BPL Ltd has initiated a series of cost saving measures to become a global source for electronic and white goods components and fight competition on cost and quality fronts.
"We want to make top-class products at Chinese prices," BPL's senior vice-president H N Srinivas said.
He said the group has decided to reduce raw material cost by 4-5 per cent and inventory costs by 30 per cent before March 2003.
He said the group has also drawn up a service excellence plan to become the 'most admired service provider in colour TV and home appliances.'
As per the service excellence plan, a new website will be created which would get into the chat mode within five minutes of surfing.
This chat mode would be linked to the service centre where BPL engineers will receive any queries and try to help the customer online.
He said a national call centre will also be opened allowing customers to call a certain toll-free number to get their product serviced.
18-hour service centre in various cities are also on cards which will be manned by senior technicians.
Srinivas said inventory turnarounds are being reduced from 25 days to 15 days so that there is just enough inventory at the factories. This will be done by forecasting methods and improving outbound logistics.
Raw material costs are also being reduced by increasing frequency of purchases and sourcing supplies indigenously.
He said nearly 40 per cent of the raw materials are currently being sourced through the plants of group's subsidiaries. Even these plants are undergoing cost saving exercises, he said.
Srinivas said most of the benefits will be passed on to the customers but a call will be taken only after these measures start yielding results.
The home appliances business group has also become original equipment maker for some of its competitors and at the same time it has started outsourcing fully-finished products from them.
The group has also implemented channel financing to bring down its receivables. This will reduce the company's exposure to working capital finance from banks.
BPL has already streamlined itself to focus on four business areas -- entertainment electronics, home appliances, soft energy & medical systems.
This has been carried out to have better focus in the organisation, be more tuned to customers and market, for faster growth, for increased transparency and for addressing different opportunities to create shareholders' value.