L'Oreal India Case Study: Building a Brand in India

This case study analyzes L'Oreal's strategic approach to entering and establishing a strong presence in the Indian market. The analysis focuses on L'Oreal's long-term industry building and marketing plan, particularly its B2B strategy targeting small beauty parlors. The company's initial penetration strategy involved training programs, educational processes, and direct interaction with salon owners. L'Oreal's success is attributed to its localized B2B strategy, including the launch of the Matrix brand and the introduction of innovative products like Matrix Biolage Oil Therapy. The case study highlights the competitive landscape, including the emergence of local and international competitors. The analysis covers the period from 1992 to 2013, detailing the challenges and successes L'Oreal faced in building its brand and becoming a leading player in the Indian professional hair-care market. The analysis covers the period from 1992 to 2013, detailing the challenges and successes L'Oreal faced in building its brand and becoming a leading player in the Indian professional hair-care market.

L’Oreal India Case

Section I: The Situation
L’Oreal is seen to have adopted a long term industry building and the marketing plan. It
is identified as the first organization to enter into the Indian market with the help of
comprehensive penetrating strategy. The small beauty parlours across the country are targeted.
L'Oreal also execute the training and the educational processes for the small parlours present in
the country. The professionals from Paris were sent by the L'Oreal for training and the education
process. The company also used them for convincing the salons to stock their products. It is
enabling L'Oreal to open five regional training centres with starting the training program for the
salon owners as well as the stylists were targeted for using their product (Contributor, 2015). In
the marketing process of B2B in India, it is enabling L’Oreal to make the transitions of the small
salon owners to gain a better quality of products. It is also assisting them with upgrading the
salons, as well as lots of interactions with the salon owners, were made across the country. In the
year 2005, L'Oreal was seen to be training 20000 hairdressers. It is enabling the company to
establish a strong network within less than a year. The company is enabled to launch the matrix
brand with providing a various range of colourants'. The company was also seen to have
partnered with 5000 salons present in capital cities of India. L’Oreal also continued the
educational processes which are enabling them to start the hairdressing, styling and the cutting
processes (Dsim, 2016).
In the year 2010, the growth of the professional hair-care is seen to be growing with the
rate of 16%. The competing brands are establishing a tough competitive environment with Local
Company introducing Raaga Professional and after two years, Henkel launched Indola at the
lower segment which is less than its premium brand. This is establishing the direct competitive
environment for the L’Oreal matrix. The Indola launched by Henkel is seen to be consisting of

7000 salons in India which is establishing a tough competitive environment for L’Oreal. The
professional Paris of L’Oreal, Matrix and the Kerastase Paris by the year 2013 is seen to have
established their brands with the consistent opening of the training centres (Ganguly, 2014). It is
enabling the company to be the most successful hair-care professional brand in India with the
help of Matrix. The company is seen to be targeting the lowest end salons for the entering into
the Indian market at the presence of tough competition. Matrix is seen to be assisting the
company L’Oreal in gathering the salon recruiting, training sales representatives, staffs, salon
surveys and the development of the quarterly performance reports. With focusing on
strengthening the training and the distribution, it is seen that the L’Oreal is focusing on
innovation too. The innovative product Matrix Biolage Oil Therapy is helping the company in
gaining Indian market as is commonly used as hair oil for nourishing the hair care (Trefis, 2017).
Thus, the dedicated localized B2B strategy is helping the company to establish the brand name in
India as well as became the bestselling brand in the Indian professional hair-care market.

References
Contributor. (2015, October 20). Why Is L'Oreal Increasing Its Focus On India? Retrieved April
18, 2020, from forbes.com:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2015/10/20/why-is-loreal-increasing-its-
focus-on-india/#775b6c1023df
Dsim. (2016, March 09). CASE STUDY: How L’Oreal has maintained its leader position in
beauty and cosmetics industry since more than a century? Retrieved April 18, 2020, from
dsim.in: https://dsim.in/blog/2016/03/09/how-loreal-has-maintained-its-leader-position-
in-beauty-and-cosmetics-industry-since-more-than-a-century/
Ganguly, D. (2014, February 28). L'Oreal builds Indian business painstakingly; now ready for
the big leap. Retrieved April 18, 2020, from economictimes.indiatimes.com:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/loreal-builds-indian-business-painstakingly-now-
ready-for-the-big-leap/articleshow/31106143.cms?from=mdr
Trefis. (2017, September 27). How Is L’Oreal Progressing In India? Retrieved April 18, 2020,
from trefis.com: https://www.trefis.com/stock/lrlcy/articles/418699/how-is-loreal-
progressing-in-india/2017-09-27