwal, chief executive officer and managing director of Electrolux Kelvinator, has completed a year in office and has developed virtually a brand new sales and marketing team. The company has spent the past year restructuring and getting a lean crew in place to enable it to focus on putting its products in a top of the mind position of the consumer this year.

The key player in this plot is the woman consumer. "She decides what should be bought when it comes to refrigerators, washing machines and microwave ovens," says Sanjeev Wadhwa, Electrolux Kelvinator's general manager for marketing. Therefore the company's research focuses on giving her what she wants — take for instance the group's recently launched microwave ovens.

Although microwave ovens are useful for cooking, heating and reheating western cuisine, they do not always work well with Indian food. Therefore, the company has put on the market a "maxi wave" oven. The product incorporates a patented technology, through which radio waves of the frequency of 2.5 gigahertz are generated, which makes for uniform cooking, ideally suited to Indian culinary delicacies. In an extension of the company's focus on the Indian woman it recently sponsored the celebrity-studded, Financial Express 'women in business' function in Mumbai, at which women in various spheres in business were felicitated.

Karwal, who has spent most of his career in the marketing of consumer durables, with companies such as Philips and LG, has learned that listening to a consumer's needs yields rich dividends. Consider a woman with her child on a normal day. The child cries out for attention, so she picks him up and has in her other hand, a half-full feeding bottle, which she wants to put away in the refrigerator. But how does she open the door with both her hands occupied? Electrolux offered her a refrigerator — the Oxyswing — with a pedal that opens the door!

Similarly, the washing machine that talks came into being because housewives were a bit nervous about dumping their clothes into a barrel-like contraption. They were unsure about what to do when, how to regulate the timer, how much detergent to put in and whatnot. So, the Washie Talkie tells the housewife all, step by step. "We believe in consumer foresight, more than consumer insight," says Wadhwa. "We anticipate the needs of a woman and fulfil them. That's what our new mantra is all about — Nurturing hopes. Nourishing Life.