Business Goals, Strategy & Action Plan - Perspective 2009-15 :

Result oriented actions are to be planed to fulfill the targets decided in the areas of milk procurement ,processing and marketing for which essential required manpower both for field activities , plant operations, marketing coverage needs to be considered in advance.

COOPERATIVE SERVICES

The major activities proposed to be taken up by the union under the cooperative services are creation of 350 new DCS and revival of 20 DCS. The union has proposed the following key targets to be achieved at the end of the project period:

Functional Cooperative Societies : 960
Average Milk Procurement (TKgPD) : 426
Peak Milk Procurement (TKgPD) : 578
Total Membership : 74000
Women Membership (%) : 45%

Proposed strategies

Recruit, train and motivate women to work for cooperatives to achieve significant improvements in dairy
Consolidation and growth in milk and milk product marketing, promoting better equity for regional cooperative brands and developing qualified and skilled manpower
Education of producer members, opinion leaders and trained professionals
Empower local leaders, strengthen societies and equip their staff and members with the skills and information they need

Action plan:

Orientation/ induction programme for farmers
Training of Management Committee members and society secretaries in preparing business plans and its implementation
Reorientation of union staff to new roles identified to meet perspective goals
Increasing women dairy cooperatives while recognising the potential of this segment as decision makers having practical knowledge about animal husbandry practices
Undertaking measures for significantly improving women's participation in the governance of dairy cooperatives at all levels

Strategies and actions for Milk Production Enhancement.

PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT

Various technical and support services are proposed to be taken up by the union with an aim to achieve the following besides reduction in number of low and unproductive cows & buffalos maintained by farmers.:

Reducing age at first calving
Reducing inter calving interval
Reducing number of AI per conception
Increase number of animals in milk
Improved breeding infrastructure
Improved nutrition management
Computerisation of data

The major activities proposed under the plan can be summarised as follows:

Animal Health Activities : Healthy cow & Buffalo, not falling sick, give more milk and productivity increases, if full care is taken and health services are extended from beginning

Animal Breeding Activities:

Breeding will be of priority consideration to enhance milk production & productivity which can be as under.

Pure breeding with semen of pedigreed bulls or progeny tested bulls if available of GIR Cows & Jaffarabadi buffalos. This will also help to maintain / increase A2 type of milk of GIR Cows.
Cross breeding of indigenous non descript cows with HF 100% semen in areas of good feed & fodder availability and farmers awareness of feeding of balanced cattle feed & mineral mixture. But the exotic blood level should be maintained within the range of 50% to 75% preferably 62.5%.
Use of Jersey 100% semen in areas of less fodder availability and farmers still not fully aware of balanced cattle feed & mineral mixture feeding. Here also exotic blood level should be within 75%.
Maximum percentage of door step services to farmers.
All efforts to increase conception by using AI services with frozen semen doses of pedigreed / progeny tested bulls , maintaining handling & insemination precautions and always with the attempt to cover new areas to increase coverage.
Maintenance of records concerning A.I, P.D. and calving under the programm , Information Network for Animal Productivity & Health.(INAPH).
To increase milk production & productivity, implementation of two important Programmes like Fertility Improvement Programme(FIP) and Productivity Enhancement Programme(PEP) are to be strengthened.
To reduce the age at first calving, female calf rearing programme has been started. Field workers take care of new born female calf from its birth till maturity, advising farmers for better management, feeding with milk replacers and calf starter besides green fodder and required quantity of dry fodder. To monitor its growth and development, body weight of the calves is taken regularly after birth.
To encourage pure breeding in Gir cows & Jaffarabadi buffalos semen of selected pedigreed bulls are distributed through A.I. Technicians. For this purpose, the union is regularly publishing Sire Directory to improve the knowledge of farmers.
RMU is in the process of preparing a film on A.I. to generate awareness among farmers which will increase the no. of A.I. & pregnancy.

Animal Nutrition and Management Activities:

Feeding chaffed, green & dry fodder in right proportion, balanced cattle feed of good quality and area specific minimal mixture with trace elements.
In absence of all these and in view of difficulties to convince the farmers, Total Mixed Ration (TMR) can be tried in the DCSs.

In order to achieve the targets, the union proposes to adopt the following strategies:

Improve the production potential of indigenous breeds of cattle such as Gir cows and Jaffarabadi buffalo through appropriate selection programme.
Cross non-descript cattle with Holstein Friesian in areas with adequate feed and fodder and with Jersey in less resource areas.
Increase the production and use of high quality feed appropriate to local conditions
Increase production and availability of green and ensiled fodder
Expand first-aid coverage through village level societies
Increase vaccination of animals
Develop Mastitis and Brucellosis control strategies
Expand AI coverage and less no.of A.I. per conception
Take up genetic improvement programme in selected DCS to supply semen of evaluated bulls to all selected DCS
Increase de-worming of animals
Promote use of GIS in AI and veterinary health services
Enable dairy cooperatives to operate as full-service extension centres for their members
At present RMU is regularly taking Rajdan Cattle Feed and Goumix Mineral Mixture from Rajdan Cattle feed factory of IIL, Wholly owned subsidiary of NDDB.

