Interviews of FMCG Industry Experts

Name- Pushkar Kumar

Name of the Company / Institute- The Himalaya Drug Company

Your role in a Company / Institute- Working as retail sales manager.

Number of employees in the Company / Institute- Over 10,000 employees

Annual Turnover of your Company / Institute- Around 3000 crore

Domain of your work- Sales Division

Your total work experience- 15 years

 Covid-19 has resulted in many disruptions in supply chains resulting into the negative
impact on businesses, consumers and global economy. For decades firms have been
focusing on cost optimization through economies of scale and not focused on risk
mitigation strategies. According to you how does risk mitigation plan can help firms
to survive such a scenario?

Ans: See what happened in this case was we did our business. Pandemic too place in around
April i guess. In our perspective we had medicines as well as hand sanitizer in our product
line based on that we have taken advantage and we have open the stores as well as we
started scattering the local market. All our employees worked day and night and went to the
distributor point and started there supply in the shops this resulted in business revival
otherwise Himalayas would have been in the same position where other businesses were.
We had a huge product line, which is around 865 products and is catering basically head to
toe solutions based on that company had such products of which company took the
advantage off. Only by using the product hand Sanitizers Company did a huge business.
Based on this company has not deducted a single penny of its employees in the name of
pandemic. Farther based on this situation company even launched new product and
increased its product lines. In terms of cost cutting company worked on virtual platform that
lead to save the expenses of travelling as well as also saved the expenses that company use
to bear during big conference with other companies. Even company did saving by not doing
the financial conference and it was done virtually. Even during this pandemic company did a
huge business in E Commerce and the E- commerce plat form also grew tremendously of the
company. That is how Himalaya survived as Himalaya is deals with multiple categories as
well as is present in multiple platforms. Retails stores were also all ready there as which also
got the permission to open as the company was dealing with medicines and hand sanitizers.
Company did business from here as well and due to hand sanitizer and hand wash in our
product line we also got the permission to distribute the product to all our stores at every
location.

 The Covid-19 has highlighted the need of orienting the processing towards
economies of skills as compared to economies of scale. How this change can
embrace the risk competitiveness that further support the supply chain resilience?

Ans: This questions feels like a MBA based question. See it depends on the entire Indian
economy and I think is not specific for FMCG. What happens basically is that if the
company’s business is closed due to pandemic when the company is coming back to pavilion
thus it leads to economic crisis as the employees were not paid well and the demand was
less due to not getting sufficient order. When the lockdown was over and the company
started receiving orders that moment they did not had sufficient labour. Since there is no
labour this issues directly points out the risk factor. It also depends on industry to industry
as for software industry there something else and FMCG industry has something else but
one thing was common which was which was working from home. Now what happened was
a person who use to work previously 8 hours a day out of which he use to work seriously for
2 – 3 hours but after work from home came into effect they started working 15 hours a day
just because they were working from the comfort of their home. This factor leads to the
proper utilization of the man power and salaries are also the same or a bit is deducted
without increment in the name of pandemic and what else company did was they closed all
their offices that lead to lowering the operating cost. Now in terms of the factory, it was
closed and labours went back home so it made it difficult to accept any kind of challenges by
the competitors. In this case the economy is affected until and unless if the government
helps the company to change the location of the factory to a place where more skilled
workers are available. So now two options were available, either to shift the factory or wait
until the workers return. Shifting the factory requires government support and by this way
government can help the skilled labour. This is a endless discussion.

 People started stalking products at initial stages of lockdown, which surged overall
demand, so how your organization passed through and what is the learning for
future?

