Godrej consumer reworks business plan with a global view

Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) has rewired its business structure as a global category organisation to leverage global scale and ambitions.

Sudhir Sitapati, the former Unilever executive who took charge as the managing director and chief executive at GCPL in October 2021, said in an exclusive in an exclusive interview that the move would help the company think local, but act global, as well as centralise strategy, product development, innovation and brand communication for its three core categories: household insecticides, hair colour and 

air care. Four countries – India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Bangladesh – currently account for 80% of GCPL’s revenues.

The strategy is a shift from the earlier structure where each country had separate category teams and it will help the maker of consumer brands such as Goodknight, Hit, Cinthol and Aer cut costs

through collaboration and tapping into synergies. “The strategy will fire on twin engines of category development and blockbuster innovations to achieve double-digit volume growth,” he said.

GCPL will democratise categories through innovation and accessibility by breaking price barriers to bring a set of new consumers into the fold, Sitapati said. 

“We have relaunches in Q1 of fiscal year 2022-23, which we believe will dramatically build the relevance of our categories. We have introduced game-changing access packs in household insecticides in Indonesia and hair care in India,” he said. GCPL, which had democratised the Indian hair creme market by offering the first hair creme in a sachet at ₹30, will launch this at ₹15.

In recent weeks,Sitapati has made two senior appointments, former Hindustan Unilever executives Rajesh Sethuraman and Vijay Kannan, to its global leadership team. While Sethuraman will join as chief executive for the Asean region, Kannan will head business transformation and digital businesses.

During the fourth quarter of FY22, the ₹12,000-crore GCPL delivered price-led growth of 7% year -on year, even as India volume declined 3%, amid continued input cost pressure.