Economy & Market

The buyers are picking a brand, not a commodity

Published

5 years ago

October 14, 2021

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H L Jain

Advisor-Marketing and Sales, Hi-Bond Cement (India)

Gujarat-based Hi-Bond Cement (India) is rapidly expanding its reach in the country. The company is geared up to boost its capacity-from 0.9 mtpa to 1.2 mtpa-by setting up plants in Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Hi-Bond attributes its success to the high demand for its products in the market and its strong brand retention value. HL Jain, Advisor-Marketing & Sales-Hi-Bond Cement (India), talks to ICR on how a branding strategy must be crafted to meet the marketing goals. Excerpts from the interview.

How important is it to create a separate brand image for a product like cement?

Cement is usually seen as a commodity product, and world over too, it is sold as a commodity. In fact, in some countries like Gulf, no company advertises their brand or product. In India, however, companies want to project their product as something different than those sold by others and so they resort to advertising. In such a competitive environment, brand building becomes very important.

What are the channels available for building a brand? Which of the medium do you find more effective?

There are several options available such as televisions, radios, hoardings, newspapers, wall painting, etc. Apart from these, there are more specific options like engineer and architect meet, mason and contractorÂ´s meet, consumers and dealerÂ´s meet, site visits, to name a few.

The choice of media for branding depends on the size of market that you want to capture and also on the production capacity of the company. For a plant with a capacity of more than 2 mt per year, all the channels become important. Looking at wide reach and the costs involved, I feel that television and radio are better channels for brand propagation than newspapers.

What suggestions do you have for smaller companies with tighter budgets trying to build a brand?

They should go for radio (FM), wall paintings and hoardings. Besides these, the company must focus on below three key aspects that help building a strong brand. Clean, clear, and transparent marketing and accounting system, good network of reputed dealers and strong distribution channel, and quality of product. The total cost of branding exercise should be within the range of Rs 40 to 50 per tonne of cement to be sold. If the production capacity is smaller and involves more than one state with two different languages, then the cost is higher while returns remain the same.

Which characteristic of your brand are you trying to highlight through your advertisement?

We want to communicate clearly as our promoters are reputed and are well established industrialists with a proven track record. The product is of top quality, comparable to any other top quality product in the market. Our delivery system is prompt and efficient.

Do you feel the Â´greener/environment friendly productÂ´ angle appeals more to customers as of today?

No it does not. It is not more than a mere slogan for consumers today and they donÂ´t bother much about it. They are more concerned about the price, the quality and the availability of the product. This awareness must be developed and the responsibility of creating it is on the entire industry as well as on the government.

Is it worthwhile campaigning in rural markets?

Nowadays, urban markets have more bulk consumers, whereas rural markets [mostly] have retail buyers. That makes it important to advertise in rural markets as well. The buyers here are picking a brand, not a commodity.

How do you look at celebrity endorsements? Does it bring more value to a product?

Celebrity endorsement does have its merits and it does affect the brand value of the product. However, this channel is very costly and must be sought only for brands that need to be sold in huge volumes in widespread markets comprising of at least 5-7 states.

Apart from cementÂ´s strength, what are the other factors important for consumers?

Apart from strength, other factors such as durability, consistency and workability are very important for consumers.

What would be the top three things that one must keep in mind while designing a campaign or planning a branding exercise?

The top three things would be: the positioning of the brand, the size of the market/reach of the product and total quantity of the product to be marketed.

How does one evaluate the return on investment (RoI) of a branding exercise? And how soon can one expect the returns?

The returns could be realised immediately as soon as the product is launched in the market. We can say that the branding exercise has worked looking at positive feedback from the consumers and based on their repeat orders.

Could you share examples of non-traditional methods adopted by you to promote your brand?

We have not opted for a completely unconventional method so far at Hi-Bond. But in 1997, when I was associated with Binani, we tried something novel to Indian markets. At the time when we launched Binani Cement, we introduced Â´cash and carryÂ´ system. Though it was not a part of a direct branding exercise, it created a strong wave in the market. Traditional players wondered how a new player in the market is going ahead with Â´cash and carryÂ´ system, while the entire Indian market is selling on credit period of more than three months. This gave Binani a standing of its own in the market.

How does incentivising dealers compare with spending on advertising in terms of getting sales?

Simply incentivising dealers does not work. The brand awareness in the market through various media is also important and therefore a reasonable budget for that is necessary. Advertising is a variable expenditure and you can reduce or increase it according to the income of the company. Whereas incentives to the dealer is an ever-growing, fixed expenditure, which is dangerous. Unfortunately, some marketing people, under pressure from network, at times adopt this practice and ultimately damage the company severely.

Economy & Market

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

Published

4 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

3 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

3 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.