Ans: See this can be taken in two ways, first is there was a rumour that government is going
to declare lockdown based on which consumers started purchasing their products which
they require for a month or two. They started stocking products as there was a panic among
the people which lead to increase in demand. Now if we take a look at my organization than
i would say our business grew month after month for e.g. if you get to know about lockdown
before hand and you do not have tooth paste than you will definitely buy toothpaste for
number of months lockdown will be initiated. So during the lock down you are definitely
not coming to me. The truth is our company alone do not scatter the entire market and
there are other companies as well. Now suppose there are 10 lakh people in Kolkata and
only 3 lakh is scattered by Himalaya and the rest by other brand. So this three lakh people
stocked their goods and supplies beforehand. In Himalaya what happened was to meet this
demand the supply was hampered in the very initial stage for while but it grew slowly in a
rapid phase and the company started scattering and kept scattering in the market and after
april Himalaya didn’t stopped. Now coming back to the example suppose Himalaya already
had 3 lakh customers and the remaining 7 lakh customers out of which a few of them were
not provided service by their regular brand who farther ended up shifting to the Himalaya.
So Himalaya gained new customers as well. So Himalaya has also faced the issue of shortage
of stocks but still based on this facts Himalaya has grown. For your preference my region of
which I was in charge grew up to 42% in May which in general company gives a target of
20%. So if we consider the overall figures Himalaya was having growth and it was not in
negative.

 Supply chains run on the relationships maintained in the network. What are the few
changes that you observe with respect to pre and post-Covid era in terms of demand
and supply?

Ans: In pre covid what use happen was there were already multiple brands existing in the
market so there use to have a competition of space. Companies use to show their sales and
valuate accordingly how much space they really require for which FMCG industry use to give
display space to all the small and big stores. During covid customers were endless hence in
this case if you can supply more products than that use to built a good relationship with a
customer which was not there in post covid scenario. So in terms of demand and supply
demand was already endless and we somehow managed to provide the supply and we also
scatter and we also grew but yes! We to had a shortage yet we somehow managed to fulfil
either entirely of partially the demand.

What have been Government lockdowns and other restrictions Impact on stock keeping,
return of expiry products, fresh products and how your company handled the situation?

Ans: When there was covid situation on its peak, the company did not actually run into any
return policy. Previously what use to happen was the distributers use to provide goods in
terms of credit basis but during that time they stopped the credit facility and asked for
instant payments. This was the biggest change that came in terms of products but yes one
thing that happened was, previous the distributor’s whose money was stuck into the
market. They were not able to recover that amount from the market. Especially this
happened in the cosmetics products. In the consuming products the distributor who uses to
supply on credit before started taking advance for their supply. Regarding the expiry
products the company has not done anything yet but when the time will come the company
has to take back what was expired. The pressure for this is already there and company is
slowly dealing with it. Also in this pandemic a lot of distributers left the market and also a lot
of distributers entered the market in case of Himalaya.

 The history indicates that supply chain disruptions are costly to companies. How
your company is planning to increase the supply chain resilience in future?

Ans: In the pandemic situation we have faced a shortage of supply, which is true. Company
stopped the product during this time for 15 days due to which we have faced shortage of
products. Well this question which is entirely based on the top management because this is
a part that entirely is being looked after by the top management. From my side I cannot
specifically clear out what is the plan to increase supply chain because I myself is not yet
well aware of it but all i could say is in the depo level the restocking has been increased a lot
as pandemic is still not over and there are chances that government may declare lockdown
ones again so we must be prepared

 Reacting immediately to a disruption require the flexibility among upstream and

downstream to absorb the sudden variation in demand. In your opinion how does
firms and supply chain can utilize Industry 4.0 tools to optimize the costs and
increase the visibility across partners to react quickly?

Ans: Regarding costing in the pre covid scenario Himalaya divided its category; to be precise
the CPD was further divided into face care and daily care. So what happened was in CPD all
the man power became double but the business remained in the same position, hence there
came an effect of cost and covid also arrived by this time. So what Himalaya decided was, it
had different division and one of them was CPD that was farther divided to face care and
daily care, farther there were divisions like wellness, baby care and there was pharma. They
kept pharma and animal at one place and pulled the plug from wellness division some
portion of it was joined with CPD and in coming future company is also going to shut down
the baby care category or might also make it combined with CPD. So this is entirely the
companies cost saving strategy. Regarding industry 4.0 companies is using advance
technology since a very long time in its production and the optimum utilization of resources
are being properly taken care of. During the covid scenario the utilization was limited to only
the market demand. For e.g. hand sanitizers were in demand and hence multiple hand
sanitizers were being made as well as the same for the hand wash which farther lead to
achieve the entire set targets of the company. If these products would not have been there
in our product line then the company would have been running in loss and that which were
advance technology also helped us in doing business.

