New Delhi: Atul Singhis considered a turnaround specialist. US soft drinks maker Coca-Cola Co. posted him in India four years ago after he succeeded in driving up volumes in China. Under him, Coca-Cola India Inc., too, has turned profitable, the first time after it re-entered the country in 1993. Ironically, though, even after 16 years in India, the local Thums-Up drink remains its top-selling brand.
Singh, 49, president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola India, is secretive about new launches and advertising campaigns but shares his strategy and the leadership mantras he uses to fight it out in the competitive Rs7,500 crore soft drinks market in India. Edited excerpts:
How would you rate Cola-Cola India’s performance?
In the last quarter, Coca-Cola India grew by 37%, its highest growth in the last 13 quarters. In fact, in the last four quarters, our growth has been in excess of 30%. China is doing very well, too, in terms of volume.
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How have you managed to turn around Coca-Cola in India?
I came here in September 2005. We did an assessment of our business, capability and portfolio and set a vision for ourselves. There were changes in the management team. We focused on what we call the manifesto for growth and we clearly aligned our system to the manifesto and the six P’s—people, portfolio, partners, profit, planet and productivity.
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For a business to do well, we focus on the six P’s, which is a global framework. But what we do in each of the six P’s depends on local insights and needs. So the portfolio of products in India is different from the portfolio in China or the US.
In the planet area, we work in rain-water harvesting and have committed to be water neutral in a given period of time. The other focus area is energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint.
We created the right partnerships with the kirana and the large format stores. We have trained 30,000 small shop keepers on merchandising skills and we taught them how to manage their finances. This is about managing their business and nothing to do with selling our products.
The attrition rate in the company, which was very high earlier, dropped below the industry average (of around 18%). When we measure our performance across the six P’s, we have made significant progress.
You announced an investment of $250 million (Rs1,170 crore now) in 2006. Where is the money being used?
Since our re-entry, we have made investments of around $1.2 billion already. The $250 million investment is being used to increase our capacity in manufacturing, transportation, logistics, cold drink equipment such as refrigerators, and consumer marketing.
Does the money come from the parent company?