‘We’re making Marico future-ready in predictable, repeatable ways’

The Marico Chief Executive Officer is in no hurry. Saugata Gupta, on a mission to double the ₹5,000-crore company’s revenues, says he believes in expanding boundaries in predictable, repeatable ways.

Beyond growth “It is not just a one year or quarterly milestone that we have set out. What we are doing is making the organisation future-ready,” says Gupta, who’s also the Managing Director of the consumer goods company. “Though sales growth is linear, we are not looking at linear or an exponential growth. The complexity of the journey has ensured we look beyond that.”

Speaking to BusinessLine at his plush new office in suburban Mumbai, Gupta confided: “Essentially, we draw a picture of how the organisation is going to be four-five years from now, and then go backwards, as opposed to working incrementally forward.

“Unlike very high growth sectors, where you keep chasing growth, in our sector (FMCG), I personally believe it is a repeatable, disciplined model of growth. This is a far superior way of ensuring growth, rather than have a shot-gun approach.”

Approach to growth Marico is driving capability ahead of growth. Repeatability allows the company to systematise growth, and by doing so, take advantage of the learning curve effects. The company has Parachute, Saffola, and Set Wet among its many brands.

“Our belief is that if we keep doing the right things, outcomes will happen, as opposed to keep on chasing outcomes. That is the broad approach. We have identified each area and what can be achieved,” says Gupta. Stating that in a lot of cases, people have five-year targets where they want to double or more, Gupta notes: “Our journey is not about chasing a target, then it becomes just that – a target. We have a slightly different approach to growth.” He points out that the “repeatable business model actually drives a lot of people into long-term thinking. We have integrated this with the purpose of the organisation.”

The CEO, who has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur, is clear that the company has to be best in class in each area, be it governance, management or sustainability.

Transformation areas To that end, Marico has taken up five transformation areas. “We have identified five sources of transformation which we believe are very core to us.

Essentially driving innovation, go to market, IT analytics, talent and culture, and value management (are the areas),” he adds. Stating that the company does not believe in “compromising on cost in terms of diluting consumer experience,” the alumnus from IIM Bangalore insists that “value management is all about delivering more value at the same cost, or delivering identical value at lower cost.”