Note: This interview was taken over phone call and the recordings are also being
provided. Got in touch with the person through personal contacts.

Name- Jayanta Singla

Name of the Company / Institute- TKK Health Care Limited.

Your role in a Company / Institute- Area Sales Manager

Number of employees in the Company / Institute- 2244 Personnel

Annual Turnover of your Company / Institute- 645.77 crore

Domain of your work- Sales

Your total work experience- 16 years plus experience in FMCG, Modern Trade, E-
Commerce and Rural Market & Modern Trade

 Covid-19 has resulted in many disruptions in supply chains resulting into the negative
impact on businesses, consumers and global economy. For decades firms have been
focusing on cost optimization through economies of scale and not focused on risk
mitigation strategies. According to you how does risk mitigation plan can help firms
to survive such a scenario?

Ans: See the thing is for the covid 19 issue, there is little industry which is literally ruined for
this pandemic like the hotel industry, and tourism is badly hampered. But in the FMCG
industry the impact was high but not so high. It was on foot, for e.g. suppose skin care, due
to lockdown if a person is not going out then they do not need to nourish skin or for women
using of makeup is also not needed as they are not going out whereas in food items there is
no impact. This way they can examine the market and strategies themselves to be able to
survive in such a scenario.

 The Covid-19 has highlighted the need of orienting the processing towards
economies of skills as compared to economies of scale. How this change can
embrace the risk competitiveness that further support the supply chain resilience?

Ans: Well the question is very strategic; the problem is that to be very frank i am telling you
there are many pros and cons in this industry. When you are hiring a guy with a little bit
higher package the responsibility is not to give him a high package but it depends on the
strategy. The strategy is will be stopping supply chain for 10 to 20 days out of 30 days a
month. Here we are accumulation 10 to 20 days there is a cost cutting that happens and
another things is that you have to keep a proper storage space so that you can acquire all
your materials of 30 days in 10 to 20 days, this is just a probability. Another thing is that
there are office expenses which is required when people are going to office, there travelling
expenses, the expenses which are part of the CTC, which has to managed because our
company has done this as our employees are not travelling anywhere. Our business is also
little bit down but it is not effecting our bottom line because our extra expense is being
taken care off. So every company has there pros and cons that how they will manage their
own expenses. Many companies have done their cost cutting by firing their employees by
saying they won’t be able to pay them and many other companies chose to pay only 50% of
their salary and when the situation recovers again the employees will be paid in full. So
basically it depends on the mentality and other decision making factors of the companies.

 People started stalking products at initial stages of lockdown, which surged overall
demand, so how your organization passed through and what is the learning for
future?

Ans: See this increase in demand is known as panic demand and this demand mainly was
seen for food and basic necessities. As people taught they won’t be able to go out so they
need to store their basic necessity even the pharma industry also saw a huge boost in their
demand and every pharma company did not only grow by single nor double but triple digit
growth was seen. Talking about my company it has always been a employee centric
company and has not given a single pay cut to us only they have asked us not to go outside
as there is a chance of catching the covid virus. They told to work from home such things are
really important. Normally what happens we use to travel a lot and company use to bear
that transport cost n is not a small amount but a big amount and our company in that aspect
has managed the cost very well which was nominal and incurred a saving form here as well.

 Supply chains run on the relationships maintained in the network. What are the few
changes that you observe with respect to pre and post- Covid era in terms of
demand and supply?

Ans: To be very frank relationship is just a part of it and it does not makes up the entire
supply chain. In our case normally what happened we never want to exploit our relationship
because this is something which is not built within one month or two month or 2 years or 5
years it is a long term process so being a professional you need to understand where it is
getting exploited where it is not, it mainly depends upon you and all time you cannot always
rely on a relationship.

 What have been Government lockdowns and other restrictions Impact on stock
keeping, return of expiry products, fresh products and how your company handled
the situation?

