Teaching Notes: Al Ain Dairy

Prepared by Dr. Melodena Stephens Balakrishnan

This case can be used to teach marketing strategy, retail management, branding, customer
value, competitive analysis, and even international business strategy. A better
understanding of the demographics and geography of UAE is required. The following
websites are good places for students to get on overall understanding of the context.
Information on UAE and its Strategic Priorities xan be found at the following websites:
http://www.uaeinteract.com/;
http://www.ameinfo.com/;
http://www.uaeembassy.org/business-trade/trade-export; information on logistics: read Basit, A. (2010),
UAE Top Logistics Hub in the Gulf, Khaleej Times, dated 16 January, Available:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?
xfile=data/business/2010/January/business_January326.xml&section=business; see the
World
Bank

Logistics
performance
Index
(LPI):
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTTLF/
0,,contentMDK:21514122~menuPK:3875957~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK
:515434,00.html
These are some indicative questions available
Q1. Recommend new products for Al Ain Diary based on competitive analysis, consumer
insights and emerging trends.
There students can do a competitive analysis using websites enclosed. Alternatively they
can look at hypermarket websites like Carrefour (http://carrefouruae.com/ ), Union
Cooperative
(http://www.ucs.ae/)
and
Lulu
Hypermarkets
(http://www.luluhypermarket.com/_index.php ). Students can do surveys and get some
consumer insights on global emerging trends and help recommend new products based on
migrating needs.
Encourage students to focus on innovations that are not incremental. This is a good
opportunity to teach brainstorming and how do you evaluate new product ideas. You can
divide the class into teams and have teams present new product ideas and the class
evaluate the feasibility, long-term and short-term impact of these new ideas on the market
and the cost of execution.
Other questions can be based on new product development or on market development.
Students can develop a new product and the marketing mix for the same.

Q2. Recommend a branding strategy for Al Ain Dairy.

Students can develop a brand strategy and help organize existing and future portfolio of
products by creating a systematic brand architecture. Country of Origin and Brand of
Origin are two new emerging research areas. Students can research these areas and
suggest ways Al Ain Dairy can use this to their advantage in entering into the GCC region
and expanding beyond.
Q. 3. Prioritize goals into long-term and short-term goals.
Strategically students can prioritize goals into short-term goals (next six months) and
long term goals (over the next 3-4 years). You can give them certain constraints
production, trade barriers (import and exports), and look at seasonalities Ramadan and
Eid are big religious seasons here. You can explore the meaning of Halal Foods to
understand the impact in international and local markets.
Q 4. If Al Ain Dairy was to expand operations into neighboring countries, looking at both
forward and backward integration what options would you suggest? If Al Ain Dairy is
looking at exporters and wants to ensure its quality what options are available? What
quality control mechanisms need to be put in place? What products would you
recommend?
Here students are recommended to download a map of the UAE and neighboring GCC
areas and consider logistics options keeping in mind restrictions like expiry dates and
export restrictions and goods movement time. UAE is a hub for aviation and shipping, a
new GCC rail is in the pipeline.
Q5. Al Ain Diary wants to develop the market for camel milk, What is the customer
perceived value for final customers. Identify the target segment. Would you use push or
pull retail strategy and why?
Students should be encouraged to research the benefits of camel milk. If you can do a
blind taste test in class - this is an ideal time to do so. Students love experimentation
(does it taste better with chocolate, as a pudding, with oatmeal, etc). A good source of
information on benefits is the local UAE newspaper Gulf News (http://gulfnews.com/).
You can also see articles like the one mentioned BBC (2006 ), Milking the benefit
from
camels,
BBC
News,
dated
21
April,
Available:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTTRANSPORT/EXTTLF/
0,,contentMDK:21514122~menuPK:3875957~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK
:515434,00.html
Customer Perceived Value (CPV) is a customer evaluation of benefits and costs. Benefits
are derived from many factors like actual product, image, people associated with the
product, the personal value, social value, and service. Costs are not only monetary

factors, but the psychic costs, effort and time required for customer to make a purchase or
arrive at a purchasing decisions. With environment becoming more important that is an
additional factor that can be added to the equation. Students can research this topic and
the apply the information they get on camel milk.
This will help them identify geographic markets for entry (based on local FDA laws, taste
preference) and target segment. Since it has specific benefits it may be better for students
to work on select niche markets rather than on mass marketing campaign. Based on
identified target segment, students can choose the appropriate channel and then decide
what strategy would work better.