Sceptical buyers of dairy products such as milk and ghee have a ready solution from Kolkata-based ITC to ensure safety: Scan a QR code and get a virtual tour of the dairy farm where the products are made. The virtual tour promises a peek into the health of the cows, the food they eat, the quality of milk produced and the chemical-free manufacturing process of dairy products.
As B Sumant, executive director at ITC explains, the effort is part of the firm’s wider “Mission DigiArc” initiative, which has seen the company deploy its “Sixth Sense”, basically its marketing and digital command centre and data hub, to map consumer behaviour, craft personalised brand communication messages and use artificial intelligence for product development.
“We have accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence applications across different nodes of our business. The aim is to mainstream the digital-first culture to create new sources of competitive advantage,” Sumant said.
ITC is not alone on this digital journey. From Marico to Dabur and Hindustan Unilever (HUL), fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are using AI, machine learning and predictive analysis to get real-time consumer insights for launching new products, understanding market trends and improving manufacturing and distribution processes.
Take another case in point. Mumbai-based Marico, maker of the Parachute and Saffola brands, for instance, launched an onion hair oil under Parachute Advansed a few quarters ago using Google search trends. The aim was to tap into the growing interest in onion hair oils that kept coming up in search trends, the company said.
In premium personal care, for instance, Marico has launched skin analyser tools using AI and machine learning capabilities to analyse different parameters of the skin and make personalised recommendations to consumers.
These initiatives have seen the company surpass the `400-crore run rate in terms of topline for its digital-first brands within the premium personal care portfolio in Q3FY24, Saugata Gupta, MD & CEO, Marico said in a recent investor call.
“The healthy scale-up of this business (premium personal care) and foods keeps us on course to clock 20% of our domestic revenue from these portfolios this year,” Gupta said of the potential of these businesses and how digital technologies have helped in the scale up.
Dabur has taken digital technology to the next level, CEO Mohit Malhotra said, by adopting a cloud-only approach that will help improve its services to retailers, consumers, trade partners and employees. “The creation of a digital core will enable Dabur to access real-time data insights and adapt to evolving customer and market needs,” Malhotra said.
HUL, on the other hand, says it is “re-imagining” itself by transforming into an intelligent enterprise that is data-led, machine-augmented and interconnected. At the company’s post-results media interaction last month, CEO & MD Rohit Jawa said that the firm was building its digital capabilities apart from stepping up investments in its beauty portfolio for the future.
“We have to shape ourselves for the future. Essentially, that will mean that we have to invest behind our priorities such as beauty or capabilities such as digital,” he said.
This thought process at HUL has taken shape with the speed with which product launches have been unveiled, Jawa said, taking consumer learnings quickly to the factory floor to innovate with flavours, formats and new use cases. In beauty, for instance, HUL is using beauty tech tools such as virtual try-ons to help consumers replicate their offline journeys online with brands such as Lakme.
In food, HUL’s move to quickly introduce the Korean Meal Pot under Brand Knorr last year to tap into the growing K-food trend in the country, was backed up by launching Korean noodles in popular flavours in Q3FY24, Jawa said.