Ans: It is the same simple thing, company use to follow the same policies but I being in the
sales our production got decreased because what happened they have taken a very close
and detailed monitoring that how the primary is happening. So they have done their own
study that if suppose this is the sale in this month then we must keep a stock for three to
four month ready and stop production of some SKUs so that there is no problem faced and
at the same time over stocking will be there so that we have enough supply for the
upcoming season. My company has only told me since you are in the holding the sales
position of your area you must have your own sale forecasting which will help you to
understand what product will be sold and what other products will not be sold and
according to that plan we have gathered all the figures from the ASM (Area Sales Manager)
and the company has also given the production plan accordingly.

 The history indicates that supply chain disruptions are costly to companies. How
your company is planning to increase the supply chain resilience in future?

Ans: See currently i don’t know what the companies’ policies are but we are doing well. We
have our own planning. Normally what happens, our main ware house is in Ziraagpur and
then Ahamedhabad and others are located in south India around Vijaybhara. Zigaarpur use
to survey the Delhi and eastern part of the country so the cost of carrying goods from
Ziraagpur to the north east is the highest in terms of that area because it is a place where if
the stocks are not moving then packing them in some other location will be very costly. So
you have to plan accordingly. If you think your stock is not moving or there is some problem
you better not move the stock and keep them safe in your wear house or the mother
warehouse and only send it were the goods are moving fast, this is the clear strategy which
we follow. Our company has strictly mentioned that if i am taking stocks then I have to sell it
and this is my responsibility and if everybody unlike me does their responsibility or at least
90% of them do it then the company will grow.

 Reacting immediately to a disruption require the flexibility among upstream and

downstream to absorb the sudden variation in demand. In your opinion how does
firms and supply chain can utilize Industry 4.0 tools to optimize the costs and
increase the visibility across partners to react quickly?

Ans: See the thing is that as per technology is concern my company is very old fashioned
orthodox kind of a company. We have the normal system of logistics. There is a person who
takes our data and forecast and everything and then plans accordingly how much the
production is required and also plans accordingly how the stock will move to each area. We
don’t have anything extra. To be very frank it does not require any rocket science to sent
stock and receive it. For e.g. If there is heavy rain outside, an your mother definitely knows
what stock is there in the house and what to cook for you which you will be consuming
easily, safely and happily also will take care so that you don’t have to go outside the rain and
face a problem. In our case also the person who is handling all this is very much equipped
with everything. But yes oviously our company has plans to be more technologically capable
specially in terms of this supply chain and it is very much important for us.

Note: This interview was taken over phone call and the recordings are also being
provided. The screenshots are also being provided. Got in touch with the person through
LinkedIn.

LinkedIn profile link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayanta-singha-32258911/

Name- Priyam Mukherjee

Name of the Company / Institute- Christ University, Bangalore

Your role in a Company / Institute- Content and Promotion Analytics at The Daily
Marketing, FMCG, Market Research.
Number of employees in the Company / Institute- 800 Faculty.

Annual Turnover of your Company / Institute- Above 10 million

Domain of your work- FMCG, Market Research.

Your total work experience- More than 2 years.

 Covid-19 has resulted in many disruptions in supply chains resulting into the negative
impact on businesses, consumers and global economy. For decades firms have been
focusing on cost optimization through economies of scale and not focused on risk
mitigation strategies. According to you how does risk mitigation plan can help firms
to survive such a scenario?

Ans: Well, to answer this many FMCG companies do risk management. The giant FMCG
companies like Unilever, ITC, RB, Nestle, Mondelez,Dabur, etc. do have risk management
specialist who form a team and prepare and implement risk management strategy- in
terms of launching of new product, market research, analysis, consumer market insights,
csr implementation, manufacturing, expansion, diversification, imports, exports etc.

 The Covid-19 has highlighted the need of orienting the processing towards
economies of skills as compared to economies of scale. How this change can
embrace the risk competitiveness that further support the supply chain resilience?

