Here herbicide product line analysis of UPL has been done to find out the line decisions of the company and accordingly suggestions have been given on line stretching, line filling and line modernization. Since price-list and sales figures are not available, so line pruning decision has not been done.

1. Product-Mix & Product Line Analysis
(United Phosphorus Limited)
COURSE:Agri-Input Marketing(PGDM2011-13),
Indian Institute of Plantation Management,Bangalore
Presented by-
Bidhu Bhushan Binit(11PGDM08)

2. UPL- a brief introduction
 UPL is the largest manufacturer of agrochemicals in
India. It offers a wide range of products that includes
Insecticides, Fungicides, Herbicides, Fumigants, PGR
,Rodenticides and Industrial & Specialty Chemicals.
 UPL, Advanta and UEL, the three companies in the
group, are listed on the Indian stock exchange, with a
combined market capitalization of approx $2.5 billion.
 It operate in every continent and have a customer base in
123 countries with own subsidiary offices.
 It ranks amongst the top 5 post patent agrochemical
industries in the world.

3. Product-Mix
Aceta
Cyrux
Fungicide Insecticide
Herbicid Industrial
s e Doom chemicals
Rampart Fego WP/YP
Jhatka Rodenticide PGR RP
Conquer Guru
Aishwarya PCL3
SAAF
Metsy Josh Ratol Granules PCL5
TMP
Samar Sathi Kardon4G
&
Lancer
Unilax SF-10 24 More items
&
Uthane Sweep 10 more
Uniquat items
Produt-mix width

4. Four dimensions of UPL’s product-mix
1. Length: 61
Average length = total length / no of lines
= 61/6
=10.1
2. Width
Its product mix width is of six product lines.
3. Depth
Since products under Industrial and specialty chemical line are offered according to the need of
customer, means customization is there. So, we can’t exactly calculate the depth of products of
this line particularly.
Total no of products (except Indus.& Speciality Chemicals) = 33
Total number of Variants = 97
So, Average depth of Product-mix(excluding Industrial&specialty Chemicals) = 2.9
4. Consistency
UPL’s product lines except Indus. & Specialty Chemicals, are consistent in two ways-
 End consumer of these product lines is same i.e. farmer.
 Distribution channel is same for these product lines.

5. Target Customer of each Product line
Seria Product line Target Profile
l no customer Crop Country/importer
1 Fungicides Farmer Maize,bajra,paddy,tobacco,mango,grape
,vegetables
2 Herbicides Farmer Paddy,Wheat,Tea,Coffee,Rubber,Sugarc
ane
3 Insecticides Farmer Cotton,paddy,soyabean,sugarcane,sunfl
ower,pulses,
Vegetables
4 Rodenticides Farmer Paddy,Wheat,maize
5 PGR Farmer Paddy,veg.,Tea,cardem
6 Industrial & Agro-Chemical Mostly importers of more than
Specialty Chemicals product manufac. 100
Countries.

6. Core, Tangible and Augmented product of
UPL’s offerings(Herbicide product line)
expected
Augmented
No augmentation offered
Tangible
>various size and volume
> Different categories
Core
Destruction of
unwanted
weeds

7. Scope for improvement in Augmentation
 Number of players is increasing and farmers have
more choices. Definitely UPL has to think over it. It
must bring augmentation in its products. If we talk
about herbicides, company can offer free farm visits
by experts to give technical assistance.

8. Brand Building
 UPL (in India) is far below than other big players of industry in
sales and revenue. Its market share is very low, somewhere
between 1 to 2 per cent. It needs to make efforts on brand
building, both product brand building and corporate brand
building:
• UPL also deals in Industrial chemicals( B2B) from which it gains a
large revenue. In this segment, corporate branding matters and it
has built it successfully. Company needs to use this expertise in
B2C( in first five product lines).
• Since, pesticide products still having longer life cycle than other
input products, UPL needs to focus on product branding. Its
product brands are not much familiar amongst farmers. Many
products are named according to their formulation which sounds
technical like UNIQUAT,SF-10, METSY, UTHANE and many more.
It should be changed to catchy ones.

9. Product line analysis(herbicides)
 Product map for herbicide product line(used for Rice)
S
Non- S
selectiv
e
U B
selectiv S B
e
Pre- Post-emergence
emergence
B=Bayercrop, S=Syngenta,U=UPL.

10. Suggestions
1. Lengthening the existing herbicide product line by line filling:
For rice, company is not offering any product in selective post emergence
and non selective post emergence categories where major players are
offering. Attack on these two particular categories will increase UPL’s market
share.
For plantation crops, UPL should fill the line by introducing herbicides in
selective post emergence and in selective pre emergence.
2. Line Stretching of herbicide product line
Introduce herbicide products for vegetables and Soyabean.
3. Customer Awareness Programs
Filling more products leads to confusion amongst customers. When it
comes to farmers, it becomes more challenging. The only method is
intensive awareness programs to make them educate about noticeable
differences between products.
4. Line modernization for herbicide product line
Common design of packaging/ labels etc so that farmers could recognize
easily.
Many products of the existing product line is named technically. It must be
renamed which could sound attractive.

11. THANK YOU