Korean groups, such as Samsung and LG, have been dominating several white goods: categories in India and Electrolux is not amused. It is, after all, the world's largest maker of home appliances and outdoor equipment such as chain saws, lawn mowers and garden tractors. Electrolux Kelvinator Ltd., the Indian unit of AB Electrolux, a US$17 billion, Stockholm-headquartered home appliances company, is preparing for battle.

Rajeev Karwal, chief executive officer and managing director of Electrolux Kelvinator, has completed a year in office and has developed virtually a brand new sales and marketing team. The company has spent the past year restructuring and getting a lean crew in place to enable it to focus on putting its products in a top of the mind position of the consumer this year.

The key player in this plot is the woman consumer. "She decides what should be bought when it comes to refrigerators, washing machines and microwave ovens," says Sanjeev Wadhwa, Electrolux Kelvinator's general manager for marketing. Therefore the company's research focuses on giving her what she wants - take for instance the group's recently launched microwave ovens.

Although microwave ovens are useful for cooking, heating and reheating western cuisine, they do not always work well with Indian food. Therefore, the company has put on the market a "maxi wave" oven. The product incorporates a patented technology, through which radio waves of the frequency of 2.5 gigahertz are generated, which makes for uniform cooking, ideally suited to Indian culinary delicacies. In an extension of the company's focus on the Indian woman it recently sponsored the celebrity-studded, Financial Express 'women in business' function in Mumbai, at which women in various spheres in business were felicitated.

Karwal, who has spent most of his career in the marketing of consumer durables, with companies such as Philips and LG, has learned that listening to a consumer's needs yields rich dividends. Consider a woman with her child on a normal day. The child cries out for attention, so she picks him up and has in her other hand, a half-full feeding bottle, which she wants to put away in the refrigerator. But how does she open the door with both her hands occupied? Electrolux offered her a refrigerator - the Oxyswing - with a pedal that opens the door!

Similarly, the washing machine that talks came into being because housewives were a bit nervous about dumping their clothes into a barrel-like contraption. They were unsure about what to do when, how to regulate the timer, how much detergent to put in and whatnot. So, the Washie Talkie tells the housewife all, step by step. "We believe in consumer foresight, more than consumer insight," says Wadhwa. "We anticipate the needs of a woman and fulfil them. That's what our new mantra is all about - Nurturing hopes. Nourishing Life.

Wadhwa believes being in-sync with the consumer is his company's best weapon with which to take on the competition. Based on its knowledge of consumer preferences Electrolux intends to launch a range of washing machines and other home appliances and dominate the consumer's mindset. It helps that the company is not a complete stranger to the consumer. Traditionally Electrolux has grown by acquisition. It bought over brands such as Zanussi in Italy and Westinghouse in the US and Australia, among a host of others all over the world. In India it sells its products under the Electrolux-Kelvinator brand name because Electrolux acquired the Kelvinator brand in the US before the Swedish group entered India in 1996. In India Electrolux acquired Allwyn refrigerators, Voltas washing machine plant and Intron's front-loading washing machine factory.

But the big hurdle in India is dealing with the Korean onslaught. According to sources in the white goods industry, the Koreans were able to capture a lion's share of the Indian market because they were able to penetrate it and sell in smaller towns and villages. Others in the industry believe that the Koreans have been playing the price card. Wadhwa says, "When you reduce prices to a large extent, you end up cutting corners and that's where quality suffers."

Wadhwa says his company doesn't believe in cutting prices in order to gain numbers. He believes his company's reputation will stand it in good stead. "We are not about value for money but rather money for value because this is a high value purchase," he says. "The Indian consumer does not mind paying a small premium when he is assured of quality. We want to control the consumer's mind."

That means putting on the market a quality product that caters to consumers' needs. But more important, the consumer must have the confidence of knowing that he or she always has the manufacturer a phone call away in case there is need to service the product. So, Electrolux is going online with its servicing facilities - with the promise of having an appliance serviced within 24 hours of a customer registering a complaint on the Internet.

Besides, Electrolux intends to roll out a plan for customers whose warranties have lapsed. For a small fee their appliances will become eligible for servicing by the company for one year. Karwal says plans are afoot to augment the group's service centres, thus making the company more customer-friendly.

With such an orchestrated plan under way, Karwal is confident his brand will occupy a prominent place in the mind of the consumer so that by 2005 he can look forward to making deep inroads in the market and giving his competition a run for its money.