48 SUPERBRANDS

Market“They who write last more than overnight".Perhaps this is what the Sumerians werethinking when more than 5000 years ago, theyscored their symbols in clay and baked them for permanence. Eternalpreservation was also themotive of the Egyptian Pharaohsin having the adoration of theirGods carved in stone. Lessdemanding scribes contentedthemselves with tablets of wood,coated with wax, on which theywrote with shards of bone.Theprized writing materials ofantiquity also included thepapyrus and parchment, whichlent themselves well toinscription with ink flowing fromreed brushes.

Even though writinginstruments crafted to carrytheir own supply of ink hadexisted for hundreds of years, itwas left to Lewis Waterman topatent the first practical fountainpen in 1884.The earlier models,plagued by ink spills and otherfailures left them impractical andhard to carry.

The fountain pen's moderndesign came after a thousandyears of using quill. Watermancould hardly have realised thatsome day his little inventionwould balloon into a Rs. 50,000crore (US$ 10.40 billion) worldmarket.

It wasn't so long ago thatbuying a single pen was a

measured decision.Today, consumers buymultiple pens in asingle purchase. Evenmore remarkable atransition is the factthat the contemporarygeneration is nowusing different inks,colours and even tipsto express theirmoods. It would seemthat the modern penis in travel mode,across the FMCGspace, into a fashionand individualpersonality statement.

Not surprisingly, thesize of the writinginstruments industry inIndia has boomed. Much of this growth hasbeen registered by the organised sector whichnow commands over 70% of all purchases madein this segment (Source: industry data).Thissuggests that consumers are respondingfavourably to quality and branding.

Ball pens form the biggest chunk – 72% – ofthe market in India with gel pens comprising thebalance (Source: ACNielsen).The domain of thefountain pen – once the only writing instrumentof both the rich and the poor – has now almostcompletely disappeared. It is confined to onlyluxury brands.

AchievementsWith dozens of brands andmore dozens of manufacturers, the pen marketin India presents a riot of choices.The jostlingfor attention happens at all levels of themarketing chain and at all levels of consumers.

Cello is a dominant brand. It has strongvertically integrated manufacturing facilities, in-house research and product development and apowerful distribution network that seeps downto over 800,000 outlets. Over the years, notonly has Cello gained increasing recognition, ithas also added to the market a clear vision ofits own limitless creative possibilities.

The Cello pedigree was a modest plastichousehold goods moulding facility thatcommenced operations in 1982. In the creditcolumn was the promise of sustained qualityproduction. On the debit was a lack of floorexperience. Once this experience had beengained it was apparent that success in onesphere of manufacturing could be replicated inanother area.That was the short genesis ofCello – a brand that would go on to garnerover 33% market share of the Rs. 1200 crore (US$ 250 million) (Source: ACNielsen)organised domestic writing instruments industry,in less than fifteen years.

Today, Cello is a market leader manufacturing4 million pens each day for Indian and worldmarkets.The company's European operationprovides a surfeit of models especiallydeveloped for small- and large- business and

designed to suit every writing need. Indeed, theCello foot print now straddles 62 countries withthe US, the UAE, Latvia, Syria,Thailand, the FarEast, West- and Central Africa, Scandinavia, theCIS countries and several Baltic nationsincreasingly reaching for this popular brand.

Annual revenues from exports touched US$ 13.85 million (Rs. 66.48 crore) in 2008/09.

In recognition of its fine track record, Cellowas affirmed the Reader's Digest Trusted Brandwinner four years – 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009– in a row.

History When it was started in 1982, Cello was a smallcompany. What it did have was a founder withan undisturbed vision of where he saw thisfledgling, several years down the line. Every stephe took brought it closer to that reality. Fouryears into production was one such stride.Founder G D Rathod established a new factoryin Goregaon, a suburb of Mumbai, tomanufacture Cello Thermoware.This gavethe structure a body, and provided itwith the experience that wouldhold it in good stead, when itentered the writinginstruments businesssegment.

That year came in 1995when Cello established itswriting division. From this newentity emerged a range ofpens with a flourish of thelatest technology.Thecompany's earliest model was amoulded ball point – the Clear Pen.Flush with its success the brand vir tuallystormed the writing instruments market withSwiss tips and German inks. A whole newgeneration of writing implements was born,offering clear flow and quality that establishedhis company as among the best pen crafters inthe world.

