Founder and Chairman of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) major Marico’s Harsh Mariwala believes that prototyping of business ideas is critical as it acts as live market research for a company.
“Experimentation converted on a small scale is a prototype. If I want to launch an FMCG product I will launch it in a small city prototype in a small city or chain of supermarkets. It is a live market research and with fine-tuning, you can scale it up. If you scale up without prototyping, you may launch something which is half-baked and can have a huge impact financially,” Harsh Mariwala told businessline.
Digitisation
Digitisation is a disruption and every company needs to have a digitised roadmap, pointed out Mariwala.
“Digital roadmap is important for every business. How can you become digital which will be a source of the competitive environment? There are opportunities for digitisation in every part of the business. The key thing is depending on the kind of business one has to arrive ,” said Mariwala.
Further, Mariwala stated that with increased competition among businesses, differentiation is crucial.
“First thing is to create a right to win. How do you create differentiation in a highly competitive business environment? It could be through innovation, through pioneering moves if you are doing it for the first time, depending on the kind of business you are in and bringing in disruption. Second, you need to have good talent and a good culture to attract talent. Third is governance which plays an equally important role despite the size of the business. If you start taking shortcuts and think when you become large you would improve it that does not work,” added Mariwala.