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How Nitin Paranjpeand Harish Manwaniforced Change at a Bruised

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How Nitin Paranjpeand Harish Manwaniforced Change at a Bruised COVER STORY HUL Soap Opera How Nitin Paranjpe and Harish Manwani forced change at a bruised Hindustan Unilever and got its mojo back. By SUMAN LAYAK and ANUSHA SUBRAMANIAN I wanna know you inside out, tell me everything... an Uttar Pradesh village, about 100 km from – Bryan Adams, Inside Out Lucknow, knew the use of face wash. Gopal Vittal, the company’s Executive Director for home and hile Bryan Adams might personal care, says he was pleasantly taken aback succeed in getting his fans when he conversed with young schoolgirls in re- to tell all, Nitin Paranjpe, mote Bihar villages in English. Managing Director of This was Mission Bushfire at HUL in 2010. Hindustan Unilever, de- And, to get a feel of the company’s recent success cided to turn his company – five quarters of volume growth after nearly a Winside out with one aim — to get into the con- decade it would rather forget – Business Today sumer’s mind. So, in 2010, about two years after travelled to villages near Pune. The Bhegdewadi he took over the top job in April 2008, he made hamlet, 30 km from the industrial city of Pune, is HUL accountants, production and human re- perhaps as far removed from the plush, steel and sources people go out and meet consumers in vil- glass HUL headquarters in Andheri, a Mumbai lages across India. Just as he did himself – and suburb, as can be. there was learning. Village women frequent the modest home of At a village home in Tamil Nadu, Paranjpe Vandana Bhegde – a member of Project Shakti, an found a sachet of Comfort fabric conditioner and HUL programme of leveraging self-help groups to thought something was amiss. “I was worried. I enhance hyperlocal distribution – to buy the com- thought the poor lady must have mistaken it to be pany’s products. One of the visitors, Renuka, wants IllST a shampoo sachet and bought this brand wanting to buy Dove soap, a product HUL positions as a U R to use it on her hair,” says Paranjpe. “So, I asked premium, upmarket brand, and Domex floor A her: what is this, what do you use it for? She cleaner. At a kirana store in the nearby Ghotawade T I O N S looked at me as if I was a strange guy and said, bazaar, Knorr Soupy noodles sell out the fastest. B Y ‘For clothes’.” All this is good news for a company coming out S A The findings coming from elsewhere on the of a rough patch. HUL has spent the past decade NTOS ground were as surprising, if not startling. Girls in struggling with incremental growth, and the stock H 68 BUSINESS TODAY June 12 2011 June 12 2011 BUSINESS TODAY 69 COVER STORY HUL 2002: Hungry for more: 2000: Growth mantras: HLL starts seeds joint venture. HLL stock is split 1:10. K.B. Dadiseth Acquires Modern Foods through announces nine growth engines. HLL disinvestment. Ayush is launched. 2005: New face: 2007: Parent’s name to connect all distributors; engage Harish Manwani takes over as is middlename : Company with women self-help groups. non-executive chairman of HLL changes its name to Hindustan 2003: On a diet?: Hind Lever Chemicals from Banga. Tea estates sold Unilever Ltd. Completes 75 Dadiseth hands over the merges into Tata Chemicals. Edible oils and fats and transferred to subsidiaries. years in India. Announces share 2008: Demand dips: Nitin Paranjpe takes chairmanship baton to M.S. (Vindi) business transferred to Bunge. Glucovita is sold Starts review of power buyback at `230 a share. over from Baille. HUL sees consumer demand slip, Banga in May 2000. to Wipro. A Modern Foods factory is closed. brands strategy. Shah Rukh Khan models for Lux. says a question mark over future demand. Hindustan (Uni) Lever over a decade 2001: Flavour is in foods: Banga announces Food Revolution: a plan that he claimed would reduce food prices, increase consumption and bring more money for the 2004: Shakeout: Banga moves to 2006: Expat in 2009: War mode: 2010: Buying back: farmers. International Best Foods (Knorr brand) Unilever home and personal care head for Asia. charge: Doug Baille Vaseline is relaunched as a HUL announces its second merges into HLL. Starts JV with ICI called Quest He remains non-executive chairman, but HLL is brought in as CEO of wide range of skin care products; buyback in four years – on flavours and fragrances. Decides to reward opts for diffused leadership in India. Home the company to unify HUL rationalises distribution; this time at `280 a share. shareholders with bonus debenture scheme. & personal care and foods have separate leadership