This document provides a marketing plan for a packaged drinking water business in Dubai. It includes an acknowledgment, executive summary, index, introduction, SWOT analysis, objectives, market analysis including target markets, positioning, and entry strategies. It also discusses pricing, distribution channels, the manufacturing process including raw materials and machinery, and problems faced by the industry. The plan aims to gain 50% market share by providing high quality mineral water and building strong supplier relationships.

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Marketing Plan
Packaged drinking water
industry in Dubai
(Manufacturing, packaging & Sales)
Name: Rahul Sharma
Class: PGDM
Div.: IB
Roll No: 07
Subject: International Marketing

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am grateful to my faculty Prof. Mukesh Goyal for giving
me moral support and guiding me in different matters
regarding the topic. He has been very kind and patient while
suggesting me the outlines of the project and correcting my
doubts. I thank him for his overall support.
I thank my parents for their undivided support and interest
who inspired me and encouraged me to go on my own way,
without whom I would have been unable to complete my
project. At last but not the least I would like to thank my
friends who gave their precious time for motivating me.
I thank all for being informative and tolerant. I would not
have been able to complete my project without sincere
guidance and effort of above mentioned people, whose
presence was blessing in disguise for me, which motivated me
to complete my project on time.
And finally to god who made all things possible.

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Executive Summary:
Packaged drinking water industry is one of the fastest growing
beverage segments in the country. As more and more people
become aware of the need of safe drinking water, the demand
will keep rising. Dubai has a large scope for packaged
drinking water industry. Large brands like Ferrarelle,
Aquafina, Arwa, San Pellegrino, Super Gulf, Masafi, Acqua
panna have established them successfully.
The report provides in-depth information into this industry –
the raw materials and machinery used, the manufacture
process, the market scenario and the problems faced by this
industry. The Appendix provides other necessary information
like a tentative time structure required to set up a packaged
drinking water unit, its financial aspect.

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Index
Sr.No Topic Page No
01 Executive Summary 03
02 Introduction 05
03 SWOT Analysis 07
04 Market Summary 10
05 Manufacturing process 17
06 Financial Aspects 23
07 Conclusion 24

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Introduction:
Water is very essential for mankind. Water available from
untreated sources like bore wells, rivers etc. is not safe for
drinking. Thus it is necessary to purify water for drinking
purpose. Safe potable water is not available everywhere.
Water is contaminated with impurities which cause disease if
consumed. Due to this water is processed and bottle for the
use of mankind. Packaged drinking water means water from
any potable water source including public drinking water
supply system which is subjected to different treatments to
meet the various standards and packed.
In Dubai, access to safe drinking water is difficult because of
shortage of drinking water and scarcity of clean water
resource. This has resulted to high growth in demand for
packaged drinking water. This industry will experience a huge
boom. Today packages drinking water is used in offices,
restaurants, railway stations, airports, bus stands, hospitals etc.
Though a large number of units have been established for the
production of packaged drinking water but, due to the ever
growing need, there is still a huge gap between the demand
and supply of packaged drinking water.

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Marketing Analysis
Packaged drinking water is available in the quantities of
250ml (cups), 500ml, 1litres, 5litres and 20litres. But, the
1litre bottle and the 20litre jar are the two major products in
the market.
The approximate cost of production of 1 carton (12 bottles)
comes to around Rs.60 i.e. Rs.5 per bottle. Depending upon
the market and the brand the carton is sold at Rs.62 – 65 to the
distributor. The distributor forwards it to the retailer at a price
of Rs.80 – 90. The retailer then sells each bottle at the MRP or
sometimes less than the MRP. Thus a shopkeeper earns
around Rs.4 – 7 every bottle. Thus, to summarise, every bottle
of water that we buy at Rs.15 costs a maximum of Rs.5/- this
is the scenario for small unit which produces around 30,000
bottles per day. For bigger plants like Aquafina the cost of
production would be a little lower and the selling price is
higher.
Generally, the profit margin on the sale of the water bottles is
not very high. Brand that are only into the bottling segment
earn profits because of the huge quantity of bottles
manufactured and higher selling price compared to local
brands. Jars on the other hand have a huge profit margin.
When more and more bottles are seen in the market, people
will definitely look forward to buy jars of such a brand.

