The Dream behind Shwapno
Standing motionless, raising head to the open sky, staring aimlessly, having tears rolled inside the heart, expecting for customers, who will approach followed by purchasing the product, but returning home selling his merchandise at below the production cost most often leaving those merchandise unsold at the end of the day due to lack of buyer, a farmer from a typical Bazar in Bangladesh passes his everyday for his livelihood. There are millions of farmers scattered across Bangladesh have this sort of gruesome and untold experience in their life leading them to take different such unproductive occupation as pulling rickshaw, thus dragging our agro based economy to down and making us more dependent on imported food. Ironically, most of us do not know that silent cry is going in the families of those hapless farmers. Most farmers spend their day in suspicion thinking whether they can sell their products at fair price as well as sell those all, even if they have bumper production in their field. Hardly do they get fair price and sell those altogether, ironically. What a great humiliation for farmers, who work all day long under scorching sun devoting his happiness and meet the daily vegetable and grain needs of urban people. Likewise, fisherman and meat producer encounter this type of fate in their life. Most of the farmers, fisherman and meat producer of our country are the victim of typical interest business “Dadan”, which exploit them instead of benefiting them. Lots of vegetables decay in rural area because farmers do not find enough buyers who will buy their goods, whereas city dwellers pay extra to meet their vegetable need. Besides, poor transportation infrastructure and transportation system attribute to inefficient flow of agriculture goods from rural area to urban. While producers are on one extreme of value chain, consumers are on other extreme.
Shopping in untidy ambiance such as muddy floor, insufficient space to move, unhygienic arrangement of product, bargaining process, inconsistence price, a shopper in urban area lose his or her interest to shop in market and get panicked subsequently. Shopping in kitchen and supermarket is no longer a pleasant experience rather nightmare for shopper. As a result, home service is getting popularity among urban people. Customers in urban area are being deceived everyday by shopkeepers with selling inferior goods, charging excessive price and incorrect measurement. In other words, consumers are one sort of hostage to these shoppers, who form one kind of syndicate and dictate the market. The agony of the consumer compound with exorbitant price, inferior quality of the products, long bargaining custom in Bangladesh, inaccurate measurement, traffic jam, and so forth triggered by lose of interest for shopping, whilst shopping is a pleasant experience in most of the countries especially developed country. Notably, consumers of Bangladesh have always been the victim of deception by the shoppers, who invariably manipulate the price.
The above two parties of the value chain are the ultimate loser since intermediaries in this value chain process reap the major benefit by exploiting both producer and consumer in terms of paying price below the production cost to the producer and charging premium price to the customers. Wholesaler and retailer are two intermediaries in this value chain, where wholesaler often form cartel to manipulate the market by creating crisis in the moment of high demand or low production, while retailer charge customer with high price, sell inferior quality, practice inappropriate measurement, and so forth. Neither producers nor consumers get the benefit of the value chain. Only do the wholesaler and retailer capitalize on the weak bargaining power of the producer and absence of proper monitoring on market price, quality assurance by government on the part of consumer. We have not seen any significant progress in preserving consumers’ rights in Bangladesh, even if government took several measures, such as campaign against contamination, enacting new laws concerning consumers’ rights, and so on.
Today farmers, who are invariably deprived of having minimal scale of social rights to make the livelihood through farming, are the most unfortunate community in Bangladesh despite serving the nation with supplying basic need-food. In addition, hardly do they get any assistance from government in terms of supplying fertilizer, diesel oil, seeds, cultivation equipments at rational price, whereas farmers in developed and developing countries are the most respected community, who can avail subsidies from government, quality seeds, fertilizer and diesel oil at cheap price. This ironic situation of our farmers is leading them to embrace some unproductive professions most often some anti-social activities, thereby impacting economy negatively dragging the country to more reliance on foreign aid.
Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI) Ltd, former ICI Plc Uk, began its journey in 1992 with the mission of enriching the quality of life through responsible application of knowledge, skills and technology, and has successfully established itself as one of the biggest conglomerates in Bangladesh. ACI, having a multinational heritage, is committed to the pursuit of excellence through world-class products, innovative processes and empowered employees, to provide the highest level of satisfaction to its customers. ACI began its journey to ensure better life to the Bangladeshi people with the name of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) in 1968 in Bangladesh by offering a wide range of such products as pharmaceutical, Consumer product, and so forth. However, ICI divested into ACI (Advanced Chemical Industries) by selling its share to local management, and named by ACI in 1992. By far, the life saving drugs and home care products have met the need from the people to some extent as the persistent existence and acceptance from local community since 1968 has proven and acknowledged its endeavor and uncompromising quality. Home care products encompass ACI Aerosol, ACI Mosquito Coil, Angelic Air Freshener, Savlon Liquid Antiseptic, Savlon Antiseptic Cream, Savlon Liquid Soap, and so on. ACI has been realizing certain areas, which need to be improved in order to ensure better life standard in Bangladesh for couple of years. It follows that, ACI started thinking to invest in those potential as well as demanding areas. As a consequence, we have been experiencing new inclusion to ACI family such as flour, spice powder, salt, electronics, and so forth. All endeavors, deemed by ACI, undertaken so far are for enriching the quality of life of Bangladeshi people.
However, a large portion population especially farmer and end user has been deprived of having such benefit, even though market is flooded with a wide range of products since the producers do not get appropriate price for their production and consumers invariably are deceived by sellers, who often sell inferior goods, goods with inaccurate measurement, and so on. Of late, most of the business firms form cartel, which has been worsening the condition of life of farmers as well as consumers, to dictate the market, and they are successful in this case. ACI has been looking for ways to finish this cartel off so as to benefit both farmers and consumers. Besides, most of the vegetable produced in rural areas get rotten due to lack of proper transport facilities, whereas city dwellers have to pay extra money for scarce vegetable in the city.
Countries, like Bangladesh, where economy is based on agriculture altogether, are required to emphasize more on agribusiness and supply chain development since these countries lack sufficient technology to move to industry, which requires natural resources as well as extensive technological knowhow. Every country has comparative advantage on some area, and so does Bangladesh. Comparative advantage of Bangladesh is supposed to be agriculture. By contrast, Bangladesh is blessed with both natural and human resources. By far, the primary contributors to the exchequer are remittance and garments sectors, where millions of people are working relentlessly to ensure sustainable economic growth. Even if Bangladesh has experienced a surged in some such industries as garments, textile, and small cottage, it cannot deny the role of agriculture to the economy as it has to import a lot of food every year to meet the local demand, while there are lots of potentiality to grow foods if lands are properly used and modern technology is adopted in agriculture. Understanding the gap in the value chain, ACI has initiated to establish new businesses namely ACI Agribusiness and ACI Logistics to remove this gap, to uproot cartel, and to ensure reasonable price for both farmers and consumers. ACI Agribusiness has been working to bring revolution to the agriculture by investing such areas as Seeds, Fertilizer, Motor, Crop care & Public Health, and Animal Health, whilst ACI Logistics has been established to devote itself to benefit the end users of all products.
Standing motionless, raising head to the open sky, staring aimlessly, having tears rolled inside the heart, expecting for customers, who will approach followed by purchasing the product, but returning home selling his merchandise at below the production cost most often leaving those merchandise unsold at the end of the day due to lack of buyer, a farmer from a typical Bazar in Bangladesh passes his everyday for his livelihood. There are millions of farmers scattered across Bangladesh have this sort of gruesome and untold experience in their life leading them to take different such unproductive occupation as pulling rickshaw, thus dragging our agro based economy to down and making us more dependent on imported food. Ironically, most of us do not know that silent cry is going in the families of those hapless farmers. Most farmers spend their day in suspicion thinking whether they can sell their products at fair price as well as sell those all, even if they have bumper production in their field. Hardly do they get fair price and sell those altogether, ironically. What a great humiliation for farmers, who work all day long under scorching sun devoting his happiness and meet the daily vegetable and grain needs of urban people. Likewise, fisherman and meat producer encounter this type of fate in their life. Most of the farmers, fisherman and meat producer of our country are the victim of typical interest business “Dadan”, which exploit them instead of benefiting them. Lots of vegetables decay in rural area because farmers do not find enough buyers who will buy their goods, whereas city dwellers pay extra to meet their vegetable need. Besides, poor transportation infrastructure and transportation system attribute to inefficient flow of agriculture goods from rural area to urban. While producers are on one extreme of value chain, consumers are on other extreme.
