Business Excellence At Emami
Overview
The Emami Group, from a humble beginning, have grown manifolds to become one of the fastest growing business conglomerates of the country.
The secret of this aggressive growth: out-operating competitors.
This outperformance has been the result of a number of attributes.
Products customised around market needs.
Superior price-value proposition.
Prudent product positioning.
Distinctive recall.
Superior operating mechanics (supply chain and distribution).
The result is that Emami products and services enhance customer value.
At the heart of this ability to deliver superior customer value in a consistent way has been the Group’s focus on operational innovation. Reflected in new ways of doing the same things, and doing new things.
Importantly, business excellence is different from operational improvement, which usually refers to achieving high performance via existing modes of operation: ensuring that work is done as it ought to be to reduce errors, costs and delays but without fundamentally changing how that work gets accomplished.
At the Emami Group, operational innovation translates into new ways of filling orders, developing products, providing customer service and virtually every single enterprise activity. This consistent seeking of new ways of doing routine things has over the years helped Emami to transform the Group’s culture, strategy and human resource.
Result: sustained outperformance.
Initiatives
At the Emami Group, our obsession with excellence and the road less travelled has rippled across our enterprise.
Diversification:
The Emami Group, established in the 70s, has diversified its presence across varied sectors like FMCG, newsprint and packaging boards manufacturing, edible oil and biodiesel, real estate, ballpoint tip manufacturing, retail, pharmacy chain and contemporary art. This extensive presence has helped the Group address some core economic sectors, leverage established market insights, de-risk from an excessive dependence on select sectors and generate multiple revenue engines.
Serving national priorities:
The Emami Group is not just a product play; it enjoys multi-decade experience in some of the most dynamic business spaces that makes it a vibrant national play – what is good for India is good for Emami Group. The result is that Emami Group does not just participate in national progress; it also contributes to it. While the group’s FMCG business addresses the daily personal and hygiene needs of people, its real estate business caters to the growing needs of residential and commercial spaces of the nation, while its newsprint manufacture reinforces the information needs of the world’s largest democracy.
Leadership:
The Emami Group does not play for size; it focuses on leadership. The Group enjoys a leadership position across several product categories and niches. Three Emami Limited brands possess unassailable market leadership - Navratna Oil (62.8 percent-plus in the cool oil category *), BoroPlus (67.7 percent-plus of all boro brands - antiseptic creams sold in India *) and Mentho Plus Balm and Zandu Balm together in the pain relief category (54 percent-plus market share **).
Acquisition-led growth:
It would have been easy for an enterprising Emami Group to remain content with its stellar achievements. However, it pushed the frontiers to identify suitable acquisition opportunities, stitch the best-fit deals and integrate the target into its core business and focus on its growth. This route has enabled the Group to shrink an essential resource – time – in its bid to capitalise on acquisition-led growth. Following the historic takeover of Zandu Pharmaceuticals in 2008, over the past years, the Emami Group has made quite a few significant acquisitions that include the buyout of the 50-year-old legendary Rasoi brand of edible oils, the purchase of Kesh King in the Ayurvedic hair and scalp care category, Creme 21, a German brand with strong roots & brand recall and that of ‘Dermicool’, one of the leading Prickly Heat and Cool Talc brands of India.
Innovation:
While a large number of companies engage launching me-too products, the Emami Group focuses on creating an unmistakable differentiator, whether in the form of product attributes or service delivery.
For instance, in 2005, Emami Limited created history by launching Fair and Handsome, India’s first fairness cream for men. This fairness cream for men represented unexplored opportunity in a tropical country. In doing so, Emami created a new market segment following the understanding that 30% of fairness cream users were men. Based on this reality, Fair and Handsome revenues touched around Rs 40 crore in the first year and continued to lead the category with the lion's share of the market till today.
This is how Emami opened a gold mine of opportunities in the male grooming segment that extended to the launch of another breakthrough innovation of the country’s first-ever waterless face wash for men - "HE- On the Go". “HE Magic Duo”, a unique packaging innovation that followed from the house of Emami that disrupted the fragrance industry by introducing two perfumes in one bottle.