MARKET DEVELOPMENT

The union presently has a strong marketing network of 2506 retail outlets attached with approximately 106 agencies. Majority of its products are marketed through GCMMF. The union is also supplying surplus milk to GCMMF for manufacture of value added products. The local milk sale of the union is made under the brand name Gopal mainly in Rajkot and other nearby towns of Morvi, Dhoraji, Jetpur, Wankaner, Gondal, Jasdan and Virpur.

Proposed Marketing strategies:

Long term strategy is to capture both urban and rural market with milk & milk products of consumers choice ,taste, quality, attractive packing, readily available and above all, at competitive cost.
Naturally to achieve the end results, good planning at the grass root level based on market conditions is necessary.
All these exercises will enable us to achieve the need of super distributors , distributors, retailers parlours/ booths, hawkers in addition to different ways & means of advertisements for AMUL & GOPAL Products.
The union proposes to divide the entire market into segments in order to give adequate focus and better penetration.
The union proposes to assign each territory to a distributor. Accordingly, the marketing department will be reorganised to successfully implement the planned strategies.
The union proposes to prepare a detailed annual action plan with the segment wise monthly targets comprising the details of activities to be undertaken in order to achieve the monthly targets.
The union propose to have periodic review of the progress so as to take corrective measures as and when it becomes necessary for the achievement of annual targets.
For launching the target linked incentive schemes, the union proposes to have month-wise sales records for each distributor. This will facilitate the union to decide on the incentive slabs, so that each distributor is motivated to increase the liquid milk sale, particularly in the period when the sales are expected to decrease. It is important that the union's distributor should properly inform each retailer of the scheme, well in time to obtain maximum benefit out of the scheme.
The union would ensure that its full time centres/ parlours are situated in strategic locations and operate for maximum time during the day. The union may also deploy home delivery boys/ campaigner on contract basis.
The union proposes to draw people from marketing/ other functional departments and constitute a trained team to conduct door-to-door campaign effectively. The induction of women in these teams could be influencing. The union should coordinate properly the plant visits and target potential consumers from the areas where sales are low. The union proposes to have a proper data of the consumers and record feed back from them in order to assess the impact of these programmes.

As a part of marketing extension activity, the union is adopting the following approach:

Retail network expansion in the existing as well as new markets in the entire district.
Opening new milk booths in Municipal Corporation/ Housing societies premises
Introducing new product range like Dahi, Lassi, Probiotic Lassi, Ice cream, Cheese etc.
Improve face lifting of existing milk booths by way of attractive design
Door-to-door campaigns
Mobile quality testing
Orientation to retailers
Participating in related events
Stress on brand product visibility
Loyalty schemes/ target based incentive schemes/ consumer schemes

QUALITY AND PLANT MANAGEMENT

The union proposes to utilise perspective funds for installation of eight bulk milk coolers, milk testing laboratory, purchase of insulated boxes for transporting milk from dairy dock to retail outlets and for keeping milk pouches at retail outlets, purchase of 2800 SS-304 cans and 350 Electronic Milko Testers (EMT).

The union has set a target to achieve a Standard Platte Count (SPC) of less than 5 lakh cfu/ml for chilled raw milk and SPC of less than 15000 cfu/ml for processed milk at dispatch dock by the end of the project period i.e. 2015-16.

The union would adopt the following strategy to achieve these targets:

Identify and address quality related problems at every stage from the producer at the village cooperative to the dairy plant and the process of final delivery to the consumer
Facilitate improvement of hygiene, sanitation, food safety and operating efficiency in the dairy plants and sensitise dairy personnel to product quality aspects as per international standards
Development of a comprehensive database on raw milk quality at every stage from producer to consumer
Identification of key intervention technologies for each stage
Orientation of union technical inputs and other support services to emphasise compliance to national and international quality standards
Encouragement of quality incentives supported by educational programmes for dairy cooperative society staff, transporters and farmer producers
Establishment of village level chilling as first stage in cold chain reaching to the plant and on to the consumer
Facilitating dairy cooperatives in ISO 9000-2001 (quality management system), ISO HACCP (safety management system) certification and maintain the required plant conditions under the accreditation on a sustainable basis

NATIONAL INFORMATION NETWORK

The union has proposed an investment of Rs. 89.44 lakh under different heads for strengthening/ up-gradation of existing hardware and networking system. The union wishes to link all chilling centres and cooling units in a network that collects, adds value and disseminate information through internet. The union also wants to ensure availability of analytical information for Policy planning and decision support. Towards this end, the union has proposed to introduce ERP system across all departments including chilling centres and cooling units.

MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT & TRAINING

The Union wishes to impart certain general training to its employees. The other specialised trainings have been considered as a part of the investment under the respective category. The general training is proposed to be imparted to three employees every year.