In 27 years since inception,the group has ramped upturnover to over Rs. 850crore (US$ 177.10 million).Cello dominates the writinginstruments market with anetwork comprising 40 superstockists, 4200 distributorsand over 600 highly-trainedand efficient field personnel.

With a distribution systemspread right across thecountry it was no longerpossible to manually controlthe operations.To infuse theproject with speed and fool-proof scheduling a fully-computerised, satellite-connected central orderbooking system was initiatedto provide the intelligent backbone. After putting it alltogether – its factory, carriageand freight warehouses,distribution depots, dealerpoints and transportationcrews – the organisation hasemerged as one of the largestdistribution super-structures inthe FMCG sector in India.

ProductIn using a pen, most peopledon't realise the extent ofprecision engineering thatgoes into its manufacture.Thenature of the ink, the size andsmoothness of the ball, theadditives to ensure free-flowand an extended shelf-life of

over two years, all have a bearingon the final product. Amongst thetechnological advancementscredited to Cello, one stands outin particular : it innovated thedispensation of ink flow for 0.5mm tips, for the first time in theworld. Every Cello 0.5 mm penreleases between 28 and 30milligrams of ink fluid per 100metres of writing to give strongercolour intensity on paper.

Back in its plant, the companydoes other things as well toensure that its pens provide avastly superior writingexperience. For instance, Celloemploys an in-house developed,state-of-the-art, low pressure-high volume technology.Thisdevelopment allows a uniform

flow of ink to be releasedeven when applying

less pressure.Thebodies of itspens aremanufacturedusingadvancedpolymersimportedfrom Japanand Korea andits pens are

designed tomatch

internationalstandards.

The philosophy that keeps Cello going is itsbelief that the consumer is evolving so rapidlythat no brand can succeed in the world marketby working on yesterday's concepts.This viewpoint is reflected in its constant product

development and is manifest in the rigorouslytested products it periodically introduces. In fact,working alongside quality improvement is ateam of people charged with the responsibilityof reducing the cost of pens.This is best doneby replacing imports with componentsmanufactured in-house, to the highest worldstandards.

Recent DevelopmentsIn order to provide new 'pressure-less', smoothand faster writing experiences to its consumers,the brand has launched an exciting range of gennext ball pens with stimulating names.Theseinclude the XS series, Butterflow,Top Ball,J-Class, Executive and Liquid Express.

The gel pen line now also boasts newmonikers like Pointec and Flogel. An exclusiverange in this category – Maxriter, Pinpoint,Technotip and Technotip XS – caters to longand continuous writing, such as during exams.Special performance tips and ink have aidednew generation of school-goers to achieve theirdreams.The company has also launchedstationery products like highlighters, whiteboardmarkers, permanent markers, mechanical pencils,CD markers, glue sticks and correction fluidpens for business and trade-relatedrequirements.

The company embossed its global imprimaturon the world market by participating inPaperworld 2008, Frankfurt, Germany for the8th consecutive time.

PromotionOne of Cello's primary areas of focus is thestudent segment. Since children form the largestsingle group of users, researchers anddevelopers at the Cello Lab of Excellence havedevoted very special attention to creatingwriting instruments that would best fulfil theirneeds.The trade mark protected writingtechnologies using Lubri-Flo and Feather-Flo inksystems have been developed to diminish strainon fingers and hands.The company promotesthis vigorously using the electronic, print andoutdoor media.

Brand ValuesCello is an important part of India's developingstory and a proud bearer of the Made in Indialabel, to nearly a third of the world's countries.Helping students write the most importantanswers of their lives and adults, often, thefutures of their companies, Cello takes its ownlife very seriously.The uncompromising quality itbuilds into its writing instruments is evidence ofthis role.

In reality the brand has actually taken writingbeyond the page and into the territory ofachieving one's dreams.

Its payoff line 'The Joy of Writing' sums upthe manufacturing ethos of Cello.

www.cellowriting.com

Things you didn’t know aboutCello

49SUPERBRANDS

From a single-location, Cello manufactures4 million pens each day

Cello introduced India to the elasto grip pen;branded Cello Gripper, this is currently the mostpreferred pen model amongst children

The best stationery stores in the world – OfficeDepot, Office Max,Walgreen's,Wal-Mart andthe Macro chain of stores in Europe – all sellCello pens

If every Cello pen manufactured today wrotejust one word, a book 10,000 pages long couldbe written everyday