Headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, Shalimar Paints (NSE: SHALPAINTS) with a market cap of 258.04 (Rs Cr) is a provider of wide range of decorative paints, industrial coatings technology and tinting systems.

Growth of Industrial Paint is lukewarm, however; expected to grow faster due to increasing investment in infrastructure and Auto Sector.
It is projected that Paint industry will grow 12-13 percent annually, over next few years from current size of 35K Cr.

Technology has deeply impacted fast growing paint industry specifically in the Decorative segments. Put together, social media, mobile apps, and digital connectivity are changing the nature of one of the oldest businesses
in India.

Social Media: Companies are using social media platform to reach to right customer with right information. Companies are running various campaigns on appropriate occasion like “Holi” which is festival of Color. Clean India – in which color will play important role. These campaigns on Social Media are drastically improving brand images their products are getting noticed.

Augmented Reality: For years, interior design and designer coloring were predominately costly affairs. However, since last couple of years it is no longer hefty price tag activity. More and more consumer is going with designer coloring and paint cycle is also reduced to couple of years.

Most effective way of technology is transforming coloring and design is through augmented reality powered websites and Apps. Augmented Reality technology makes it possible to seamlessly visualize products in real life environments. Consumers can experience a personalized and enriched interaction with products in their home before purchasing.

To take advantage of this change, companies are publishing various Apps & online design services to bring masses to demonstrate their products & features and convert leads into opportunity and further purchases. Customer can see three dimensional view in various angles. These Apps are designed in such a way that it is the process of simple, fun, engaging and time efficient. These apps are helping to increase sales and brand perception in market.

E-Commerce: Although trend of buying paint online in India is not seen much. Consumer prefers to visit shop and buy from outlets. However, all paint companies are slowly investing on e-Commerce and making their product available for purchase online to their customers. Everyone wants to take competitive advantage and so IT is playing big role here.

Another major change Paint companies are witnessing is - bringing their dealers and distributors on B2B platforms wherein orders from dealers / distributors, their payments, collections, schemes, order tracking and delivery confirmation are
getting done.

Other than online purchase, paint companies are using e-Commerce for procurement of Raw Material and their biding procurement process. Raw Material contributes to 60 percent of product cost so this is one of the major areas of cost optimization for all paint companies.

Companies are adding more and more suppliers in their business through various e-Procurement solutions. These platforms are helping them to get connected to international vendors and import the material.

Getting connected to international vendors are also benefiting to them to bring and learn new paint technologies in India.

Influence the Influencer: Painters and contractors are major influence in paint industries. Most of the consumers consider their opinion in their buying decision. Paint companies cannot ignore this community. Connecting them regular, updating them regularly on product information and features, rewarding them for sale and use of painters and contractors for building brand image are key factor.

IT solution like Influencer Management are being used to track campaigns of painters and contractors like Painter and Contractor Meet, Chowk Meet, Architect Talk, Loyalty Program for Painters so on.

It has become easy due to Information Technology to directly reward / Incentive them in the form of money which earlier was being done through dealers and contractors and was seen low success rate.

Automating Internal Functions and Processes: IT is being effectively used for automating internal processes of functions.

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