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SWOT Analysis:
The overall evaluation of the company’s Strength,
weakness, opportunities, and threats is called SWOT
Analysis. It is the way of monitoring the external and internal
environment of a company. Strength and weaknesses are
measured from the internal environment and opportunity and
threats are measured from external environment.
STRENGTHS:
a. Strong management of the company
b. Latest and efficient machineries and technologies will be
used for production
c. Have a secured line of raw material supply
d. Extensive distribution of network
e. High quality of product.
WEAKNESS:
a. The company is coming in the market with a new
product
b. Short of fund for further investment.

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OPPORTUNITY:
a. Have opportunity of market/product development
b. People in metropolitan areas are inclined towards
branded products
c. The bottled drinking water is becoming popular and can
be advertised to gain the market share among health
conscious people
THREAT:
a. Large number of competitors in the market
b. Increase price of raw materials and other necessary
things.
c. Import & export & other government VAT & TAX
issues
d. Competitors invested huge amount for promotional
activities to gain their market share

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Objectives:
 To earn a reputation for being an innovative, trend setting
brand.
 To be positioned as a lifestyle oriented, vibrant and
contemporary product.
 Build strong relationship with our suppliers to secure a
preferential supply of the best quality products.
 Gain the 50% share in the market
 Provide the pure mineral water.

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Market Summary:
Target market:
We are targeting our market by segmenting it in
consumer market and business market. The most important
decision about the product will decide what people we want to
attract, i.e. our target audience.
Geographic:
Our geographic customers are of Dubai but in near future
after establishing our products in the other areas of the world.
Demographic:
 Target all age groups
 Lower and middle income class
Psychographic:
 Middle class and lower middle class
 Lower – middle class
 Lower – lower class
Market Trends:
Market trends is headed towards a more sophisticated
and aware customer.
 The preference for high – quality and low product is
increasing as customers are learning to appreciate the
qualitative differences.

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Consumer market:
We are segmenting the consumer market by family size
and social classes exist in Dubai.
Family size
Social class/ Income level
According to income level; consumer like monthly, weekly or
daily basis may buy our drinking water from our retailers.
A mini pack of 250ml has been introduced for a daily basis
use; our research says 20% of our population buy at least one
250ml of bottled drinking water in a day.
The average customer will buy 5 litres to 250ml bottled water
as per their requirement. It will depend on their income and
their daily requirement.

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Market Positioning:
This would be our first bottled drinking water launched in
Dubai market; there are few large companies who are
currently capturing the market of bottled water, a few of them
are in top position as market leader and most of them are
following the market follower policy.
The big companies are dominating cause of their huge
investment and promotional activities, their product quality
might not be that much enriched like ours but currently they
are in existing market with a major market share. Where we
are coming as a new comer and we will follow the market
follower strategy for few years but we are not here to be a
market follower, our main target would be to be the market
leader someday. Company like us cannot challenge them with
a unique product right now
We must understand that, we cannot dominate the market
right now as the major market share is not on regular bottled
water; we will create threat also opportunity for them. Only a
single advantage what we got is maybe for two to three years
we might dominate the niche market for our goodwill and
brand position for the high demand of bottled drinking water
but, after that other companies will introduce the same
product maybe with our compete price or less as their
business is already established. So we can’t just loose our
growing market share, in any mean we have to control the
market share and grow it as much as possible.

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Marketing Entry Strategies:
Every company takes necessary steps to sell their product in
the market, even though the product is highly enriched but
without any sales promotion activities or strategy, we can’t
get a good response from our target audience.
We will apply marketing strategies and sales strategy/
promotional activities, we have done our survey, and we have
talked with the distributors, wholesalers, retailers, and we
know what demand do we have in the market, now it’s time
for the implementation.
Now the sales promotion activities would be as follow, we are
taking some strategies for both our target customers and the
distribution channel
For Consumer:
 Websites
 Newspaper
 Radio
 Television
 Discounts
 Social works
 Banners
 Emails
 TV actors
 Free samples

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For distribution channel:
 High paid commission
 Sales target gifts
 Rewards as best retailers
Awareness of:
 Doctors
 NGO’s
 Health ministry
 Community clubs
Pricing Strategies
Distribution Strategy
Promotional Strategy
Communication Strategy

