Reviving Hindustan Lever Limited

Globally, most of Unilever's revenues came from its food business. In India, however, more than two-thirds of HLL's revenues came from its home and personal care business. Two successive CEOs - Banga and Manwani - wanted to increase the company's revenues from the food business in line with the trend in the parent company. In his outgoing speech, Banga said, "Historically, our foods business was fragmented and lacked scale. It was often commoditized with low margins. We recognized that changing food habits would require considerable investment, which the current business simply could not afford. Therefore we divested the non-value added parts, like vanaspati...

A few industry analysts were not impressed by HLL's moves. They pointed out that HLL had divested some of its power brands like Nihar, A1 and Dalda which had high potential. With the revival and growth of the Indian economy, there would be all-round growth in the FMCG sector and HLL would not be able to reap the full benefits of this growth, they opined. Others felt that Baillie's leadership would be crucial in ensuring the success of the company's revival strategies. They also opined that managing HLL would be tough for Baillie. First, he would have to boost the morale of HLL's employees which had fallen owing to the poor performance of the company over the last seven years...