1.

0 Executive Summary
The amount of water in the world is limited. Although water covers about
two-thirds of the Earths surface, most is too salty to drink. In fact, less than .
08% of the water on our planet is available to humans. Today, a shortage of
drinkable water is a serious concern and the scenario is very worst in the
Dhaka and the main cities in Bangladesh. Thats why these cities are very
potential for operating bottled water business.
There is a saying, life is the name of water. Based on the study it is seen
that most of the people want crystal clear water for drinking as basic need.
Totally pure and hygienic quality drinking water is a basic need for people,
particularly the urban and sub-urban sector in Bangladesh. To provide the
people with safe and pure drinking water Meghna Group started producing
Super Fresh Drinking Water in 500 ml and 1500 ml bottle. Most of the
consumer always prefer and seek reasonable price for good quality that
FRESH serves to the consumers. It is being distributed nationwide by Meghna
Group as well as their own distributor network. For the packaging of their
product they use PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottle which is a package
for food and non-food products because it is inexpensive, light weight,
resalable, shatter resistant and recyclable.

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2.0

Situation Analysis
2.1

Market Summary:

The tradition of bottled water and mineral water is not very old. Even in
western countries the practice of bottled drinking water started only in
1950s. Since ancient time people have used water from mineral springs,
especially hot springs, for bathing due to its supposed therapeutic value
for rheumatism, arthritis, skin diseases, and various other ailments.
Depending on the temperature of the weather, the location, the altitude,
and the climate at the spring, it could be used to cure different ailments.
This started the trend of using mineral water for drinking purposes in
order to exploit its therapeutic value. Since mid1970s large quantities of
bottled water from mineral springs in France and other European
countries began to be exported. The concept of bottled water is relatively
successful in western countries due to greater health consciousness. The
international standards regarding bottled water are so stringent that for a
particular brand of water to be certified as bottled water, in most
countries, multiple levels of approvals are required. For example, in the
United States, the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) regulates public
water systems. The FDA of US has also set standards for bottled water.

2.2

SWOT ANALYSIS:

SWOT means Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat for a

company. Among these components, strengths and weakness are internal
factors; opportunity and threats are the external factors for an
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organization. Bellow we analyze SWOT for FRESH natural drinking

water:

Inter
nal

Weakn
ess
Weak in TV
Commercial

Streng
th
Brand name of the
company
One of the Market
leaders in
Bangladesh
Automated
Machineries
Strong Distribution
Channel
ISO Certified for

Sources of Raw
Water
Lack of Market
Research
Lack of Research
and Development

Opportu
nity
Improve the
Technology

Threat
s
Water Resources
Over exploited

Lack of supply of
Pure Drinking
water

Economic Crisis of
Bangladesh
Anti-Bottling
Protest

To be a Public
limited Company

Extern
al

SWOT ANALYSIS

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Strengths:
Brand name of the company: SUPER FRESH natural drinking water
is one of the familiar bottle water companies name in Bangladesh. If
people think about bottle water in Bangladesh, instantly the name
FRESH comes in their mind. This is one of the real strength for the
company.

One of the Market leaders in Bangladesh: FRESH Water Company

is currently capturing 20% to 30% market of water industry. So it is
easy for the company to dominate the market and increase the
domination.

Automated Machineries: All the plant of FRESH Water is completely

automated and computerized. So they can maintain the quality very
easily where many other companies are partially running manually and
cannot maintain the quality.

Strong

Distribution

Channel:

Meghna

Group

has

strong

distribution channel. So FRESH water can easily reach to mass people.

ISO Certified for Quality: For maintaining the quality over time
FRESH Water gets ISO-9001:2000. This helps the company to be
reliable to general people.
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 Expert Managers: The brand manager of FRESH Water is an

experienced person on the field of marketing of these kinds product in
Bangladesh. FRESH has some other managers who can provide right
direction to the company.

Weakness:
Weak in TV Commercial: The advertisement frequency on television
of FRESH Water is very low.

Sources of Raw Water: FRESH are currently pull raw water from
1000 feet deep tube-well in their factory. But it is not well enough
sources for raw water of the company.
Lack of Market Research: FRESH are not continuously trying to
know the customers demand on now days. So they cannot take much
more competitive advantage.

