Local brands

Made in Bangladesh battery Volta is now a popular brand name in India and Thailand, and in Djibouti and Ghana, many admire Pran, a Bangladeshi brand for juice and snacks.Harrods sells Kazi and Kazi, organic tea, and it is being served at Tokyo’s prestigious Sheraton Hotel while furniture designed by Otobi stuns the brand-conscious western shoppers in Kolkata.
The innovative Bangladeshi entrepreneurs and the executives behind the successful brands, who shared their experiences with New Age, point out the reliability and sustainability of brands and express their firm confidence that the brands can boost the country image.

Brand experts echo them as they list confidence, professionalism, strategic efforts of the industry and say the government can turn Bangladesh a high-value brand exporting country.

‘Establishment and operation of brands require long-time and rigorous process but once these are done, business gets sustainability,’ said Niaz Rahim, managing director of Rahimafrooz Group.

Battery manufacturing and marketing is the major source of income of the Tk 1,400-crore plus Rahimafrooz Group. Last year it exported nearly half of its productions or 3 lakh automotive batteries to more than 25 countries.

‘After putting years of efforts on brand development, we are now getting benefits from foreign markets,’ Niaz said adding that his company could not meet even one-thirds of ready demands from overseas markets.

To feed overseas markets, Rahimafrooz’s new plant at Ishwardi EPZ will go into operation by June. This will be the south Asia’s largest export-oriented battery manufacturing plant with an annual production capacity of one million units at the first phase.

‘Confidence is the first thing that is required to building a brand, then determinations and investments,’ said Niaz, who, however, reminds, ‘If quality of the products is not assured persistently the brand will eventually die.’

Sabbir Hasan Nasir, the CEO of Otobi, says consistency in quality have helped them to become the leader in local market and to get the choosy buyers at foreign markets.

With a 35 per cent annual growth, Otobi enjoys more than half of the country’s Tk 500-crore market of brand furniture. Nasir says difference in designs and quality products at affordable and competitive prices keep them ahead of others.

Nasir shares a pleasing experience in opening of an Otobi outlets in Kolkata in mid-2008. ‘The western expatriates started comparing Otobi’s designs and finishing with European products and surprised how Otobi could offer so competitive prices,’ said Nasir, ‘Huge coverage in Indian media then allured choosy Kolkata shoppers to our shop.’

Recently Otobi has established a sophisticated furniture making plant at Ashulia near Dhaka that also uses solar energy as its commitment to environment.

‘Successful branding requires “We” approach,’ said Nasir.‘ For banding success, companies need to work like families.

‘Without having sustainable brands, sales at any business may grow for a time being but hard to sustain,’ said Kamruzzaman Kamal, the executive director of the Agriculture Marketing Company Limited-AMCL.

Juice, pickles, cookies and confectionaries in AMCL’s brand name Pran are now being shipped to more than 50 countries and sold in villages in north-east India to cities in many Middle Eastern and western countries.

Pran’s last year’s exports amounted at around $15 million which was more than half of Bangladesh’s total processed food export earning. The company employs 60 plus Bangladeshis abroad to operate its overseas business. Also it has a plan to set up a plant in India.

‘Pran’s plants in Africa or middle-east are not impossible projects in the future,’ Kamal said.

Kazi Anis Ahmed, CEO of the organic tea brand Kazi and Kazi, says products from Bangladesh have potentials to be premium brands, but building brands requires strategic and professional efforts.

After being approved by all standardisation tests, Kazi and Kazi tea was showcased at Harrods in London as a test case and received overwhelming response from consumers.

By 2008 Kazi and Kazi developed its large capacity to process and market premium segment tea at significant volumes and now shipped regularly to the USA, Japan and Korea.

‘Sri Lanka exports 10 times more tea than Bangladesh but earns 100 times more. It happens not for mere quality, but for branding mainly,’ says Anis.

Citing that India has brand tea produced in her different regions, Anis says tea produced in Sylhet and other regions should have brands.

Anis said his brand sells at $4 to $9 per kilogram in export markets while on average export price of Bangladeshi bulk tea is only $1.65.

‘Within a couple of years we will export more than 50 per cent of our garden outputs or one million kilograms of tea as brand item,’ Anis told New Age.

Shariful Islam, editor of the Bangladesh Brand Forum, traces that realisations on the prospects of branding were growing among local companies.

‘You think how many Indian brands were there in global markets a decade ago and how many are there now,’ says Sharif as he disagrees that Bangladeshis have made late in entering global markets with their own brands.’ The age of branding by Bangladeshi exporters has begun and it will go on.’

Professor Syed Farhat Anwar of the Institute of Business Administration in the University of Dhaka predicts that mission of branding would soon be started in apparel export sector as well.

‘All that needs here are seriousness and professionalism, and skills of peoples in the companies should be enhanced much so they can understand the demands and the behaviours of overseas markets,’ the brand expert suggests.

He stresses that the government and industry should work together for the development of the brands at global markets.

By.
The New Age BD