Is this the time to look back and see what ‘Project Shakti’ has achieved so far? For HUL, the FMCG giant, there is always a pride in seeing the progress which ‘Project Shakti’ haS shown in past few years.

The mission of reaching out to each and every rural consumer through Project Shakti was looking like a mammoth task in the initial years, but HUL through its proper planning and commitment to make that initiative count has been able to make a difference in the lives of millions of folks in Rural India by offering them an opportunity which they were waiting for.

Project Shakti was a strategic vehicle of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) to achieve better rural penetration. Today it contributes in a major way to the overall sales of this FMCG major. This innovative channel of distribution of company’s products to rural consumers has been successful because of its ability to reach out to people living in even remotest of areas. It has a huge network in villages, districts, and has thousands of entrepreneurs along with millions of rural consumers.

The Project aims to cover 5 lakhs villages and is gunning for having one lakhs entrepreneurs under its belt by the end of 2010. It is more of a win-win initiative as it not only helps in catalysing the development in Rural India but also benefits the overall sales of HUL by reaching to 600 million.

The whole project works on three inter-connected initiatives:

• The Shakti Entrepreneur Programme: It helps in creation of income-generating capabilities in the rural women by offering them micro-enterprise opportunities which can be sustainable in the long term.
• The Shakti Vani Programme: This programme deals with spreading awareness about practices in health and info about hygienic issues. This has been phenomenal in terms of improving the quality of life in rural India.
• The iShakti Community Portal: This offers relevant information about empowerment of rural communities.

The proper integration amongst above three initiatives has been the major factor behind the success story of Project Shakti. Its reach can be easily measure by the fact that almost eight households in every ten use products of this FMCG giant.

It is often said that when you are leader in the market, you always look for new avenues, new areas for better opportunity. This is exactly what HUL did. They had market leadership in 2004-05 and this project gave them an opportunity to tap the largest untapped market in India.

Being the front runner in entering into Rural India, the past has been full of success for Project Shakti. The next million dollar question would be- What next? Is implementing the concept in hinterlands of other countries are on cards?

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 12:09 am and is filed under Rural Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.