Much guessing on Britannia rejig

Questions are being raised by industry analysts on Britannia Industries' revamp of its management.

Vinita Bali, 58, managing director (MD), is being asked to focus heavily on expanding of international operations, which hardly contribute around five per cent of its revenue, and new business development. Analysts think the Wadia Group, the controlling stake in Britannia, might have opted for a more aggressive person in Varun Berry for leading the Indian operations.

It was under difficult circumstances that Bali joined the company in January 2005, when there was no designated MD or chief executive. The annual revenue was about Rs 1,700 crore and the net profit around Rs 150 crore. By the end of FY13, revenue had grown almost four times to Rs 6,130 crore and the net profit was Rs 260 crore.

Bali came on board nearly two years after the company saw the exit of Sunil Alagh, its larger than life chief executive, who quit after sharp differences with the Wadias. Nearly three years after Bali came on board, she confidently oversaw an acrimonious split between the two major shareholders, the Wadia Group and French global company Danone, during 2009, not letting the serious differences affect the operations.

In the eight years of her leadership, she turned around Britannia from a plainly biscuit-focused entity into a diversified one straddling many food segments - snacking, breakfast offerings, innovating aggressively on biscuits and bringing its offerings as a strong alternate to regular snacks.

Yet, though she managed to innovate on products, it is understood that she hasn't delivered as much on revenue and net margin. Said Abneesh Roy, senior analyst at Edelweiss Securities: "Britannia has been lagging its peers in volume and revenue growth and they have not had any blockbuster success in product innovation. While the company has a decent innovation funnel, it is a totally different matrix of making it successful in the marketplace, which Britannia has not been able to deliver on."

According to him, Britannia has been taking a hit due to aggressive competition from ITC Foods and Parle.

However, with Bali now in charge of new business development and international expansion, her years of fast moving consumer goods experience in global locations should be handy. Having worked with Coca-Cola as a global marketing director and also with Cadbury, her more than three decades of marketing and development experience will help in trying to steer Britannia on to a global stage.

While innovating with the product range, she focused on fortification and enhancing the nutrition of the entire range of products, taking a strong role in making that the foundation on which the company would progress on. She has been passionate about this and with strong marketing expertise, brought in the desired differentiation even to plain glucose biscuits.

Bali was also one among the 'global leaders' appointed by the United Nations to aid and improve maternal and child nutrition, an investment leading economists believe would be the most valuable for human wellbeing and productivity. In 2009, she founded the Britannia Nutrition Foundation, which distributes fortified biscuits to schoolchildren. Britannia has been partnering with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, another initiative of the UN, started in 2002.

During the eight-year tenure at the helm, she also oversaw two important acquisitions of bakery and biscuit companies in West Asia and expansion into a speciality bakery offering.