Abhishek Khaitan reflects on life, turning round Radico Khaitan and building brands, as Abhilasha Ojha sips the new chocolate-flavoured vodka he’s launched.
It’s chocolate in a bottle,” I laugh, letting my senses drown in the sinful chocolatey flavour. We’re sitting in the plush conference room of the Radico Khaitan office where, instead of files — or fancy laptops for that matter — brilliantly designed bottles of vodka are lined up on the table.
“Two-and-a-half years. That’s how much time it took us to get the right blend for this flavour of vodka,” grins Abhishek Khaitan, gently pointing to the chocolate-flavoured vodka, while I stare at the green apple, orange, lemon, lemongrass and raspberry flavoured Magic Moments vodka bottles that the company has recently introduced, and superstar Hrithik Roshan has endorsed.
Managing director of Radico, Abhishek, who, incidentally, is a vodka drinker himself (“I was a complete whisky person till recently”), entered the liquor business when he was barely 22 years old. He had just finished his engineering from Bangalore — “liquor kingdom” as he calls it — when he decided to get into the family business. “It wasn’t the best time when I entered the company. There had been a split in the family and suddenly we had to start all over again,” he says.
While his father and chairman of Radico, Lalit Khaitan, was instrumental in ensuring that the company made successful inroads into the bottling territory, when Abhishek entered the company, he announced a separate marketing division for the company, certain that it needed overhauling.
“Our bottling contract was over and it was time to make a transition and create our own brands,” he says, a Magpie tea glass resting comfortably in his right hand. The “transition”, admits Abhishek, resulted in sleepless nights and countless days in the office. “Everything was at stake. If we hadn’t succeeded in building brands, I wouldn’t be sitting here, you wouldn’t be interviewing me.”
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Within a year of joining, Abhishek decided, after getting the required approvals from his father, to revamp the company. Without doing away with the older employees, Radico Khaitan recruited new employees (“we got younger, very enthusiastic even if not overtly experienced, people”), tied up with around 10 different bottlers and chalked out every possible strategy.
The first stop was launching the flagship whisky brand 8 PM which sold a million cases within a year of its launch, a feat which was later recorded in the Limca Book of Records. “Well, we were aiming for the Guinness world record…” Abhishek’s voice trails off, while Rahul Gagerna, VP marketing, Radico Khaitan, chips in humourously, looking at Abhishek, “He converted from whisky to vodka so that he could taste and feel our new range of liquor. That’s how serious he gets when it comes to our company.”
As someone who’s in the business of “lifestyle”, Abhishek, who remembers spending night after night in pubs and bars “not just for fun but also to understand what guys out there wanted to drink”, feels that his job actually requires him to get into the minds of people and understand human behaviour.
“But those were the days when my friends and I used to love hitting the pubs and drinking for sheer pleasure. Today, I like having quieter evenings with close friends or just my immediate family members,” he says, adding that his own change over the years has also reflected in the way the company functions. “At that time we were all starting out, we were young, desperate to succeed. Today, by 7 pm, I make sure that even the generators of our office are switched off,” he says.
While the company has gradually consolidated its position as the second largest Indian brewery company, Abhishek’s own life, which he says “was difficult to cope with some eight-nine years ago when the company was just acquiring its ‘brand’ image”, has become much simpler, quieter and calmer. “I like going with my family on holidays to different destinations though I find myself returning to Thailand and Las Vegas very often,” he says.
For someone who enjoys watersports thoroughly, digs good food, wine and sightseeing, and is very fond of brands (like his father, on any working day you can find Abhishek in Versace trousers, or even Armani and Boss, completing the look with either a Rolex or Breguet watch), this father of two toddlers says that a lot of his free time is spent either watching films, listening to music or working out at least three-five times a week at his plush home gym.
For a company which sold 13.5 million cases (2007-08) and is targeting to sell 16 million cases in the coming year besides also entering the European markets, Abhishek’s story would seem like the classic one of someone whose dreams and ambitions have all been fulfilled. “Actually, there are times when I dream of taking two years off and completing my MBA. I’ve done a short course at Harvard though I still hope to do an extensive course. When I was younger, I couldn’t complete my MBA because our company needed me back then,” he says.
It’s a dream that’s still waiting to be turned into reality.