Coming straight from the mouth of the CEO of the world's second largest consumer goods major, these words clearly set the agenda for HLL, Unilever's Indian subsidiary, to go ahead. For, Unilever, India, along with other emerging markets that include China, now holds hope for the future as the Anglo-Dutch, food-to-personal care behemoth struggles to catch up with rivals like P&G, the world's largest FMCG company, Swiss Nestlè, and France's Danone. The company, which has around 206,000 employees in nearly 100 countries and generated annual sales of 40 bn in 2005, set an ambitious agenda in 2004 which aimed at reducing costs and improving competitiveness.
"The company's five-year program to cut about 1,200 underperforming brands did not work to generate the 6% sales growth it had forecasted in 2004, when sales grew by 0.9%. Sales of its SlimFast diet products fell dramatically as consumers turned from meal-replacement products in favor of other weight-loss methods such as the Atkins high-protein diet," said foodproductiondaily.com, in a report in 2005. The company's recent third quarter revenue growth for 2006 too was well below that figure as revenue grew at 4.8% in the third quarter, while it stood at 3.9% in the first nine months of the current fiscal year. In this backdrop, the recent India visit of Cescau gains significance. The FMCG giant's two major markets, Europe and the Americas, which account for close to three-fourth of its overall sales, continued to turn in lackluster growth. In contrast, Asia-Africa, accounting for the rest, emerged as star performer with a sales growth of an impressive 8% in the first nine months and 7.5% in the third quarter of fiscal 2006; the company's fiscal year ends in December. India, once again, was the bright spot, with a double-digit growth rate. |
