Azkena Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (ATPL)

Years back we read news that counterfeit products had reached Chennai Port and we were worried about them as they were also targeting products for baby care. Here is the news from The Times of India in 2009. “CHENNAI: In yet another case of counterfeit Chinese products making their way into India, Chennai Seaport Customs has seized a consignment of spurious baby care products and herbal shampoo. The consignment was shipped from China to Chennai via Hong Kong. The seized fake products include Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo and baby milk bath, Procter and Gamble's Clairok herbal shampoo and Malaysia-based Gervas' hebal conditioning shampoo named Gervenne, which has no market exposure in India. All the products were packed in look-alike containers, but both Johnson and P&G have confirmed that they are fake products”. (Reference: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ city/chennai/chinese-made-fake-baby-care-products-seized/articleshow/5154703.cms)

Alarmed by the rampant counterfeiting of baby care and wellness products, our Managing Director, Crowley Mathew, initiated a study into how these counterfeit goods infiltrate the market. Our research revealed that nearly 25% of baby care products, including renowned brands, were counterfeit in the Kerala market. Findings from other agencies confirmed a similar alarming situation across India. Additionally, the widespread use of counterfeit certificates in Saudi Arabia, with an estimated cost of nearly 50 million Rial to obtain, highlighted the gravity of the issue. While interacting with brand owners, we discovered that many employ discreet methods to authenticate their products. However, these methods are not accessible to consumers to verify their purchases.

Based on the findings and market experience, he decided to develop a system enabling consumers to independently verify their purchases. He devised a logical solution to protect the authenticity of both products and documents. As the system did not rely on printing technology, consumers would need internet access for live verification. The core of the system was a unique ID assigned to each unit of production by the brand owners. However, several practical challenges arose. Typically, a unique ID could be used only once, which effectively identified counterfeit products if the same ID was applied to multiple units. Yet, this posed a challenge when the same product was verified by different family members. We systematically addressed these scenarios, creating a system that safeguards brand owners, retailers, and consumers while offering flexibility for implementation at various product levels.

What if a product of a brand protected by our system is found counterfeit at the time of verification by the consumer? It was not practical to verify each product before paying for it. What if the consumer finds a product as counterfeit when he verifies the product after reaching home? Doesn’t he deserve a free replacement with the original product? How are we going to help the brand owner in case counterfeit products are found in the market? We, ATPL, resolved all such issues, and a model was developed and satisfactorily served the brand “Musli Power Xtra”. It was also a learning time for the ATPL team and the service got more mature now it is time to redevelop the model into a real commercial system spanning across the countries for the safety of consumers, retailers, and brand owners.

The basic philosophy of ATPL was to allow the consumers to verify the purchases and ATPL wanted to improve the value of the service. So we devised the system to address more than just verifying the original products. The new service model has the following features and it makes the services from ATPL unique and promising for effectively fighting counterfeits and also promoting the brands in the market who are protected by the service of ATPL.