Lack

of

Research

and

Development:

The

research

and

development department of FRESH is very weak.

Opportunity:
Improve the Technology: FRESH has a great chance to improve their
technology more and take more competitive advantages over its
competitors.
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 Lack of Pure Drinking Water: We know that there is a huge scarcity

of pure drinking water in Bangladesh. FRESH has the opportunity to
take this chance and increase their market range.
To be a Public Limited Company: Meghna Group is a private
company. Now they are planning to be listed in DSE and draw capital
from stock market. By investing this capital they can promote the
company.

Threats:
Water Resources Over-Exploited: The majority of the bottling
plants are dependent on groundwater. They create huge water stress
in the areas where they operate because groundwater is also the main
source - in most places the only source - of drinking water in
Bangladesh. This has created huge conflict between the community
and the bottling plants.
Economic Crisis of Bangladesh: Bangladesh is not a rich country.
The countrys current economic condition is not favorable for smooth
business. So it can also be a great threat for the company.

Anti-Bottling Protest: Globally, bottled water accounts for as many

as 1.5 million tons of plastic waste annually. In addition, billions of
bottles end up in the ground every year. Only 20% ever get recycled,
and the other 80% besides landfills, many bottles end up in oceans,

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posing a risk to marine life. So environmentalists may protest against

this bottle pollution.

Health Issue- Purity of Bottle Water: In Bangladesh, many bottle

water companies lost their reputation for having contaminated water.
So water companies are losing the trust of mass people.

2.3 Competition:
The reports on industry market share among the various mineral water
manufacturers in Bangladesh are mostly inconclusive. By one account, 60%
percent of the market share belongs to Mum and Fresh with Mum having the
upper hand in terms of market share over Fresh. According to the officials of
Fresh, on the hand, they supposedly are the second market leaders with
more than 22% percent of the market share with Mum coming in at first with
a 26% share. In any case, it can be stated that Fresh and Mum are the
dominant forces in the market with a combined market share of more than
50% when there are actually more than 10 large companies with enough
resources to put up a challenge. One reason why Fresh has managed to gain
an advantage in the market is due to their early entry. They were one of the
pioneers of the mineral water industry in Bangladesh and managed to
capture a large portion of the market before anyone else could pose a
challenge. The late 90s and early new millennium saw a host of companies
enter this once booming industry. Many large conglomerates have introduced
their own mineral water brand and now, apart from Mum and Fresh, it is hard
to differentiate in terms of features, between the other brands. Aquafina, Spa
and Acme are the other brands which feature in the top ranks followed by
Pran and Jibon.
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2.4

Product Offerings:

SUPER FRESH Brand drinking water has become a leader in drinking water
market for its super quality. In order to meet and ease the huge demand of
pure drinking water in the country, Meghna Group of Industries has set up a
high capacity drinking water producing plant in its Meghna Industrial Park
The plant is one of the largest plants engaged in producing drinking water in
the country. Business unit was founded in 1998 but factory was established
for FRESH in 2001
The plant is engineered by German specialists and equipped with state of art
water treatment plants. Manufacturing unit is equipped with modern
machineries and technical capabilities in processing and maintaining good
manufacturing practice (G.M.P). The plant follows a strict quality policy as
per ISO-9001:2OOO. Modern filtration system ensures all essential minerals
in water. The total process concentrates on the followings,

Raw water from deep tube well: We are collecting raw water from

land under 1000 feet by deep tube-well.

Ox dental tower: Its absorbing oxygen with water.
Raw water storage tank with dosing pump: Primary disinfecting if

pump head is contaminated through external exposed.

Activated carbon filtrations: To neutralize and remove dissolved

iron and odor if any.

Multimedia processing: To remove all suspended particles, water

goes through various mesh sizes including anthracite media.

Dual water softening: Through iron exchange removing of calcium

and magnesium or acids to regulate ph level.

Reverse Osmosis (RO): Ro is a means for separating dissolved solids
including arsenic from water molecules.

