COMPARATIVE STUDY OF V-GUARD INDUCTION COOKTOPS

AND OTHER COMPETITIVE BRANDS

Introduction

V-Guard Industries Ltd is a major electrical appliances manufacturer in India, and the largest
in the state of Kerala with an annual turnover of 21.50 billion INR (FY 2017). It manufactures
voltage stabilizers, electrical cable, electric pumps, electric motors, geysers, solar water
heaters, induction cooktops, electric fans and UPSs. The company started in 1977, when
Kochouseph Chittilappilly set out to build a brand in the Indian electric and electronic goods
industry. The company started with a small manufacturing unit for voltage stabilizers, a capital
of Rs. 100,000 and two employees. Headquartered in city of Kochi, Kerala, the company now
has over 500 distributors, 30,000 retailers, and branches across India. It’s listed with the NSE
and BSE since 2008. Over the years V-Guard has sold into domestic, industrial and agricultural
electronic goods and appliances category taking the total company revenue to over Rs. 1700
Crore in 2014-15. The main idea of this project is to analyse and understand the effect of inbuilt
stabilizers in the sales of V-Guard stabilizers

Statement of Problem

To conduct a comparative study of V-Guard induction cooktops and other competitive brands.

Literature Review

Along with profound changes in consumer demands and brand connotation, the competition
among the brand have beyond the function of product or service, brand experience will be the
core influential factor that influence the customers’ choice, recognition and identification, the
one who can bring unusual and unique experience of the brand will come out on top in the
brand war. Zeithaml (1988) deems customer perceived value (CPV) as the evaluation of the
effectiveness of the product, which is based on the customers’ comparison about the payment
and the acquisition. Monroe and Krishnan (1985) propose the formation of the perceived value,
stress the relationship between perceived value and consuming intention. They think that the
positive perceived value could promote the consuming intention. Moreover, Slater and Narver
(2000) think that when providing more value than the competitors, enterprise could obtain more
customer perceived values, which can be deem as competitive advantage to develop market
ability that is relative with sales growth measured by CPV. Ulaga and Chacour (2001) also
demonstrate that the analyses of CPV is not only a market research tool, but also a powerful
competing and measuring one. All in all, what is the brand core source of competitive
advantage and the core of the customer’s key selling point as well as ongoing long-term
purchasing behavior is the continued customer satisfaction, which comes from customer
perceived value. So, from the point of CPV, this paper will analyse the difference between
competitors to explore different experiences, then seek different brand marketing strategies to
meet customer expectations of the brand, to provide maximum customer perceived value,
customer satisfaction, and finally to get the brand a competitive advantage.

Baolong Ma, Lin Zhang, Gao Wang and Fei Li deem consumer perceived value as the four-
dimensional structure, that is functional performance, perceived cost, emotional and social
value. Function is the quality and property of the product and service, cost is the efficiency of
the long-term and short-term depletion; emotion value is the inner experience in the processes
of using; social value is the ability that the product could enhance the consumers’ self-social
concept. According to the characters of the fast food industry we selected, we adjust the
structure of the four dimensions, that is: “QSCV” (Quality, Service, Cleanness, Value), which
means providing class quality products, thoughtful service, clean environment and comfortable
and affordable experience the standard idea and struggling goal and coincided with the four-
dimension of CPV, so we just define the structure as Q (quality), S (service), C (cleanness), V
(value), and explore the differences of CPV of two competitive brands.

Objectives of the Study

1. To study of the awareness of the V-Guard induction cooktops in the market.

2. To assess Buying behaviour of the customer, analysis of the demand, quality of product,
market shares of company.

3. To assess sellers selling strategies, Performance of the product and customer

satisfaction.
Methodology of Study

The method of study opted for this project is Descriptive research method. Descriptive
Research method attempts to determine the extent of differences in the needs, perceptions,
attitude and characteristics of subgroups. It determines the answers as to who, what, when,
where, and how questions. For E.g. identify the demographics of the consumers who purchase
electronics products. My research is Survey in nature.

Sampling Design. The study will be done with a Systematic Sampling method and data will be
collected by using a structured questionnaire and with a Sample Size of 70.

Method of Data collection. To study the consumer perception regarding the uses of V-Guard
Products with respect to other companies in Ernakulam region both primary and secondary
data will be collected.

 The study proposed to collect Primary Data through questionnaire using survey method.
To give a precise, accurate, realistic and relevant data.
 The Secondary Data as it has always been important for the completion of any report
provides a reliable, suitable, equate and specific knowledge. The data will collect from
websites published by the company.

Sample Area. To make a comparative analysis study of the consumer perception as well as
dealer & retailer’s perception of V-Guard products with respect to its competitor, the data for
the study has been collected through a survey of Dealers/Retailers of Ernakulam City and
surroundings.