Shopping in untidy ambiance such as muddy floor, insufficient space to move, unhygienic arrangement of product, bargaining process, inconsistence price, a shopper in urban area lose his or her interest to shop in market and get panicked subsequently. Shopping in kitchen and supermarket is no longer a pleasant experience rather nightmare for shopper. As a result, home service is getting popularity among urban people. Customers in urban area are being deceived everyday by shopkeepers with selling inferior goods, charging excessive price and incorrect measurement. In other words, consumers are one sort of hostage to these shoppers, who form one kind of syndicate and dictate the market. The agony of the consumer compound with exorbitant price, inferior quality of the products, long bargaining custom in Bangladesh, inaccurate measurement, traffic jam, and so forth triggered by lose of interest for shopping, whilst shopping is a pleasant experience in most of the countries especially developed country. Notably, consumers of Bangladesh have always been the victim of deception by the shoppers, who invariably manipulate the price.
The above two parties of the value chain are the ultimate loser since intermediaries in this value chain process reap the major benefit by exploiting both producer and consumer in terms of paying price below the production cost to the producer and charging premium price to the customers. Wholesaler and retailer are two intermediaries in this value chain, where wholesaler often form cartel to manipulate the market by creating crisis in the moment of high demand or low production, while retailer charge customer with high price, sell inferior quality, practice inappropriate measurement, and so forth. Neither producers nor consumers get the benefit of the value chain. Only do the wholesaler and retailer capitalize on the weak bargaining power of the producer and absence of proper monitoring on market price, quality assurance by government on the part of consumer. We have not seen any significant progress in preserving consumers’ rights in Bangladesh, even if government took several measures, such as campaign against contamination, enacting new laws concerning consumers’ rights, and so on.
Today farmers, who are invariably deprived of having minimal scale of social rights to make the livelihood through farming, are the most unfortunate community in Bangladesh despite serving the nation with supplying basic need-food. In addition, hardly do they get any assistance from government in terms of supplying fertilizer, diesel oil, seeds, cultivation equipments at rational price, whereas farmers in developed and developing countries are the most respected community, who can avail subsidies from government, quality seeds, fertilizer and diesel oil at cheap price. This ironic situation of our farmers is leading them to embrace some unproductive professions most often some anti-social activities, thereby impacting economy negatively dragging the country to more reliance on foreign aid.
Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI) Ltd, former ICI Plc Uk, began its journey in 1992 with the mission of enriching the quality of life through responsible application of knowledge, skills and technology, and has successfully established itself as one of the biggest conglomerates in Bangladesh. ACI, having a multinational heritage, is committed to the pursuit of excellence through world-class products, innovative processes and empowered employees, to provide the highest level of satisfaction to its customers. ACI began its journey to ensure better life to the Bangladeshi people with the name of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) in 1968 in Bangladesh by offering a wide range of such products as pharmaceutical, Consumer product, and so forth. However, ICI divested into ACI (Advanced Chemical Industries) by selling its share to local management, and named by ACI in 1992. By far, the life saving drugs and home care products have met the need from the people to some extent as the persistent existence and acceptance from local community since 1968 has proven and acknowledged its endeavor and uncompromising quality. Home care products encompass ACI Aerosol, ACI Mosquito Coil, Angelic Air Freshener, Savlon Liquid Antiseptic, Savlon Antiseptic Cream, Savlon Liquid Soap, and so on. ACI has been realizing certain areas, which need to be improved in order to ensure better life standard in Bangladesh for couple of years. It follows that, ACI started thinking to invest in those potential as well as demanding areas. As a consequence, we have been experiencing new inclusion to ACI family such as flour, spice powder, salt, electronics, and so forth. All endeavors, deemed by ACI, undertaken so far are for enriching the quality of life of Bangladeshi people.
