It is time for Version 2 of FMCG Marketing
The pundits (pun intended) at the Economic Times have said a lot these past few days about ‘vindis and levers of change’ culminating in the Saturday editorial “will reorganization do the trick at HLL”. I am not sure that is the fundamental question that needs to be debated. The reorganization signals continuity with change, and a renewed vote of majority share holder confidence in the old order (the new management team is the old management team, with some increases and decreases in roles, some departures, no outside additions, and certainly no dramatic experiments with organization structure, as far as one can see). What needs to be debated, is the more central issue facing the company, and indeed the category. As discussed in the editorial, the central issue seems to be that the once famed value advantage that HLL offered consumers, is eroding ( “value” defined simply as “Sum total of benefit […]