again. HLL decides to grow despite pressure Rin gets a patented boost Announces focus on 30 power brands. leaders. HLL sells its mushroom business. sells Nihar to Marico. on costs. for removing yellowness. has been mostly listless. (See Flatliner.) It had a driven its volume sales up at the cost of profit will use this to extend loans to its distributors. shift production to supplier-owned factories close good year in 2008, and then in 2009 it got margins, or the ratio of profit to revenues. Today, Elsewhere, Shakti members have become last to the market led to savings of `1,000 to `1,500 caught in the vortex of a global slowdown. The Hemant Bakshi, the company’s Executive mile payment collectors for cable operators or per tonne,” says Vittal. And, not everyone knows darling of the bourses as well management stu- Director for sales and distribution, says the com- even caretakers for low-cost telecom towers. HUL that Wheel has two mixes for different parts of dents in the nineties had turned a pariah. This pany will not cede any space to competition even has cast a wide net, fuelled by innovation (also the country: hardwater mix for northern India was a period when HUL lost out as it was not if it means cutting prices and allowing a higher see Eat Pray Love on page 82). All this adds to the and softwater mix for the south. 18,345 leading the sector, says Paranjpe. (See We Were share of margin to retailers. importance of the Shakti Amma and adds to her In July 2010, Rin washing soap was infused May 15, 2011 Leaders But We Were Not Leading on page 78.) With good reason. Harish Manwani, income. Details of HUL’s game plan will be un- with a patented technology for removing yel- BSE Sensex Kotak Institutional Equities’s Manoj Menon, Chairman and also President for Asia, Africa and veiled as the pilots work out. lowness in clothes that comes with use. The an analyst who spent the first four years of his east and central Europe for Unilever, says the At the product and logistics level, too, mas- result was a 30 per cent increase in career at HUL in corporate finance and then at a Anglo-Dutch parent wants 70 per cent of its sive change is afoot. For instance, Wheel deter- sales, which crossed the Himachal Pradesh factory, delves into basic revenues to come from emerging markets, gent, which contributes more than `2,000 crore, `1,000 crore mark in economic theory to explain how HUL was over- against 53 per cent now. From 17 emerging or more than 12 per cent of HUL’s `19,000 crore 2010/11. And, Rin taken by nimble rivals. “Historically, the com- market countries on its radar, India and Brazil sales, is now supplied from 20 supplier-owned is priced differently pany was too margin-focused. It kept losing are the two larger ones in focus for Unilever. factories across the country rather than being market share and allowed companies like Godrej concentrated in particular zones. “This move to Consumer Products, Reckitt & Benckiser and Redlines to Greenlines Wipro to grab market share,” he says. “With the How radical is the shift or change at HUL? `304 3,577 May 15, 2011 loss of market share, HUL also lost some bargain- Sample this: at Satara in Maharashtra and `210 May 15, 2001 HUL ing power.” While Godrej No. 1 is the top selling Mysore in Karnataka, HUL is doing a pilot with May 15, 2001 BSE Sensex soap by volume in northern states, Wipro’s its Shakti self-help groups on financial inclusion. HUL (then HLL) Santoor leads in the southern states. The Shakti group members can open an ac- The Indian arm of Unilever, among the most count in the State Bank of India “faster than BSE Sensex and HUL scrip daily closing charted on a common base of 100 aggressive global consumer companies when it they do at an SBI branch in Mumbai”, says comes to emerging markets, seems to have shed Bakshi. Shakti Amma, as female Shakti entrepre- its margin obsession now. In fact, over the past neurs are called, does this with a machine that Flatliner five quarters, the company has successfully uses biometric identification. Soon the company The HUL scrip is up around 44 per cent since 2001 while the Sensex has catapulted over 400 per cent 70 BUSINESS TODAY June 12 2011 June 12 2011 BUSINESS TODAY 71 COVER STORY HUL Bicycle www.indiatodayimages.com / Chief GAMRE HUL’s Shakti programme deploys thousands of Shaktimaan Bhegde on his rounds pedalling distributors NISHIKANT aloo Bhegde, a resident of groups to sell its products. day and notching up sales of up to Bhegdewadi hamlet, 30 Now, as HUL makes a spirited `30,000 is able to cover the cost of km west of Pune, knows push to expand and strengthen its distribution.
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