However, a large portion population especially farmer and end user has been deprived of having such benefit, even though market is flooded with a wide range of products since the producers do not get appropriate price for their production and consumers invariably are deceived by sellers, who often sell inferior goods, goods with inaccurate measurement, and so on. Of late, most of the business firms form cartel, which has been worsening the condition of life of farmers as well as consumers, to dictate the market, and they are successful in this case. ACI has been looking for ways to finish this cartel off so as to benefit both farmers and consumers. Besides, most of the vegetable produced in rural areas get rotten due to lack of proper transport facilities, whereas city dwellers have to pay extra money for scarce vegetable in the city.
Countries, like Bangladesh, where economy is based on agriculture altogether, are required to emphasize more on agribusiness and supply chain development since these countries lack sufficient technology to move to industry, which requires natural resources as well as extensive technological knowhow. Every country has comparative advantage on some area, and so does Bangladesh. Comparative advantage of Bangladesh is supposed to be agriculture. By contrast, Bangladesh is blessed with both natural and human resources. By far, the primary contributors to the exchequer are remittance and garments sectors, where millions of people are working relentlessly to ensure sustainable economic growth. Even if Bangladesh has experienced a surged in some such industries as garments, textile, and small cottage, it cannot deny the role of agriculture to the economy as it has to import a lot of food every year to meet the local demand, while there are lots of potentiality to grow foods if lands are properly used and modern technology is adopted in agriculture. Understanding the gap in the value chain, ACI has initiated to establish new businesses namely ACI Agribusiness and ACI Logistics to remove this gap, to uproot cartel, and to ensure reasonable price for both farmers and consumers. ACI Agribusiness has been working to bring revolution to the agriculture by investing such areas as Seeds, Fertilizer, Motor, Crop care & Public Health, and Animal Health, whilst ACI Logistics has been established to devote itself to benefit the end users of all products.
Vision
Shwapno was launched with a vision to change the lifestyle of Bangladeshi consumers.
TOP
Our Values
To deliver success we have a clear set of values & beliefs.
Impeccable integrity - We are honest, transparent and ethical in all our dealings.
Passion to win - We deliver what we promise by bringing the best in all of us
Delightful experience -We win the hearts and minds of our employees and consumers by offering relevant quality, value and service.
Living an enterprise culture - We believe in trust, truth and teamwork
Making a better world - We compassionately contribute to the community we live in
Continuous improvement - We constantly learn and innovate to create new paradigm
Count every paisa - We treat every taka spent as our own for creating value for our consumers
History
The Mother Company (ACI Limited) Started its Journey in 1940
- 1940: ICI Plc UK Started Operation
- 1968: ICI plc commissioned manufacturing plant in Nararyanganj
- 1973: Incorporated as ICI Bangladesh Manufacturers Limited
- 1982: Mr. M Anis Ud Dowla joined as Managing Director
- 1992: ICI Plc divested its shares to local management and ACI came into existence
- 2008: ACI Logistics Ltd. is launched with the dream to change the life of Bangladeshi Consumers with the Brand Name “SHWAPNO” in the form of retail chain
Quick Facts
Which was the first outlet of Shwapno and when did the start their journey?
We opened our first outlet in Postogola Dhaka in 28 October 2008.
How many Shwapno outlets are operating at this time?
59
In How many Districts does Shwapno have its outlet?
16
What are the Districts ?
Dhaka, Narayangonj, Mymensing, Chittagong, Feni, Sylhet, Moulvi bazar, Bogra, Nator, Rangpur, Khulna, Jessore, Jhinaidah, Narshingdi, Barishal, Pabna
How many people make this dream team?
The number of employees including Head Office, DC and Outlets are more than 1300.
