Painting Success Across Borders: Discussing Strategy with Rakesh Rao of Crown Paints Kenya

Rakesh Rao, Group CEO of Crown Paints Kenya PLC, the number one paint manufacturing company in Kenya, discusses international presence and strategy.

“We have our own establishment, office, and factory in Uganda. In Tanzania we have a new factory. We invested quite heavily – over $5 million – in Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda to set up new plants. Paint is practically impossible to export to these countries because they are so big. We export to Congo, Sudan and Uganda because there is a gateway there. We are growing the market but most of the customers generally come in and buy from a dealer, so sometimes we do not know where the goods are going. Overall, our strategy is to grow market share in all the regions the way we have been strong in market shares in Kenya. In Tanzania, we are almost the number three player. In Rwanda, as a trusted brand or corporate brand, we are number one. In Uganda, we are number two. We have a different market share in each. We are likely to gain every year 1% to 2% more market shares and to do respectable numbers for number two brands. For our number two brand today our market share is 12% to 13% and a respectable number to be number two should be 20%. We cannot just jump to the number one spot. It will take some time. So, we need to be continuously hammering our quality of products, services, value propositions, winning the customer confidence, and then take the market share to the next level”, says Rakesh Rao.

ABOUT CROWN PAINTS: Crown Paints Kenya PLC was established in 1958 and is the number one paint manufacturing company in Kenya. As the Kenyan decorative brand leader since 1986, Crown Paints has built a strong distribution network. Quality has been the key to the company’s consistent performance and growth, supported by its close to 700 loyal staff, as well as distribution dealers, some of whom have had 40 years trading or more as key distributors.

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