Ans: Well economics of skills is a very widespread term. It is extended from HR, Finance,
IT, Digitization, Marketing, Strategy, Auditing etc. Economics of skills can be achieved
when the unskilled labour is trained upgrading to recent technologies, for e.g. a unskilled
labour in Bangalore will be more skilful and upgraded compared to labours of jute
industry of Hooghly basin or poor tea labours of the Darjeeling tea factories. Again Hind
motor Ambassador Factory was locked because the Birla Company did not upgrade the
automobile body parts with design. Thus, skilling the labours with high investment
training outdoors and classroom programs will make them technically sound, they will
become multitasking, can form a team to strategize risk competiveness and further can
make supply chain resilient with Automation, AI, Iot, Block chains, etc. The supply chain
will be seamless in import export and global presence. With labours get skill the economy
will get skilled. The KPIs of economy of skill is linked with skill of labour and manpower.
  People started stalking products at initial stages of lockdown, which surged overall
demand, so how your organization passed through and what are the learning for
future?

Ans: The COVID impact has overall loss of FMCG market by 2 to 5% like any other sector,
but stalking of products was overcome with entering into the emergency industry sector
like personal/domestic hygiene care market like hand wash, soaps, sanitizer. Like Nivea
entered into pocket sanitizer segment and HUL in neem ayurvedic hand wash segment
with different product portfolio packaging. Consumer retention occurs through focus
group consumer surveying and showcasing every stage of distribution of product in retail.
The supply chain dealers and distributor are properly tested sanitize once from the
factory and again in the store before placed in shelf. Learning for future is store more
inventory for future crisis situation in long term.

 Supply chains run on the relationships maintained in the network. What are the few
changes that you observe with respect to pre and post-Covid era in terms of demand
and supply?

Ans: The supply chain in post COVID and new normal is completely changed in terms of
distributions. I am one of the content analysts of webpage The Daily Marketing - in
LinkedIn, where I mentioned in an article the growing D2C models in FMCG like Nivea
partners with Flipkart and Amazon for delivery, ITC partners with Swiggy, Zomato,
Amway, Apna Complex, Dunzo, Rapido etc delivery of goods due to shortage of trucks
and unabilivity of labours. Godrej and Tata consumers are well focussed on making the
D2C distribution a long term challenges in coming years. D2C models implemented with
advanced technologies of AI and Industry 4.0 is going to enjoy a grant future way ahead.

 What have been Government lockdowns and other restrictions Impact on stock
keeping, return of expiry products, fresh products and how your company handled
the situation?

Ans: Well, in beginning theta was shortage of labours and demand weighted more than
supply balance in the hygiene care segment, but slowly firms sanitized and train their
employees of all safety norms operations for factory workers and all level of employees
but the FMCG production rose from 7% to 12% and 17% from Q1 to Q2 and Q3 resp.
  The history indicates that supply chain disruptions are costly to companies. How
your company is planning to increase the supply chain resilience in future?

Ans: As mentioned earlier the D2C operations will run parallel to regular distribution
chain. Suppose the fast food chain like McDownalds and Burger King Workers are left
unemployed with restaurants shut. These companies are becoming third party logistics
for HUL, ITC, RB, GPCL, TGCP, Wipro Consumers, Cavin Kare etc. Burger King in US have
asked there consumers to purchase fast foods from McDownalds as the fast food industry
labours and supervisors are not getting daily wages on daily work basis they are source of
distributors for FMCG products in retail or omni channel end mile home delivery at
consumers doorsteps.

 Reacting immediately to a disruption require the flexibility among upstream and

downstream to absorb the sudden variation in demand. In your opinion how does
firms and supply chain can utilize Industry 4.0 tools to optimize the costs and
increase the visibility across partners to react quickly?

Ans: Well, India is a poor country but still developing not every FMCG has able to install
Industry 4.0 but still some have install looking at long term strategy and risk and
revenues, planning of such installations which costs huge amount of revenues. But yes
globally many industry in Europe and US, UK has installed 4.0 and made their product less
contact to humans and completely delivered by human operating technologies like
robotics warehousing and backhand rooms.

That’s all for now! Have put all inputs restrain to my area of knowledge. Thank You.
Feeling privileged interacting and answering this though although smart piece of
questions. Thank you so much once again.

Note: This interview was taken by circulating Google from and the contact was done
through LinkedIn. The documents regarding this interview are provided.

LinkedIn profile link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyam-mukherjee-43920417a/