Agribusiness for us means working in our backyard and we draw strength from our two decades long experience in rural and agribusiness space. We work closely with food and beverages players and agribusiness companies dealing in agri inputs and implements. Our cross-sector teams bring diverse and deep experience to every agribusiness engagement.
MART offers end to end solutions in this area ranging from consumer and business research, designing business strategies, pilot testing of strategies and scale up evolving sustainable business models.
Our Differentiators
- Creating BoP centric farm to fork business models
- In-depth understanding of suboptimal and marginal farmers & developing approaches
- Pioneers in food fortification research, activation and strategy
Food Fortification Research and Strategy
Case I
Challenge/Problem: An international NGO, focused on eradicating malnutrition, wanted to understand the rice fortification scenario in India for developing its future strategies:
- To conduct a comprehensive industry analysis of India’s rice industry so as to develop ‘Strategic Roadmap’ for initiating rice fortification program to address malnutrition in India.
Our Approach
- Analyzed the rice production, consumption patterns and practices in India.
- Analyzed rice industry dynamics related to procurement, processing, distribution and marketing
- Studied the distribution of rice through commercial and government supported channels like TPDS, ICDS and MDM.
Results/Solution
- Further to developing a complete understanding of the industry, MART suggested a strategic roadmap for rice fortification in India
Case II
Challenge/Problem: A large scale MNC wanted to understand sugar and wheat flour fortification market in India with its triggers, barriers and opportunities so as to plan its entry strategy to better serve the market.
Our Approach
- Studied the nutrition status in India
- Analyzed the external environment of wheat and sugar Industries in India – with special focus on fortification
- Identified triggers and barriers as perceived by key stakeholders in the fortification roll out
Results/Solution
- Based on our in-depth understanding, we developed strategic fortification models for the client to enter this space
Farm to Fork Business Modeling
Case I – Collective Marketing
Challenge/Problem: Strengthening the value chains in poorer pockets of Orissa to link farmers and villagers with big buyers
Our Approach
- In-depth value chain analysis was undertaken for major produce
- Designed the strategy to develop value chain that includes mobilisation of farmers and villagers to collective (in order to ensure minimum scale), introduce primary processing and establish market linkage
- Training and orientation program conducted for villager in 396 villages
- Marketing infrastructures for drying, shorting, cleaning and grading were conducted
- Identification and establishing linkages with bulk buyers, processors and millers
Results/Solution: By the year 2010 more than 10000 families were impacted through this initiative with a turnover of Rs 90 million
Case II – Odisha Forest Sector Development Project
Challenge/Problem: To provide techno managerial services towards promoting income generating activities among SHGs at village and cluster levels as Income Generating Activities Support Agency
Results/Solution
- Identified a range of viable opportunities for SHGs
- Provided training to SHGs and project staff on various aspects of IGA, marketing and cluster promotion
- Provided handholding support for linkages with market players, technology suppliers and other service providers
- Provided field level support to clusters to emerge as robust community led institutions
Farmers Understanding and Profiling
MART uses customized consumer centric rural research tools and a ‘bottom up approach’ to derive insights on farmer’ psychographics and behavior
Case I
Challenge/Problem: Indian tractor industry has been using product centric approach to reach its customers ...segmentation of market has been done on the basis of horse-power (hp) of tractor rather than consumers. A world leading tractor company realized that with this approach it was not possible to connect with all customers in a diverse market like India. The only way to reach out was to divide the market into meaningful groups of consumers with distinct characteristics.
- The challenge was to understand the underlying needs, attitudes and behaviour of tractor owners across India to come up with concrete segments which could be later targeted by the company
Our Approach: MART conducted an extensive research
- Exploratory research using laddering technique, psychographic mapping using projective techniques
- Studied needs, behaviour and attitudes of tractor owners
- Followed by a quantitative study – analyzing data using advanced statistical techniques like cluster analysis and multi dimensional scaling to come up with definitive consumer segments
Results/Solution
- Developed region wise consumer segments which could be specifically targeted by the company
- Segmentation strategy and road ahead
Case II
Challenge/Problem: World’s leading seeds and pesticides company wanted to target the biggest segment of Indian farmers – the sub-optimal growers. For this, it wanted to develop a comprehensive understanding of farming behavior and practices of this segment and profile and segment them accordingly.
Our Approach
- Understood the farming behavior, product usage practices, crop economics and psychographics of sub-optimal farmers across the country
- Segmented and profiled the farmers based on the variables studied
Results/Solution
- Developed profile of farmers across states and crops for specific targeting
- Marketing strategy around 4Ps for different segments
Pankaj Mishra: Rural marketing is his passion and research is his forte. He joined MART in the year 2001 and has been an integral part of MART family since then. Pankaj is a specialist in ethnography, qualitative research and strategy formulation. He has conducted several studies related to segmentation, brain mapping, brand perceptions and need-gap analysis. He leads the food & agribusiness sector of MART.
Pankita Uppal: Pankita has 5 years of industry experience in research and consulting. With expertise in both quantitative and qualitative research techniques, she brings a unique value to MART team. She has been leading various projects in the agri-business domain ranging from tractor to seeds to agri-implements industry. Pankita was also actively involved in supporting the author, Mr. Pradeep Kashyap, for his ‘Rural Marketing’ book.
Kaushal Kumar: Kaushal is an agriculture expert with agri management background and a solid 3 years of experience in the sector. He is known for his on-ground operational acumen and working with community attitude. Since 2008 Kaushal has been a core member to MART’s agri-business vertical.
| Bengal Tools Coromandel DSCL-Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar DSM DuPont Eicher Essar Godrej Agrovet |
IFAD ITT Pumps John Deere MACP MCX Micronutrient Initiative Monsanto Pioneer seeds |
PepsiCo Sonalika Tractors Syngenta Texmo UPLDC World vision India(WVI) |
