Executive Summary The company under study is the FMCG behemoth Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL). A partially owned subsidiary of Unilever, HLL was set up in India in 1931. Today it has gained the status of the biggest FMCG player in the country. With a wide product base and a mass market focus, HLL touches the lives of people all over India. In the 70-odd years that HLL has been in India, it has adopted several different strategies to leverage its strengths and gain the success it currently enjoys. Backed by a very able management team and the support of its parent company, it has achieved enormous success that few other companies its size and age have managed in India. However, the recent years have seen many challengers to HLL’s previously undisputed status. The market is saturated and sales have stagnated. HLL has responded to this challenge by studying its shortcomings, identifying failing strategies, and adopting new and innovative methods to re-gain market share. Some of the strategies it has adopted are moving to the low margin mass market, pruning it’s brand portfolio, and strengthening it’s distribution network. One of the key strategies is shift in target segment to the relatively unexplored rural markets. While most MNCs wrote off this segment as difficult to reach and unprofitable, HLL learned from success stories such as that of Nirma and Cavin Care and used it scale up on core competencies to enter and succeed in the market. HLL’s growth has been both organic and inorganic. Acquisitions like that of TOMCO (Tata Oil Mills Company) and mergers like Lakme Lever limited were well thought out with clear targets in mind. Strategies such as these have been responsible for the extensive distribution network that HLL has today. It has strong and well differentiated brands with leading share positions, and its brand portfolio includes both global Unilever brands and local brands. Consumer understanding and systems for building consumer insight backed by strong R&D capability have made HLL the powerhouse that it is today. The future outlook for HLL is bright, despite its lackluster performance in the last few years. The new strategies it has adopted are giving good dividends. And most importantly, HLL has proved that it despite of its size, it has the agility to respond to changing market scenarios and bounce back from difficult situations. 1 Industry Overview 1.1 Introduction India's economy is on a growth path. With positive indicators like 8.
After conducting a basic 10 year financial analysis of the company, it has become evident that even with a highly competitive market structure they are able to improve on their performance. Ranging from 2004 to 2013 financial information, the company has shown a significant increase in their sales revenue roughly $3865 million sales in 2004 to almost four time that valuing $12970 million in 2013, which was an “increase of 10.4% over the 53 week prior year” The company’s growth strategy has been to diversify its product market and make them...
In addition, I will describe the firm and its management. I will explain where this company come from and how this brand became so famous across the world in a short period of time.
As a massive provider of consumer goods in India, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), is attempting to penetrate the rural markets where there is a massive opportunity for growth. HLL’s current operating sectors are becoming increasingly competitive and crowded. Their best opportunities now lie in developing new markets and rising to the top of that market. They are attempting to do this with a program for developing entrepreneurs, named Shaktis. Met with initial success the program now needs to grow without increasing costs.
The Harvard Business School case study Silvio Napoli at Schindler India summarizes the various problems and issues facing Schindler India regarding its entrance into the new foreign market, India. Schindler Holdings Ltd. is a Swiss-based manufacturer of escalators and elevators which is looking for potentially entering into the Indian elevator market. Main executive committee members predicted that the Indian industry showed great promise in terms of future growth potential. The company’s objective was to manufacture standardized elevators at a cost lower than current customized elevator market. Silvio Napoli, who is vice president of Schindler in Asia, was chosen to lead the new entry into India. To successfully enter and penetrate the Indian market, Silvio and company needed to consider a variety of factors like but not limited to: mode of entry and type of strategy to implement, organizational structure, outsourcing and logistics approaches, marketing, and domestic and global hiring procedures.
In this report, we will analyze the financial performance of two companies: Kraft and General Mills. They are global consumer foods companies that develop different packaged food products. The main goals of these companies are to meet consumers’ needs and preferences while generating superior returns by delivering consistent growth in sales and earnings, coupled with an attractive dividend yield. This report shows how each company meets their goals and which one is in better standing.
We have carried out a study on the F.M.C.G Company Heinz. Heinz is the most global U.S based food company, with a world-class portfolio of powerful brands holding number 1 and number 2 market positions in more than 50 worldwide markets. There are many other famous brand names in the company¡¦s portfolio besides Heinz itself, StarKist, Ore-Ida, Plasmon, and Watties. In fact, Heinz owns more than 200 brands around the world and makes over 5,700 varieties.
Nevertheless, it must “defend” its current market share if not increase it, by maintaining premium quality and develop innovative products. The marketing mix strategies will effectively achieve targeted revenue and profitability in the near future.
