“Local relevance and meeting local requirements… this is our core… we will continue to innovate and get stronger,” says Ozlem Findanci, Chief Commercial Officer of Versuni. Versuni is the new company name of Philips Domestic Appliances, a household name in India for decades, after Royal Philips sold this part of its business to Hillhouse in September 2021. “For consumers, nothing changes,” Findanci clarifies. “We still have our products under the Philips brand. We will continue to derive our strategy based on category-shaping innovations globally, and driving more household penetration through a range of products that we have in our portfolio,” she explains to indianexpress.com. In fact, Versuni thinks of itself as a “house of brands now.” “Philips is, of course, the majority of our business. But in addition to that, for instance in India, we have Preethi, which is almost half of our business.” Listing out the host of brands the company now has across the world, like the premium coffee maker brands Saeco and Gaggia, Findanci says Versuni will continue to host all these brands and grow them. Now with a legacy of over 130 years, Versuni is present in more than 100 countries and employs over 6,400 people from 120-odd nationalities. The company clocked $2.6 billion in global sales last year with 5% growth. Versuni has five manufacturing sites and 10 R&D facilities globally. Findanci says the company has always been strong in India as Philips with many products, especially in domestic appliances, adding that this has only become stronger with the acquisition of Preethi. “We will continue to embrace the opportunity here, not as a commercial activity but also as a part of Indian growth through our R&D, through focusing on local Indian consumer needs, and bringing the relevant innovation.” With around a thousand patents, Versuni now focuses on home life and kitchen life products. Findanci says that while they have launched new product ranges like coffee makers and home security, the air-fryer continues to be a hero product in most markets because of its convenience and consistently strong cooking performance. “We are fitting the product from a functionality point of view and from a recipe fitting point of view to the relevance of the consumer's expectations. So we believe this will be another big growth opportunity for us in India, like it is for other markets as well,” she explains. Findanci accepts that coffee has become a global phenomenon because people want to bring the coffee shop experience home. “We believe this is also going to find its relevance in the Indian market as well. So we are going to focus on that soon,” she adds. Findanci was also happy with the initial performance of the company’s app-based security camera systems in India. “More and more we want to bring global propositions to India as well. With digitisation and consumers becoming globally mobile, everyone knows every product and habits become shared. This accelerates the adoption of new propositions.” Findanci said Versuni wants to enhance its go-to-market strategy to penetrate further into households in India. “So we will be expansive, not necessarily changing the strategy, but we want to cover more.”