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Pricing Strategy Structure:
In the case of pricing three types of pricing is available:
• Low pricing
• Market price
• Premium pricing
Advantages of Market Pricing
• The consumer, so greater chance of accepting the price,
accepts the price.
• Quality of the product initially would be accepted.
Disadvantages:
• No reason for the consumer to shift the product when the
price is same.
• Product cannot be positioned as a premium product

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Business Market:
Hotels and restaurants:
a. Five Stars: Pan pacific, Sheraton, westin, bhurj al
Arab all these are world class five star rating hotel, our
target will be to convince the quality manager to use
our branded drinking water.
b. Three Stars: Three star hotels are located all around,
we will also target the quality manager and the
purchase department to buy our bottled drinking water,
and also we will offer them a good amount of
commission in a manner so that they may not refuse
us.
c. Regular Hotels: Even though five, four, three stars
hotels are known as corporate clients, a big number of
local restaurants are available all around Dubai who
fulfils the needs of main stream. We are also going to
target them because, even if we count on daily basis, a
minimum of 1litre to 5 litres will be required for each
restaurant, if we convert it to weekly or monthly basis,
it would generate a huge amount of revenue.
d. Catering Services: A good example is the community
centres or party halls. If we consider 3 parties in a
week, a minimum of hundred litre of bottled water
required for each week. And will generate a handsome
amount of revenue for the company.

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Manufacturing Process
Three different processes are carried out simultaneously
within a plant.
1. Perform  Heating Chamber  Hot air blowing
The perform is passed into a heating chamber to soften it. Hot
air is then blown into it to expand it into a 1 litre bottle
2. Raw material  Raw material storage tank Raw water feed
pump dosing system  Sand and carbon filter  High
pressure pump Reverse osmosis  ozonisation Finished
water storage Filling Visual examination Packing
Transported.
Raw water is collected in the storage tanks. The water is then
fed into the dosing system where anti-scalents are used for
softening of water. From the dosing system, water goes into
the sand and carbon filter where impurities are removed from
the water. Carbon filter removes the organic impurities.
Water then goes into the reverse osmosis (R.O) system which
removes 90.95% of dissolved solids. The finished water is
collected into a stainless steel storage tank. The tank is
provided with a manhole for cleaning process. The tank is
used for ozonisation. Ozone gas is passed for disinfection.
Water from this tank is used by filling machines to fill the
bottles. Empty bottles are fed from one end of the machine.
The automatic machine washes the empty bottles, fills them
with water and seals them with the cap. These bottles are then
examined against light to check any defect/leakage. Labels are
attached to the bottles as they pass on the conveyor belt. As
the bottles move on the conveyor belt, a laser prints the batch
number on every bottle. The conveyor belt passes through a

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heated chamber which causes the thin plastic up and packed in
cartons. The cartons are then tapped and are ready to be sold.
3. Empty jarwashingfillingvisual
examsSealTransported.
A separate jar filling section deals with the 20 litres jars.
Finished water from the stainless steel tanks is used here. The
empty jars are washed from the inside and outside. They are
filled with water and then examined for leakage. A seal is put
on the mouth of the jar and the jar is ready for transport.

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Raw Materials:
 Water: Raw water is generally pumped out from the
ground, or from the sea.
 Chemicals: these are used in the treatment of water.
Soluble salts precipitate over the membranes of reverse
osmosis (R.O) system and render them non-functional.
Thus anti-scalents are used to keep membranes from
fouling. Ozone gas is used for disinfection.
 Perform: It is a small plastic test tube which expands into a
bottle when hot air is blown into it. The quality of the bottle
depends of the preform. These bottles are for one time use
only.
 Cap: caps are used for sealing the bottle after water is filled
into them.
 Jar: these are reusable 20 litres plastic containers. They are
washed and refilled. The average life of a jar is 40 rounds
 Jar Seal: Similar to the cap of bottle, it is used to seal the
20 litres container. Once the seal is broken, it cannot be
used again on a jar. Thus, every time a jar is refilled a new
seal is fitted on it
 Labels: these are of two types. The bottle label is thin and
circular which are slid onto the bottle from the top. The jar
labels are sticker which are put somewhere on the body of
the jar.

