INTRODUCTION

Clean water is a matter of universal importance. Like air, water is not a choice: we need it to
survive. So it is deeply disturbing to learn that drinking water is the main health hazard in
India. River water, well and Groundwater are the source of drinking water for more than half
the population, but is it always safe? Groundwater is not required to be disinfected and can be
tainted through improper wastewater disposal, septic tank contamination, underground
storage tank or landfill leaks or animal waste disposal. Most city water uses treatment
methods that were developed near the turn of the 20th century. Even most bottled water is
drawn from city sources and not filtered in any way! No wonder millions of customers in
India are looking for ways to ensure the water they use in their homes is safe. Today there are
many kinds of home water filters and purifiers that can remove most pollutants found in city
water or from wells and streams. But deciding which model is the most trustworthy takes
time and research. To begin our search for the right water filter or water purifier, we need to
follow these steps:

 Have your drinking water tested, either by professionals or using home test kits. It's a
small investment that will pay for itself!
 Identify which pollutants are in your water and the type of purifier that will work
most effectively to remove them.
 Decide whether you prefer 'hard' or mineral-free water. Reverse Osmosis and Steam
Distiller units remove minerals from water.
 Identify the size of the system you need. Distillation and reverse osmosis products
will produce a limited amount of water per day.
 Other options may run continuously but require filters or cartridges that need
replacing periodically. Look at your family's daily volume of water - and double it so
that you have enough even in summer seasons.
 Find the best price with the highest reliability and a dependable warranty.
 Increasing public awareness of contaminated drinking water is creating an
"explosion" in this multi-billion dollar drinking water treatment industry.

So many companies throughout India have come up with drinking water systems and
filtration solutions for homes and small businesses. These filters have been used by hospitals,
schools, restaurants, Military, foreign embassies, major airlines, etc. There are contaminants
that can not be easily or affordably treated by public water treatment plant.
Almost everyone that you know will eventually buy a drinking water treatment system of
some kind and most of the people that they know will do the same. The Drinking Water
Treatment industry is exploding, and industry analysts predict that the industry will grow by
290% by the year 2016.

Water purifiers have now become a mandatory home appliance. With the pollution
surrounding us, life supporting elements like air and water have been contaminated. The
deadly maladies spreading through water have become a matter of concern. Each year around
a million people fall sick due to contaminated water and many die.

Drinking clean and pure water should be made a habit and Kent has been in this purification
service for over a decade. Kent has introduced the revolutionary Mineral RO technology
which can even eliminate the dissolved impurities in the water while preserving the essential
minerals in the water. It offers dual purification form bacteria and viruses. This purifier works
well with water from all sources like from bore-wells, overhead storage tanks, municipal
tanks etc. Even in the traditional UV (Ultra-Violet) purification system Kent has emerged as
a winner with its Ultra UV technology. It has a multiple filtration system of Sediment and
Nano filters which help in eradicating bacteria almost completely.

These innovative technologies have boasted the sales and the reputation of the company to a
great extent. Offering quality products and good after sale services has made Kent a
respectable brand.

Further Kent's pioneering Smart UV technology uses new hollow fibre casing to totally
purify the municipality water. It operates without electricity, so now even power cuts won't
be an issue in purify water. It has a storage capacity of about 8 litres to store the purified
water and thus is a step ahead than any other available water purifier. Kent water purifiers
remove the impurity, the seeming bad odour and make it safe for consumption. Kent water
purifiers are low on maintenance and are a one time reasonable investment to a healthy and
pure source of drinking water.
MARKETING OF KENT WATER PURIFIER

To strengthen its share in the water purifier market, Kent Systems Ltd has decided to enter
retail marketing directly, through exclusive stores called Kent Shoppe’s. It has planned 200
Shoppe’s in a year. This will add to its present network of multi-brand dealers. It has 6,000
distributors across India. Kent would become the only water purifier company to have
exclusive stores. Other companies Business Standard spoke to don’t have any plans to open
exclusive stores. Since a water purifier is a concept-selling product, we are going to set up
our own exclusive stores. We plan to open 50 Kent Shoppe’s stores by end-December.

Kent started with the upper segment market and entered the lower segment when players like
Hindustan Unilever and Tata took on the market with non-electrical water purifiers. It
launched Kent Gold Optima and Kent Gold Plus just before Tata launched Swach. While
non-electrical water purifiers are targeted at the low segment, the company does not have any
firm plans for the rural market. It plans to expand its distribution in urban areas for the time
being.

Kent has around 40 per cent market share in the RO category; Eureka Forbes has 45 per cent.
The exclusive stores are aimed to help Kent consolidate its market share in the upper segment
purifier market. Kent is a late entrant in the non-electrical segment, where it has 15 per cent
market share. It believes the exclusive stores will help it increase its share in the lower
segment, too.

Traditionally the water purifiers were sold through the direct sales route, where the sales man
would make direct sales calls to the consumers and sell the product. Infact at one point in
time Eureka Forbes use to be seen as a training ground for budding sales professionals, but
now it is said that companies might move out of the direct sales model. Direct selling is a
time tested way of selling and one wonders why should that be changed, I could think of a
few reasons,

First , could be the increased awareness on the part of the consumers in terms of water
purifier as a category. In the initial days the selling process also required educating the
consumer in terms of waterborne diseases and product benefits, which may not be that
essential part of the sales process today. The consumers might find it far more easier and
convenient to go and purchase from a retailer than a direct sales person coming to his/her
home.
Second, the emergence of competition has also lead to change in the dynamics of the
industry. KENT have strong distribution networks for their products and thus for them the
direct sales model would actually mean adding an additional channel of distribution. And last
but not least would the emergence and growth of organized retail in the country, which
provides the water purifiers with a right contact point to reach its consumers

TARGET MARKET: Firstly, we will target the government where as we will persuade them
to buy our products by telling them the advantages that how can it is helpful to stop water
disease and it is also cheaper than other companies‟ products. Secondly we will target middle
and low income level customers. By the help of marketing plan, we would try to achieve our
targets.

