The smile is back on 8216;biscuit king8217; Nusli Wadia8217;s face. He and Britannia CEO, Vinita Bali have been able to arrest the slide ...
Written by Dilipcherian
3 min read
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The smile is back on 8216;biscuit king8217; Nusli Wadia8217;s face. He and Britannia CEO, Vinita Bali have been able to arrest the slide in Britannia8217;s market, in the face of stiff competition from small regional players. The tycoon rather modestly admits that he took some time to appreciate the enormous power that the local players have in the biscuit market. Having learnt his lesson the hard way, the biscuit team is in the process of a complete re-jig of market strategy with each of the regions assessing competition separately and not going for a uniform marketing strategy across the country, as they used to earlier. Wadia claims that increased focus on the local opportunities has already started paying as shown by the rise in market share. In fact Britannia has not only been able to maintain its market share, but has, as the tycoon claims increased it by 1 per cent during the present quarter. After the controversial exit of his long time CEO Sunil Alagh and the entry of ex-Cadbury, ex-Coke executive Vinita Bali into the hot seat early last year, market observers had kept their fingers crossed, in anticipation of uncertain times. The change in the fortunes of Britannia comes as a big relief to the tycoon. Can he pull off a similar strategy for his aviation start up Go Air now?
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In the last two years Baba Kalyani8217;s Bharat Forge has completed six acquisitions in the key markets of North America, Europe and China. His latest deal is with FAW Forging of China. The tycoon will be using the Chinese facility as an export hub for his global operations. Interestingly, contrary to expectations, Kalyani is not very excited about the acquisition opportunities that have emerged following troubled US auto component major Delphi8217;s decision to part with some key assets. Kalyani thinks that Delphi8217;s assets are not the most attractive both from technical and financial point of view, given that it8217;s highly unlikely for that company to sell assets, which have substantial technology and innovation capabilities. Observers however believe that he has a strategic reason behind not going for new acquisitions now. His group needs time to consolidate. The other reason observers give for his 8217;go slow8217; approach is that he already has a foothold in those key markets. But Kalyani is not one to close options for long. In the next round, which is likely to be kicked off after a small break, he would be eyeing companies with high-end technology that could complement his low cost production skills. The 8216;forging tycoon8217;, with a global footprint, may be soon well poised to challenge global leader Thyssen Krupp for the top spot. The tycoon8217;s target date to get there is 2008. Keep watching this space. dilipcheriangmail.com
