Steel Authority of India Limited : SAIL SeQR: A Brand Story

A Special Feature | Courtesy – SAIL Corporate Office | New Delhi

SAIL launched its Flagship Retail Brand “SAIL-SeQR” Reinforcement Bar in 2019-20. This brand is being promoted as better quality steel for safer homes and is focused on enhancing Retail presence with special emphasis on rural penetration. After the success of “SAIL-SeQR 500D”, a notable addition to SAIL Retail Brand in FY23 has been “SAIL-SeQR 550D” Reinforcement Bars which today constitutes approx 80% of the total “SAIL-SeQR” sales.

SAIL-SeQR Reinforcement

Bars possess the unique combination of High Strength and High Ductility that surpasses the minimum specified level of BIS. Other key features are High Bond Strength, High Earthquake Resistance, Superior bend ability, Superior Rib pattern, High Uniform Elongation, clean Steel with Low Sulphur and Phosphorus levels. High Phosphorus makes the Steel brittle and high Sulphur reduces the strength. SAIL-SeQR 550D gives aTS/YS of 1.15(against Industry Standards of 1.08) and Elongation of 16(against Industry Standards of 14.5). In a nutshell, usage of “SAIL-SeQR” Reinforcement Bars ensure Long Life for the House, consumption of lower quantity of Steel and resistance to natural occurrence like Earthquakes, cyclones etc.

SAIL introduced the Two Tier Distributor Scheme for Retail sales in the year 2016 with a view to reaching out to the end customer in Retail through an efficient Distribution Channel. This has enabled  delivery of higher value for the customers through value addition in Products, Delivery, Services and through Brand Building. This has also helped improve the market share and NSR(Net Sales Realization) of SAIL.

Our strategy has been to use the Retail Channel as a lever for improving Brand value. Strengthening of our Retail Value Management (RVM) strategy has helped increase  awareness, visibility and brand image of our product. There has been a continual focus on Product and the mix, Distributors, Dealers, price, services, inventory, MIS, visibility, promotion, feedback etc.

SAIL has been working towards expanding the 2-Tier distributorship networks across India, which has strengthened our position in B2C space. As on date, SAIL has a strong network of Distributors and Dealers across the Country with 38Distributors and 4894 Dealers. This journey of expansion will help us grow to a total of 65 Distributors spread over 58 clusters spanning the length and breadth of the country by the end of FY24. The final destination, however, is to cover all the 794 Districts of the country for which we aim to have 77 Distributors spread over 71 clusters.

India lives in its villages and we have embraced that. In order to help build awareness and acceptance of steel usage in rural areas, SAIL has an ongoing rural outreach programme “Gaon Ki Ore”. Under the campaign, 257 workshops have been conducted during FY23. The campaign includes workshops for the grass-root level steel users like masons, artisans, individual house builders, gram panchayat members etc. The Workshop feedback helps in understanding steel requirements of the rural areas and facilitates better targeting of products for rural markets.

The SeQR Brand has become an integral part of the India growth story and has a national presence today. It can be seen at Airports, Metro Rails, hoardings, fairs, exhibitions etc across cities and villages. The visibility of our SeQR brand spreads from the Toy Train in Darjeeling to DAL Lake in Srinagar, Rath Yatra in Puri to the Boat Race in the backwaters of Kerala.

All this and more resulted in SAIL selling 5.6 lakh tonnes of “SAIL SeQR” reinforcement bars in FY’23 compared to 3.8 lakh tonnes in the previous year thereby registering a growth of about 47%. In the coming years, in addition to contribution to top line value, the brand “SAIL SeQR” is expected to not only meet the quality expectation of the Retail Sector but also to further drive the brand presence of the Company.

Our online e-sales platform “SAIL SURAKSHA” with the tagline ‘’Ab Nishchint ho Jayein’’ was launched during 2020-21 to enable the servicing of the smallest of demand through the 2-tier Distributorship network. This e-portal apart from providing a uniform Brand experience also helps the small consumers/house builders to place orders on our Retail Channel.

With 750 plus numbers of e-transactions taking place through SAIL on-line portal ‘SAIL Suraksha’, the small customers are showing their interest and confidence in the e-portal for buying of SAIL SeQR TMT Bars.

With the increasing Channel outreach through our Distributors, Dealers, online e-portal, better availability of material and the size mix, good Brand acceptance, promotional campaigns like Gaon Ki Ore etc, we have been able to create a Brand, “SAIL-SeQR”. This Brand has helped us increase our spread from a mere 14 Distributors and a sales of 52263T in FY18 to 38 Distributors and sales of 7.25Lakh T in FY23. The journey continues and more Brands from the SAIL stable will get created and would have an impact similar to SAIL-SeQR.

(Shilpa Bichitra | Special Edition | 2023)