Britannia Industries Ltd’s large, old-style verdant campus, spread over 5 acres, is a prime piece of real estate and sits on one of Bangalore’s key arterial roads. Unlike the city’s cramped, new glass-and-chrome technology company offices, Britannia’s low-slung, roomy old buildings are a relief to the eye.
It’s still got crunch: Bali’s challenge is to take Britannia back to its historic market leader position. Jayachandran / Mint
With the airport shifting away to the outskirts at Devanahalli, the traffic flow on this important road is much smoother. This is what Vinita Bali has done at Britannia too—unclogged the arteries of the company by getting growth back and exiting joint ventures that proved to be a drag on its potential.
After a torrid growth phase in the late 1990s, Britannia, led by former honcho Sunil Alagh, was bogged down in a quagmire. Much of the turmoil could be traced back to Alagh’s style of functioning and the company’s bitter spats with various partners. Alagh ran the company as a fiefdom and eventually left Britannia under a hail of allegations after differences cropped up with the owners, including industrialist Nusli Wadia.
Britannia is the crown jewel in Wadia’s empire, and for close to 18 months after Alagh’s departure, it drifted without proper leadership. National and regional players were eating into Britannia’s market share. When Bali joined the company in January 2005, Britannia was well and truly on the ropes. The cookie had all but crumbled.
Wadia’s choice of Bali to run Britannia was a surprise, largely because in the past, she had run multi-billion-dollar divisions for The Coca-Cola Co., was marketing chief for its key brand Coke, and had stayed away from India for 16 years despite numerous lucrative offers. However, Wadia convinced Bali to take up the challenge of turning Britannia’s fortunes around.
I meet Bali for lunch on the beautiful Britannia campus, in order to accommodate her schedule. Bali walks in with her disarming smile and we move to a large dining room where a vegetarian meal awaits us. Naturally, dessert is cakes produced by the company.
Bali says she hails from a “typical educated middle-class family” with a well-read mother whose family had moved to India after Partition. “My father was the director at Air Headquarters at the ministry of defence and a very cerebral guy. He wouldn’t talk much about his job, and dinner conversations would revolve around the latest book we had read.” She, however, credits her mother for her lifelong interest in music, theatre and dance. “Both of them complemented my right and left brain development.” And despite a strong focus on education, Bali found time to train for 13 years in Kathak—“though I don’t dance now”.
The frail-looking Bali says she was a good hockey player (centre forward) and played other games such as badminton, basketball and, till very recently, tennis.