ACC has devised an action plan, including product innovation, to strengthen its ready-mix concrete business. The 77-year-old company has lined up a series of ready-mix concrete products to push sales.

Holcim-owned ACC is betting on the affluent and demanding lifestyle of GenNext to push its environment-friendly products. If used in open spaces like car park or garden pathway, Permecrete can allow rainwater to seep through for recharging groundwater table.

Notwithstanding the product innovation, the company has adopted the sachet model of fast-moving consumer goods companies to improve market penetration. Targeting the retail segment, ACC has launched Bucketcrete, which contains 30kg concrete in a bucket for INR250 (US$4.30). The content, enough to layout 4ft2, needs to be used within six hours. The self-curing Bucketcrete is made to order and delivered a day in advance at the dealer's end.

The use of RMC has long been restricted to big builders as it is traditionally sold in truck loads. Contractors doing small civil repair work have to depend on the manual mix of cement, sand, stone and water by the mason. The company hopes to change the situation with the introduction of Bucketcrete.

Anil K Banchhor, CEO ACC Concrete, said a market study to ascertain the pain points of small civil contractors and customers led to the launch of Bucketcrete, which can be transported like any other consumer product. RMC is usually transported in trucks fitted with a rotating drum to avoid it from hardening.

The fire-resistant Lightcrete, which is 50-75 per cent lighter than normal concrete, can float in water. Besides reducing the structural load, Lightcrete also has sound insulation properties. ACC plans to team up with municipal contractors to bid for concrete road-laying projects.

The company’s Speedcrete once laid can cure (harden) within 24h, enabling smooth flow of traffic. Conventional RMC takes 15-20 days to cure.