HLL to hawk products in 5 lakh villages through micro-entrepreneurs

New Delhi, May 21 (UNI) The Rs 12,000-crore Hindustan Lever, which has a bouquet of brands like Lux, Clinic All Clear, Brooke Bond Red Label, Surf Excel and Knorr Soups, will penetrate the vast rural market through its 100,000 micro entrepreneurs called 'Shakti Ammas'.

The rural penetration of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) major will cover a big ground by 2010 when the Self Help Group-operated Shakti Amma programme will cover 500,000 villages out of the total number of 6,27,000 villages in the country.

''Our company aims to reach 600 million consumers in 500,000 villages through 100,000 entrepreneurs in the next four years'', HLL Chairman Harish Manwani informed his shareholders.

The HLL Shakti entrepreneurs have already been visiting and selling to over two million rural homes every month, creating a unique rural direct-to-home channel. While 70 per cent of the Indian population lives in villages, over two-thirds of these villages are not easily accessible due to poor infrastructure and lack of business viability.

Considering a vast business potential, HLL has started the Shakti Ammas micro-enterprise programme through the (Self Help Groups) SHGs.

It is a two-pronged strategy for HLL to woo the village market.

Before the Shakti Ammas reach the villagers for direct marketing of products like Lux and Lifebuoy, Shakti Vanis, women from the SHGs would have disseminated information on the basic hygiene practices.

''Shakti Vanis, through communication create awareness for health and hygiene and this helps in developing growth opportunities for such products in rural India'', Mr Manwani said.

HLL has lined up yet another marketing initiative for the countryside. It is through IShakti, which is a rural community portal that provides valueable information for the rural populace.

Information on areas such as agriculture, health and hygiene, education, veterinary, legal and employment is available on the portal.

The website is completely in local language with text-to-voice facility enabling even the illiterate to get benefit of information.

HLL's multi-category business in the area of network marketing started in 2003. ''Network marketing has now become a 100 billion dollar business globally, with higher growths in Asian markets in recent past'', the company Chairman said.

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