[6] Kripalani, Majeet & Egnardio, Pete. The Rise Of India. Business Week Online. December 8, 2003. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_49/b3861001_mz001.htm
Once America’s most innovative consumer products company, Procter and Gamble (P&G) started by selling soaps and candles in a small Cincinnati storefront in 1837 (Procter and Gamble, 2008). After a hundred and seventy-one years P&G has grown to over one hundred household brands in over eighty countries (Markels 2006). Their products range from air fresheners to prescription drugs. However, as P&G headed into the twenty-first century they announced that they would not be meeting their 1st quarter earnings forecast [Lafley, 2003]. Revenue margins were dropping and P&G was quickly losing market share to Kimberly Clark and Johnson & Johnson. After missed earnings P&G’s stock price fell from $59.18 to $26.50 between January 2000 and March 2000 (PG). Upset, the board of directors pressured then CEO Durk Jager to resign after a lack luster attempt at turning P&G around and replaced him A.G Lafley, an unproven CEO, whom analysts felt lacked the experience to give P&G a much needed clean up (Lafley, 2003).
...re chances of growth and development for the company which is clearly understood through the research done on the Ansoff’s matrix. P&G is much ahead of its competitors and has also won many honors in terms of offering quality and innovative products. The company’s products are also sold by wide variety of retailers around the world and also through many e stores that sells the product online. Finally the company has also got more expansion opportunities which is clearly understood through the Yips model of Internationalization. As the company continues to acquire international brands over the years and succeeds in offering quality and innovative based products to the people all over the world it tend to give a much better completion to its competitors and of course get a wider market share making its competitors give a tough time in the industry.
Aditya Birla Group is one of the first multinational corporations in India. Its headquarter is located in Mumbai with many others operations in different parts of the world such as in Asia (Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, China…), Europe (UK, Germany, Hungary, Italy, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland…), America (US, Brazil…). Throughout their growing, Aditya Birla have become well known in many sectors that they get involved in not only in India but also around the world. Back to the earlier day of the corporation, when it first founded, the group has focused on critical sector such as textiles and fibre, aluminum… and become one of the largest participant in those areas. Later on, in the 1960s, the company had expanded their business into cement and chemicals. Also, they expanded their business across the border of India into many other countries. This “revolution” has brought the name of the group into the international business map and become bigger than ever (Aditya Birla Group 2007). Today, ABG is a corporation with the consolidate revenue of 30bil with the affiliates in 45 countries and 60% of their revenue come from internationally and become one of the largest private company in the world (Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited, 2011).
Kraft, as a whole, is the largest consumer packaged food and beverage company in North America. The company’s subsidiary, Maxwell House, is currently ranked second in the instant coffee market behind Folgers. This is mostly due to weakened brand awareness because of reduced effort in marketing. Kraft is in a good position, however, to reclaim this market with the financial resources to back a sales and marketing and public relations push.
3. Distribution Depth - Rural Penetration: There are 5500 towns and 6.38 Lacs villages with 2.5Mln and 5Mln outlets respectively. Due to saturation and cut throat competition in urban India, many FMCG companies are devising strategies for targeting rural consumers in a big way. Many FMCG companies are focusing on increasing their distribution network to penetrate with a step by step plan. This is the reason that FMCG urban market size has dropped from 50% to 29% in last 5 years. The FMCG market size for semi-urban and rural segment was 19% and 52% respectively for the year 2006-07. As per FICCI, the FMCG market size for urban, semi-urban and rural for year 2007-08 was expected to be 57%, 21% and 22%, which clearly shows that rural market is the growth engine for FMCG growth. Though the urban markets are growing too, the incremental addition in consumer’s households is much more in rural space as compared to urban markets. The planned development of roads, ports, railways and airports, will increase FMCG penetration in the long term.
Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest fast moving consumer goods company, with leadership in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. HUL's brands, spread across 20 distinct consumer categories, touch the lives of two out of three Indians. They endow the company with a scale of combined volumes of about 4 million tonnes and sales of Rs.10,000 crores. The mission that inspires HUL's over 15,000 employees is to "add vitality to life". With 35 Power Brands, HUL meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. It is a mission HUL shares with its parent company, Unilever, which holds 51.55% of the equity. A Fortune 500 transnational, Unilever sells Foods and Home and Personal Care brands in about 100 countries worldwide.
In demographics, they can promote their products to a wide range of population and can use product loyalty that is there from generations. They can use automated manufacturing mechanism. They can make use of the current economic crisis where small companies have to liquidate their business as they go into a loss, to increase their sales. As consumers are aware of healthy products, Unilever can boost their sales by launching the product in this sector.