With Good Knight Fast Card, you have created a new category in the household insecticide market....
If you look at the household insecticide market, which stands at Rs 3,600 crore, we are the market leaders in it. Close to 50% of India still doesn’t use a mosquito repellent. The main reasons, especially in rural India, are high prices and also lack of electricity. So, now we have come out with this product, which is at a very disruptive price point of Rs 1. It’s an affordable price point and the fact is you don’t require electricity for it. Therefore, we believe we can capture a fair share of the market, especially in rural India where close to 70% of the population doesn’t use any solutions to drive away mosquitoes.
Brokerages see this product category growing to Rs 700 crore in the next five years. Would you agree with that?
We don’t give guidance. It is very hard to predict how a market will move. But I will not be surprised if the category grows to this size or even bigger for that matter in the next five years. Also, household insecticide makes up for over 40% in GCPL’s portfolio and is one of our core categories in both India and international business. Therefore, we believe that this innovation will help in increasing our market share significantly.
Cross pollination has been very effective for you as far as innovation is concerned...
Yes, that is true. We are using a lot of cross pollination, but we are doing it thoughtfully. If you look at our hair creme product, then the entire packaging innovation has been taken from Argentina. But the product was developed in India. So, we are cross pollinating a lot on ideas and technology, but it’s not that we are taking a product from some other country and dumping it in India or vice versa.
Even in air freshener, we have big brands called Stella, the market leader in Indonesia, and Aer in India. So, we shared the technology even there. So, in that, all the outer design is India, but the technology is inspired from Indonesia. And now, in the UK, we just bought a brand called Soft & Gentle; we will definitely take all their learning and bring it back here.
We saw a lot of acquisitions in 2010-11. Any more on the cards?
It just happened that in those two years, there were lots of opportunities available and it came together, So, we still have things in the pipeline and you will definitely see some more action. We are looking at consolidation and also at more things in Africa and Indonesia.
In 2011, Mr Godrej had outlined the vision to grow the revenues 10-fold in 10 years. So, what is the gameplan for that?
So, GCPL has to grow to Rs 35,000 crore by 2021 (the revenues were Rs 4,851 core in 2011-12), which means we have to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 26%. We have been higher than that in the last few years. But as you get larger, it becomes difficult to achieve such a high number. However, we believe that organically we can grow at 18-20% and then the delta will come from acquisitions. So, that is the plan. But at the same time, just to get that growth number, we are not going to look at any acquisition as we are a profit-focused company.
You have been credited with engineering a turnaround in Godrej Agrovet. Now, you are at the helm in GCPL, so what are the top few things that you are focusing on?
At GCPL, when I started my work in 2007, the focus was on strategy and how we grow at a rapid pace in profitability and also on innovation. Though it started off more in a strategic role, but along the way I got involved with the product portfolio side as well. The reason is I have always wanted to take a really old brand like Godrej and reinvent it to make it more delightful to consumers.
So, that is how I got into the operation part of it. And then I have also been involved with the human resources side on the business. That was important because I looked at a lot of strategy through a human resource lens. In fact, all the people I work with are better and smarter and more innovative than me and that is what I believe is my key strength.