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Ozonization: Further killing and protecting any growth of bacteria if

there is any.
Ultraviolet Ray Treatment: Its an anti-contamination system.
Mineral Injection: Injecting any required minerals to water. It can
only be done once the water is dematerialized completely and all
dissolved toxic substance is removed.

To ensure the regular supply of hygienic & high quality PET bottle for the
industry and also to compensate both local & foreign need, the new venture
of MGI is Dhaka Plastic Bottle (PET) Industries Ltd.
There are some other specific product offerings:
Pack size

:8 Liter, 5 Liter, 3 Liter, 2 Liter, 1.5 Liter, 1 Liter, 500 ml, 250

ml and 19 Liter
Packaging

: There are two stages of packaging.

Primary Packaging- (Polyethylene Terephthalate)
Secondary packaging A tray made of corrugated paper
contains 12 bottles which is covered by shrink wrap.

Purity

Modern filtration system ensures all essential minerals in

water
Nutrition

Calcium- 35 mg/Ltr, TDS-250 mg/Ltr, Sodium-4mg/Ltr,

Floried-1.0
mg/Ltr, Chloride- 250mg/Ltr, Nitrate- 2.5mg/Lt , No
Mercury, No Arsenic
Shelf life

: One year.
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Labeling

: Attractive bluish label including all necessary information are

composed.

2.5

Distribution:

Retail Market SUPER FRESH distributes the product through

retailers, like:
Grocery shops,
Tea stall,
Confectionary,
Fast foods,
Sweet shops,
General restaurant,
Bus-train-launch terminals etc.
Institutional Market SUPER FRESH distributes the product through
institutions, like:
Hospitals,
Clinics,
Chinese restaurant,
Cafeteria,
Luxury Hotels,
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 Govt. & private offices,

Banks and Insurance,
Office of different ministers,
Parliament,
UN Bodies and NGOs,
National & International Air Services,
EPZ etc.
Event Management CompaniesThere are a lot of event management companies in our countries. They are
managing different types of event around the country all the yearlong. In all
of the occasions they need a lot of bottled water. SUPER FRESH are
contracting with those companies to sell their product.

3.0 Marketing Strategy

3.1 Objectives:
As we know that now-a days people of Bangladesh are becoming very health
conscious and pure drinking water is one of the main component to become
healthy and sound. In that light lot of companies are coming up with different
brand of mineral water with different types of package and promotion. So,
there are high responds from the consumer sides on mineral water. Here my
objective is to set an overall effective marketing plan for the Super Fresh
Natural Drinking Water. To set the proper target market and proper
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positioning of the product. Here has also the aims to blend the marketing mix
in proper way and set an efficient marketing strategies

3.2 Target Markets:

The target market for Super Fresh drinking water is the demographics
of middle and higher class. It meant that only people with money to afford to
go out on a regular basis would drink this. FRESH have some targets markets
like:
Out of Home Consumer
Officials in Corporate office
Different Government and Private Institution
Hotel & Resort
Hospitals and Clinic
Sports events
Organization & Household
Tourism Places, etc.

3.3 Positioning:
FRESH Natural Drinking Water was founded in 2001. It has become as one of
the leader in drinking water market for its super quality. In order to meet and
ease the huge demand of pure drinking water in the country, Meghna Group
of Industries has set up a high capacity drinking water producing plant in its
Meghna Industrial Park. The plant is one of the largest plants engaged in
producing drinking water in the country.

Market Segmentation

There are available forms of drinking water. First is the WASA tap water that
is boiled to purify in households. Second is the 20 liters container that is
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commonly referred as Filter water. Third is the well purified and packaged
mineral water. The cost and convenience provided by WASA cannot be held
as a viable market for mineral water producers. As a result, FRESH Natural
Drinking Water focuses mainly on the conscious citizen of the main cities.