EXPECTED SALE: The main objective of this marketing plan is to increase sales. Our
expected sale in three year from India is Rs. 10 cr. First year we expected work with 75%
capacity of production second year we expected work with 90% capacity of production and
third year we expected work with 100% capacity of production.

EXPECTED PROFIT: Basically service oriented companies set the price according to their
operation structure such as how much they are spending on warranty period, production cost,
distribution cost, factory overheads and selling and advertising expanses. After analyzing all
these cost they add profit according to their strategy such as if they want to become price
oriented where their price will be less than competitor price then organization will set low
profit because they want to make profit by selling more volume of products. We are using
same strategy where we will set only Rs. 175 profits in after that we are looking towards
more profit margin than first year.

PRODUCT ADAPTATION: We will also customize our product and service according to
need and demand in the market such as if any customer want more than one year warranty
then we will provide him but we will charge him extra money.

COMPETITION: Most of the companies which have strong presence in the Indian water
purifier market are Eureka Forbes’ Aquaguard (Kaushik, 2003), Unilever’s Pure It, Kent,
Philips, Godrej, Usha Brita etc. Our nearest competitor is Aquasure of Eureka Forbes and
Pure It of HUL and their cost is much higher than ours, which is above to Rs. 2000
OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

 To analyze theoretical aspect of consumer satisfaction of kent water purifier.

 To study about the satisfaction level of customer towards water purifier
 Motivating the customers to take KENT water purifier.
 To find out factors which affect consumer perception regarding water purifier.
 To find out the marketing strategy of water purifier.

SOCPE OF THE STUDY

 The scope of the project helps in analyzing the factors ,which influence the referring
behaviour of customers. The study has been conducted by taking samples from
different areas which depicts the overall picture. The result obtained will give an
overview of the different criteria based on which an existing customer can be used to
generate sufficient leads for the company.
 The study can be helpful in taking decision so as to improve the approach towards
customers for getting reference and services. The project also helps to know an
organization works in real environment and under different market scenario. the main
purpose of study is to know about the preference and satisfaction level of customer
who use Kent water purifier. Thus the scope of the study was completed with the time
and resources available.

LIMITATION OF STUDY

 The study was confined to Coimbatore city only which may not represent the real
picture.
 Many retailers were not interested in KENT because of steep competition in the
 locality among retailers.
 Data collected about satisfaction level may not represent the real picture.
 My Study is confined to 100 respondents.
 Lack of research experience.
 Sample size has been restricted for convenience purpose.
 Personal biases may affect the accuracy of the data.
RIVIEW OF LITERATURE

Asian J. Exp. Biol. Sci. Volume 1 (2010) Examines that non electrical water purification
system (WPS), comprised of a non woven sediment filter followed by activated carbon and
disinfectant, was evaluated for chemical as well as microbial disinfection efficacy following
the general guidelines of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Guide Standard
and Protocol for Testing Microbiological Water Purifiers.

Dana M. Johnson, Feasibility of Water Purification Technology in Rural Areas of Developing

Countries, Journal of Environment Management, (2007) in this research study on “Feasibility
of Water Purification Technology in Rural Areas of Developing Countries” revealed that
water scarcity is threatening social and economic growth in rural areas of developing
countries

Nilma Das, A Study on Factors Affecting Consumer Purchase Decision of Water Purifier,
Indian Journal of Marketing (2013) A study on the topic “A Study on customer satisfaction of
Water Purifier”, concludes that behavior of consumers is affected by various factors like price
of product, technology, health and safety, brand name, marketing activities as well as their
own characteristics

Motley, (2009), corroborates the idea of matching service performance with customers'
expectations. the notes that the mission of a business is the creation of satisfied clients who
tend to favour the organization through time by patronizing the services being delivered by
the business. further to mentions that, businesses can achieve this aim by understanding what
satisfies and dissatisfies their customers or clients.

Winstanley and Martha (2012), have a different view about the relationship between
customer satisfaction and loyalty. They perceive a direct relationship between satisfaction
and loyalty. They claim that when customers are satisfied, they concentrate their business
with one business or service provider. Also customers who are highly satisfied are much
more likely to view their service providers as their main relationship business. Thus, Clarke
has put forward the argument that, 'a business that focuses exclusively on customer
satisfaction runs the risk of becoming an undifferentiated brand whose customers believe
only that it meets the minimum performance criteria for the category.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The study is based on survey technique. The study consists of analysis about customer’s
awareness and satisfaction of Kent R O systems ltd.

For the purpose of the study 50 customers are picked up and their views solicited on different
parameters. The methodology adopted includes

Questionnaire

Random sample survey of customers

Discussions with the concerned Personal interviews and informal discussions were held with
Kent R O systems customers to ascertain the awareness and satisfaction level. Further
applying simple statistical techniques has processed the data collected.

SOURCES OF DATA:

Primary data: Questionnaire

Secondary data: are published materials such as periodicals, journals, news papers, and
website.

TOOLS USED

Percentage Analysis :is applied to create a contingency table from the frequency distribution
and represent the collected data for better understanding.

FORMULA

if we have to find y% of x, then