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Machinery:
Three different machines are used in this process:
 Perform blowing machine: The perform is passed through
a heated chamber which makes it soft. This soft perform is
then picked and put into the blowing chamber where hot air
is blown into it and gives it the shape of the bottle.
 Water purification system: This includes the sand and
carbon filter and the R.O. system. Raw water is processed
and finished water is stored in the stainless steel tank. For
every 5000 litres of water produced by the R.O system,
3500 litres of waste water is generated. This waste water is
recharged back into the ground via soak pit.
 Automatic filling machine: The machine comprises of
four different sections i.e.: suction pump, filling unit, cap
feeder and the conveyor belt. Empty bottles from the
blowing machines are fed into a suction pump which pulls
these bottles and pushes them into the filling unit. These
empty bottles are washed and filled. The automatic cap
feeder unit feeds caps to the filling machine which are then
tightened to seal the bottles. These sealed bottles are
queued on the conveyor belt where labels are put and batch
number is printed.

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Problems Faced By the Industry:
Like any other industry, problems keep knocking the door of
the packaged drinking water industry.
 Shortage of labour: As the literacy rate grows, there has
been a decline in the blue-collar workforce. It is not easy
to find cheap labour to do jobs like loading and
unloading of trucks/auto, packing cartons, putting labels,
filling jars etc. the scarcity of workforce causes hike in
wages.
 Stealing of jars by deliver guys: Incidents happen when
the required amount of jar is not delivered at the
customer’s place. These jars are then sold to customers
by the delivery guys without any formal record. E.g. A
bank requires 10 jars every day. The delivery guy makes
a deal with the security guard (pays him a bribe) of the
bank and delivers only 8 jars but charges the bank
manager for 10 jars. He sells the other 2 jars to the
private customer, the record of which is not available
with the owner. The day this disorder comes to light, it
will bring about a bad name to the brand and will cause
loss of customer.
 Inventory problems: Sometimes missing/broken jars go
unreported and it is difficult to track which jar came from
which customer. All the empty jars are collected into one
place and it is difficult to track which delivery team is
responsible for the missing jar. One solution to this
problem is to deploy separate personnel who keep a
count of the number of empty jars brought back by each
delivery team. But even this becomes difficult when
many delivery teams arrive simultaneously for refilling

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 Unavailability of machinery parts: the machines used
in the manufacturing and packaging process are not
purchased from the local market. Thus, their spare parts
are not easily available. Most of the parts need to be
purchased from the machine’s manufacturing process.
The issue can be solved up to a certain level the machine
parts which breakdown often can be purchased and
stocked so that immediate repair can take place.
 Highly competitive market: with new rivals entering
the market at regular intervals, the price has to be
regulated accordingly. This is clearly visible in the sale
of water bottles where the profit margin is just Rs.2-5 per
carton. Also, brand loyalty is very low as all the brands
taste the same so sometimes people just buy the cheapest
product on the shelf.
 Illegal manufacturers: These are manufacturer who do
not have a license to commercially sell drinking water.
They provide water at a cheaper rate then the licensed
manufacturer. Sometimes these manufacturers also fake
the name of the branded bottles and sell their product.
The possible solution is to report any unlicensed unit to
the concerned authorities and get them shut down.

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Financial Aspects: (approx.)
Amount (in Lakhs)
 Fixed Capital
o Land & Building 50.00
o Plant & Machinery 25.00
o Other Fixed Assets 10.00
(Furniture bore well, delivery van)
o Total Fixed Cost 85.00
 Working Capital
(Per month)
o Raw material 17.00
o Salary & wages 0.75
o Utilities 0.50
(Electricity, Fuel)
o Other Expense 0.10
(Stationery, telephone)
o Total working capital 18.35
o Fixed capital 85.00
o Working capital 55.05
(For 3 months)
Total Capital Investment 140.05

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Conclusion:
In spite all the problems faced, packaged drinking water
industry is growing with leaps and bounds. The demand
for packaged drinking water is driven by higher
disposable income, increased preference for hygiene,
improved affordability and easy availability of packaged
water and shortage of safe drinking water. The industry
largely supports institutions like hotels, hospitals, offices
and parties, caterers, travel, tourism etc. the required
machinery can be purchased easily from a number of
dealers and the unit can start selling water once the BIS
certification is obtained.

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Bibliography:
Books/Reference:
 Branding for success – by Larry checco
 Marketing Management – by Philip Kottler
Websites:
 www.managementparadise.com
 www.google.co.in
 www.uaebusinessadvisors.blogspot.com
 www.africa-business.com

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Appendices:

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