With a penchant of pioneering categories, Emami introduced the benefit of cooling in talcum powder when it took the market by storm by launching Navratna Cool Talc - "Duniya ka sab se chhota AC". This was followed by the recent introduction of Navratna Smart Cool, equipped with “Intelligent Sweat Sense Technology” which gives cooling 2 times- 1st on application & 2nd on sweating – promising cooling & freshness when it is needed the most. Competition followed Emami and launched many me-too products. But Emami, continued to hold on to its leadership position. What Emami thinks today, the market thinks tomorrow.
State-of-the-art innovation centre:
Most FMCG companies engage in negligible research. Emami Group invested in a state-of-the-art multi-storied research centre (30,000 sq. ft) in Kolkata for its FMCG business. This robust infrastructure focuses on product development, product processing science, competitive intelligence cell, analytical development, perfumery science, quality assurance and packaging and development. More importantly, it reconciles generations of hands-on domain knowledge and cutting-edge practices.
Packaging innovation:
Even as consumers preferred Emami products, the Group graduated its conventional packaging with the objective to enhance packaging attractiveness and shelf offtake. Besides, Emami transformed the use of conventional packaging resources in an unconventional way, resulting in cost-effectiveness without compromising product attributes. For instance, the introduction of the innovative sachet packaging in oil category for Navratna revolutionized the market dynamics; Mentho Plus Balm and Zandu Balm graduated to small packs through the adoption of modern moulding technologies; the 3D design pack of Navratna Cool Talc made it possible for consumers to examine the product in a convenient way; the BoroPlus Vasocare petroleum jelly pack with an in-built flip top cap represented packaging innovation. This focus on packaging innovation optimized the use of raw material and environment concerns.
Celebrity endorsements and in-film placements:
The Emami Group innovated the enlistment of celebrities for product endorsements. This helped Emami’s appeal extend from urban appeal to rural acceptance. Emami’s brands continue to be endorsed by prominent national celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Kapil Sharma, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Shilpa Shetty, Madhuri Dixit, Kangana Ranaut , Katrina Kaif, Varun Dhawan, Shahid Kapoor, Tiger Shroff, Kartik Aaryan, Ali Fazal, Ayushmann Khurrana, Bipasha Basu, Sonakshi Sinha, Rekha, Juhi Chawla, Sonu Sood, Vidyut Jammwal, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Dharmendra, Govinda, Divya Bharti, Preity Zinta, Malaika Arora Khan, Ravi Kishan, Mahesh Babu, Surya, Chiranjeevi, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta, Yami Gautam, Shilpa Shetty, Parineeti Chopra, Tapsee Pannu, Kriti Sanon, Late Pt. Birju Maharaj, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Virendra Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, The Great Khali , Mary Kom, Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, Late Milkha Singh , Sushil Kumar among others.
Pursuing ‘smart’ growth:
The Emami Group has always been at the forefront of pursuing strategic acquisition-driven growth. Three instances elaborate this point.
The Group (through Emami Agrotech) acquired ‘Rasoi’, a trusted heritage Vanaspati brand with a rich legacy of more than 50 years. The acquisition was an attractive addition to the Company’s existing portfolio of edible oil brands like ‘Emami Healthy & Tasty’ and ‘Himani Best Choice’. This acquisition was in line with the Group’s vision to emerge among the three leading edible oil brands in India.
Emami Group acquired Zandu for reasons for strategic compatibility. “Bada bottle Zandu dena,” is a common consumer request for India’s best loved pain reliever. This Zandu brand enjoys a century’s presence and is respected for headache, body ache and cold remedies. As one of the biggest pain management brands, the product enjoys a wide coverage across retail outlets in India, which is still growing.
Emami Limited also acquired the business of Kesh King and forayed into the world of Ayurvedic hair and scalp care. It represented one of the largest deals in the segment in recent times. Marking a foray into the fast-growing ayurvedic hair care segment for the first time, the acquisition paves the way for the company to enter products like shampoos, conditioners and capsules under the Kesh King brand. Kesh King is ranked among the top ayurvedic hair oils in India with an estimated market share of 29.3%*.
Unconventional thinking. Unprecedented results.
* All Market Share Figures are Nielsen (NIQ) data in volume terms as per MAT Mar’24
** Market Share Figure is Nielsen (NIQ) data in volume terms as per MAT June’22