Economy & Market

Creating a brand requires focus, sustained work and resources

Published

10 years ago

October 31, 2016

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Rahul Akkara, VP (Strategy and Brand), JSW Cement Ltd.
JSW is mainly into the production of steel, and generates slag as a by-product, a key material for cement. Rahul Akkra explains his strategy behind building up the JSW brand, and the difference that a strong brand can make to the bottom-line of a cement manufacturer.

If cement is a commodity, why is branding relevant?
Though cement is still in the space of a commodity, the consumer wants to understand which cement bag is going in his/her home. Today, consumers are very evolved in the decision-making process. Years ago, it was left to the mason to decide which cement would come inside homes. The result would be that the mason would buy a cheap cement and the owner of the house would see cracks in his walls in a few years. That trend is changing now. Hence it becomes important to ensure that the brand recall is high.

What difference does a strong brand make to the bottom-line of a cement company in India? What difference does it make to producers outside India?
A strong brand, be it in cement or any other commodity, helps to create a pull at the point of sale, and helps achieve higher realisations. Better the brand recall, better the pull and better are the chances of getting an improved price realisation for your cement bag. In a market which is so price sensitive, high brand recall for the brand helps to sustain the prices and improves margins.

Do companies plan differently for corporate branding and product branding in the cement industry?
Most cement brands work on a single brand architecture, so when you advertise at a corporate level, its rub-off also comes on the product. Having a multi-brand architecture would also result in more investments.

What are the most interesting brand messages in the Indian cement industry? How have these been conveyed? Can you compare these messages with FMCG brands?
Most cement companies use strength as a key message delivery, unlike FMCG companies where there are different levers like taste, design, and packaging. One has to understand that FMCG is an impulsive category while commodity is need based.

Isn’t product quality associated with branding? Can you quote any examples of brands failing or succeeding due to product quality?
Take the case of PSC Cement. Till two years back, no one knew about this new category in cement. People were used to buying OPC and PPC Cement. We were the only company in southern India to make PSC Cement; there was a need to educate the consumer on using this cement. We took the initiative and developed a communication strategy that informed the consumer to wait and buy the right cement. The result – it helped us to create a 6 per cent share for PSC Cement in the market, and in that 6 per cent, we today have more than a 95 per cent share. PSC Cement is superior to OPC and PPC, and all it needed was a good commu-nication strategy to be put in place.

Broadly speaking, what are the time and costs involved in creating and establishing a new brand for an all-India player or for a regional player?
Creating a brand is not an overnight process. It requires focus, sustained work and resources. A brand is an investment, and how much investment does one need to put in cannot be determined; it would largely depend on what is the vision that one has for the brand.

What do you think of premium cement brands? What do they promise to deliver over and above normal cement? Can you give some good examples of value creation through premium branding?
The difference between premium brands and normal brands is the value proposition and the service that one gives to consumers. The consumer is ready to pay an extra price for the brand where he gets a better value for the money spent. This would be by way of not just a superior product offering, but also by way of good pre- and post-sales service which would be a mix of a technical and sales service support system.

Is the introduction of PPC and PSC a challenge or an opportunity for the cement industry?
Today PPC accounts for almost 65 per cent of the market, while PSC is about 7 per cent in India and around 60 per cent all over the world.

It is very important that we use more of PSC and blended cement as natural resources are getting depleted on account of use of limestone and water. PSC uses slag as a raw material and requires less water for curing as compared to PPC and OPC. Also PSC Cement is a green cement, as the CO2 emission is less as compared to PPC and OPC.

How common are brand transitions in India? Are they connected with M & A activity? Or are there exceptions?
There have been quite a few acquisitions of late in the cement industry. However, these acquisitions have only been for assets and not for the brand. Establishing a brand takes a lot of time, money and resources. (Good) brands help organisations to achieve higher market capitalisation. Hence the transition of the brand as far as the cement space is concerned is very rare.

How are brand strategies and packaging strategies implemented in associated product categories like white cement, wall putty, waterproofing compounds, etc? Is there any learning inherent for the cement industry?
There are different kinds of packaging like paper and HDPE bags which are predominantly used in the cement sector. Of late, with an intent to launch premium products in the market, many companies have gone about experimenting on packaging as well. One such introduction is the use of Uflex packing for cement. Uflex packing gives you the liberty to do graphic and 11-colour printing as against HDPE or where you do four- and six-colour prints. Uflex is also very expensive in terms of cost per bag, so if the organisation is pretty confident of getting the price premiums for its product packed in Uflex packaging, it should go ahead and do it.

Can you help our readers on brands and distribution strategies as seen in the cement industry vis-?vis other building materials like paints, tiles, plumbing materials, plywood, reinforcement steel, etc?
Compared to paints, the distribution strategy of cement is a little different. Unlike paints where the material is dispatched from the factory godowns to the dealers, in cement, the distribution is from the factory to the dump, and subsequently the dealer and the sub-dealer.

How relevant will cement brands be in India after, say, 20 years?
Very relevant. In the next 20 years, the consumer buying pattern is going to witness a sea change. I also see a strong possibility of cement getting retailed online in a big way. RMCs are going to be the way forward.

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

3 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.