Quality local goods can compete with any int?l brand

Quality local goods can compete with any int’l brand
Mashiur Rahaman

Dhaka, Jan 29: Bangladeshi manufacturers have gained expertise and cutting-edge technology to produce top quality products at a reasonable cost, which can challenge any international brand at home or abroad, a leading manufacturing company claimed. Fascination for foreign goods has reduced dramatically among general Bangladeshis, executive director of ACI Group, Syed Alamgir said.

“With quality assurance, goods manufactured by Bangladeshi companies have regained control over domestic consumer markets, expanding its reach abroad,” Alamgir said, adding, “Thanks to innovative production and aggressive marketing strategies, adopted by local companies.”

Citing examples of aerosol and antiseptic brands, manufactured by renowned brand ACI, Alamgir said that defeating international brands, insect repellant, ACI Aerosol, and antiseptic, Savlon, now enjoy 87 per cent and 75 per cent share of their respective markets.

“This is a challenge that most of our products have overcome,” he said, attributing the achievements to strict maintenance of quality, aggressive but systematic marketing policy and the goodwill of ACI Group.

Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI) Limited is one of the leading conglomerates in Bangladesh, with a multinational heritage. The company has a mission to achieve business excellence through quality by understanding, accepting, meeting and exceeding customer expectations, following International Standards on Quality Management System.

“The necessity of pure food in consumers’ mind, especially in the commodity food business, has pushed ACI to fill market demand by producing food products,” Alamgir said.

The company is engaged in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution food products and condiments under the brand names – PURE and FUN. Its portfolio covers practically basic spices, mixed spices, cereals, edible oil, snacks and confectionary categories.

“We are focusing on customer needs at home, and we also export our products to Australia, United Kingdom, Cyprus, Singapore, USA, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and many other countries,” he said.

Huge presence of Bangladeshi expatriates in these countries is boosting demands, while the reputation of ACI brands is playing a major role, he added.

“As part of our new export market exploration plan, we have recently entered the African continent, through South Africa,” he said adding that the initial response there was encouraging.

Syed Alamgir, popular in the international marketing arena for his pioneering ideology of ‘Halal Products’, obtained the prestigious MBA degree from IBA, in 1975, from the University of Dhaka. Among many successes, his proposition of ‘100% Halal Soap’ was highly applauded by the consumers at large and caught the attention by marketing guru Philip Kotler. In his latest edition of ‘Principle of Marketing – A South Asian Perspective’, he cited the example of Alamgir’s 100 % Halal Soap idea, in a case study.

Alamgir took charge of ACI Consumer Brands in January 1998, with only two brands and a very small team of 15 people. Today, ACI Consumer Brands has several renowned brands that are market leaders, with over 1,800 employees across the country.

Alamgir, later, gave much thought about diversification of portfolio and started to explore food items. ACI Salt was launched in 2005, which quickly took the market by storm and was awarded the ‘Best Food & Beverage Brand’ of 2008. The success of the salt product inspired a whole range of food items, which came into reality through the launch of ACI Pure Flour, ACI Pure Spice, Fun Snack Items, Pure Soya bean oil, sugar and lentils.

“Absence of quality products in the market and improved purchasing power is the driving force for ACI’s growth, and will continue its involvement in the production of non-traditional food and non-food items in coming years,” Alamgir said. ACI has proved if one can ensure quality in production, the consumer base becomes becomes virtually infinite – both at home and abroad, Alamgir asserted.