Product Differentiation

The industry of mineral water is quite standardized. Mineral water cannot be

differentiated much as it is basically purified water with added minerals.
Taste of mineral water varies from one another and perhaps this is the only
thing other than price that is greatly perceived by consumers. FRESH Natural
Drinking Water provides superior quality in terms of complete production
process and standard

Distinctive Competencies

FRESH Natural Drinking Water tries to build Distinctive Competencies to

create a greater value for the product than that of its rivals. Tangible
resources and Capabilities help FRESH achieve the position where it wants to
place itself.
Efficiency: The plant FRESH uses is engineered by German specialists
and equipped with state-of-art water treatment plants. Moreover,
Meghna Group of Industries is both horizontally and vertically
integrated so that most of the materials become cost effective.

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 Quality: FRESH Natural Drinking Water extracts raw water from deep
tube-well and uses activated carbon filtrations, Reverse Osmosis,
Ozonization, etc. and maintain ISO-9001:2000 standard.

Innovation: There is nothing much to improve in terms of product

development unless the R&D discovers a way to better the taste of
water. However, innovation is used to create the perfect value-chain
activities or promotional activities.
Customer Responsiveness: Mineral water cannot be differentiated
like other consumer products. But FRESH constantly tries to improve its
distribution in response to customer demand.
Intangible asset, such as Brand name, employee skills, etc. are of great value
to FRESH. FRESH has been serving the market for more than 15 years and
that had given it a strong foothold in the market. FRESH has its own goodwill
now, other the fact, the business belongs to one of the largest and most
reputed group of industries, Meghna.

3.4

Strategies: Product, Pricing, Distribution, Marketing

Communications:
Marketing decisions generally fall into the following four controllable
categories. Super Fresh Natural drinking water brand is trying to do these
tasks successfully.

Product

Price
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Distribution (Place)

Marketing Communications (Promotion)

Product:
FRESH Water comes under the category of Convenience Product that it is
bought on daily basis. It will be used by most of the conscious people
because of its cheap rate, its pure taste and excellent quality. So Fresh tries
its best to let the consumers to buy it with warranty of its purity and taste.
FRESH Water falls under the category of processed material. The water is
extracted and then purified with the modern equipments without the use of
any harsh chemical that can be dangerous to their customers health above is
shown the modern and latest equipment are using that is the basic part of
FRESH Waters plant.
The attractive bottle, its clean color of water and its pure taste will fulfill the
need of their customer. They keep objective in their mind that is to satisfy
the customers in every aspect of the products nature.

Price:
FRESH flows a flexible pricing strategy. They are partially following price
signaling strategy. They are cutting price as follows:
o
o
o
o
o
o

500 ML Pet bottles- 15tk

1 Liter Pet bottles- 20tk
1.5 Liter Pet bottles-25tk
2 Liter Pet bottles- 30tk
3 Liter Pet bottles- 35tk
5 Liter Pet bottles- 70tk

They basically set the price by looking their customers affordability. In

Bangladesh they cannot charge too much for water. So to keep the low price
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from customer FRESH try to keep their production cost low and increase the
sales volume.

Distribution (Place):
Bottle water is a convenience product. So the company ensures that their
product will be available near to mass people. FRESH have some targets
markets locations like:
Railway Stations
Bus Station
Hospitals cafeteria
Tourism Places
Universities and College
Each and every general store etc.
The marketing managers of FRESH Water ensured that their product is
accessible any location of Bangladesh. Meghna Group has a lot of
distributors around the country. Through their distributor and sales personnel
they ensured their product placement.

Marketing Communications (Promotion):

Now a days promotion is an essential task for each and every product. To
compete in this competitive business arena FRESH are also doing some
promotional work. They have very several television commercial. In recent
FRESH Water, contracts with Bangladesh Cricket Board to supply water to
their players, officials and in the all events. They also contract with different
hotels and institution for supplying water

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3.5 Marketing Mix:

It is a set of controllable tactical marketing tools- Product, Place, Price and
Promotion- that the firm blends to produce the response it wants from the
target market.
The Marketing Mix are as follows:

Marketing
Mix

Product

Place

- Quality

- Railway Stations

- Packet Design

- Tourism Places
Target
Market

- Different Size

Price

- Universities & College

- Every general store

Promotion

- Affordable to

- TV

all

advertisement

- MRP

- Sales

-Discounts

Promotion
- Public Relation
- Partner with
BCB

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Effective marketing would be blending the marketing mix elements into a

coordinated program designed to achieve the companys marketing objective
by delivering value to consumers. Fresh are trying best to blend these
marketing mix elements to catch the most number of customers response.

