The Hindu Business Line : Ms Sujatha , CEO, Suvai Ice Creams, Coimbatore; Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam

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Ms Sujatha , CEO, Suvai Ice Creams, Coimbatore; Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam

Ms Sujatha , CEO, Suvai Ice Creams, Coimbatore, speaking at the BL Club meeting at Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam

Our Bureau

Coimbatore, April 28 Regional brands with their freshness and faster access to markets could stand up to MNCs and being regional is the ‘in thing’ now, according to Ms Sujata Krishnan, Chief Executive Officer, Suvai Foods, Coimbatore.

She said the ability to step into anyone’s shoes makes employees different and provides value addition to them and women can inherently multi task.

Speaking at a Business Line Club meeting organised by the School of Management Studies of Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Sathyamangalam in Erode district, presented by Indian Overseas Bank, she told the students that as employees, they should “find a niche” for themselves and show how they were different from others. In her own organisation, she said, there was no CEO and as one who grew up with her employees she valued their loyalty and integrity.

Multi-tasking

She said that in her factory, one person could do many jobs. With computer awareness being high, it was not difficult for a non-accounting person to take a statement of accounts. Women can inherently multi-task and women must not let anyone tell them that they could not do so because they were going to get married or become mothers. They can do “absolutely everything and that is an inherent advantage that women are born with”. But some entrepreneurs felt that specialisation was the key to any industry and if employees were not allowed to do so, the work was not going to be good.

Ms Krishnan said she was not making a case for taking upon oneself work that was unrelated to one’s core job. But a floor manager in one area could fill up the shoes for another colleague doing similar work in another area and if one did not do so, it was a “great disadvantage”. The “ability to step into any one’s shoes gives value addition” to an employee and gives him/her a “niche personality”. She said students should have varied tastes and should think of the facilities provided by the educational institutions as value addition to their personality and should be well-informed.

Breaking into markets

Tracing her own company’s growth in the ice cream industry, she said 20 years back, no one was selling ice creams in large four or five litre packs and they were marketed in smaller units. She went to hotels, restaurants and colleges and made them see the cost advantage of buying in larger volumes. She also targeted interior semi-urban and rural markets that the bigger players did not access in Coimbatore and neighbouring districts. She changed the essences, catering to the taste of the rural folk, making them more sweeter. Slowly the brand saw acceptance in the markets, with preference shifting from MNC brands to Suvai ice creams.

Referring to the performance of small, local brands in the ice cream market in competition with larger brands or MNC brands, Ms Krishnan said they are successful. “They have to just find the gaps (in the market); they have to find the niche. Not everyone buys the MNC brands or has got access to them.” Referring to how some of the desi cola brands had found the going tough against MNCs such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, she said “If they had fought to stay in the market somehow, today they would all be doing extremely well because today everything regional is very in.” Dr A. Shanmugam, Principal, BIT, Sathyamangalam, and Mr D. Rajkumar, Regional General Manager, The Hindu, Coimbatore, also spoke.

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