3.6 Marketing Research:

For setting an effective marketing strategy market research is very
important. Through a successful marketing research we will get the idea of a
marketing tactic.
Sample and Size
To do the effective research we have to collect information from the different
places in the main cities of Bangladesh. We will also collect information from
different types of age group, habitants etc. We will take information from
about 3000 participants.
Collecting Information
We will collect information on about the benefits of those consumers who are
taking these mineral waters like MUM, Super Fresh, ACME, Pran, Jibon,
Duncan, Kinley etc. Whether consumer prefers different types of pack sizes?
Are the consumers satisfied about the quality of Super Fresh? Ask about the
habit and life style of the consumers who take mineral water. Does
advertising play a positive role to increase the awareness of their brand?
Analyzing the information

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Analysis the above information from facts gathered and discussed with
management to take appropriate decision.
Sources of Data
We will collect both primary and secondary data for marketing research.
Primary data will be collected directly from the general people who will
choose randomly from the different cities of Bangladesh. We will also collect
information from different agency and organization which will be our
secondary data.
4.0

Financial Analysis:

Average Sales Margin

One of the main reasons why Fresh has been able to enjoy such a decent
margin on sales is because they conduct a large part of the value chain
activities themselves. For example, they manufacture their own bottles and
caps at their manufacturing plant. The only major raw materials they procure
are the labels which are not feasible to produce in-house.
Normally the sales margin varies overtime between 10% and 15% due to the
annual variation of market demand and the different agreements the
company has with their distributors. Distribution commission varies from 56% and hence, depending on the spread of sales units among various
distributors, the sales margin is slightly influenced. Hence on average the
company gets the sales margin around 10%.

Break-even = 2 200 000 units per month

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The market demand for bottled water can vary from as low as 1.8 million
units per month to as high as 5 million units based on the season. During the
summer, the company faces over demand and has to produce at its
maximum capacity level of 5 million units per month. At other times,
especially during the winter, demand is lower than that required to breakeven.

5.0 Controls
5.1

Implementation:

A great vision, even when combined with a solid strategic growth plan, is
only as good as your ability to get it implemented. A Chief Outsider, working
as a part time member of the management team, will tap their decades of
executive management experience and knowledge and then provide access
to the top resources to get things done. The management will try to follow
pull strategy where spending a lot on adverting and consumer promotion to
build up the consumer demand. If the strategy is successful, consumers will
ask their retailers for the product, the retailers will ask the wholesalers, and
the wholesalers will ask the producers. They can also follow push strategy
where the sales force and trade promotion to push the product through
channels. The producer promotes the product to the wholesalers, the
wholesalers to retailers, and the retailers promote to consumers.

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5.2

Marketing Organization:

Super Fresh Water follows two Marketing organisms to reach their product to
the end user. These are 1. Horizontal Marketing System, and 2. Vertical
Marketing System. But they are usually following Vertical Marketing System.
As this case manufacturer and distributor act as a unified system to reach
the product to the retailer for sale. From the factory manufacturer send the
product to their distributor, distributor delivers the products to the retailer
and at last consumer get the product from the retailer.

6.0 Conclusion:
The bottled water industry in Bangladesh is in the late growth stage and over
time, the competition will get more and more competitive. It is essential for
the existing companies to set an industry standard and build loyalty in order
to hold on to their market share. More than anything else, they need to come
forward and facilitate the framing of laws that can stop unregistered and
illegal businesses from taking advantage of the unregulated nature of the
market. Together, they should raise awareness about low quality bottled
water and reclaim the lost market segment of large water jars. They should
also try to build customer loyalty so that new companies are refrained from
entering the business and existing companies can hold on to their respective
market share. At present, few companies are participating in any marketing
activities and even then, the magnitude is very limited. Companies like Fresh
have been in this business for long and should know by now the ins and outs
of this business. With their experience, they could consider expanding their
business beyond national borders. India, China, Sri Lanka, Maldives, and
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other Southeast Asian countries could be considered for their business

expansion.

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