Unlike others, Eureka Forbes treats water on a serious note: Suresh Goklaney

Interview with, Executive vice-chairman, Eureka Forbes

It's not often that 66-year-old Suresh Goklaney, executive vice-chairman, Eureka Forbes, gives interviews to the media. The FMCG veteran, who has been with the company for over two-and-a-half decades, has opted to silently steer the Shapoorji-Pallonji Group company from a one-product wonder (vacuum cleaners) to a firm that has a suite of home and industrial solutions from air and water purifiers, fire extinguishers and security systems. In this interaction with Viveat Susan Pinto, Goklaney talks about Eureka Forbes' roadmap for the future following acquisition of the oldest direct sales company in the world, Switzerland-based Lux, this May. He also comes down heavily on Hindustan Unilever (HUL) with whom his firm has waged both ad and legal wars in recent years and whether his firm will look at an association or alliance with the Tata Group. Edited Excerpts:

Your vacuum cleaners and water purifiers are game changers especially when it came to marketing these products. In the last few years, you have also expanded your range of products. What is the next horizon for you now?
Rural India is one area we have begun focusing our attention on in the last few years. In the last two and a half years, we have set up nearly 200 water plants or water shops as we call them where we provide clean, portable water at a nominal price. We are doing this along with non-governmental organisations in different parts of the country. This is a community-level initiative. We are also in the process of developing a water purifier for the bottom-of-the-pyramid. This product will be available for as low as Rs 100 to Rs 200. This will truly make clean drinking water accessible to the masses at large.

Your battle with Hindustan Unilever in recent years has been nasty. What is the issue?

People haven't understood the water segment in this country. They think if they have a product why not step into an attractive category such as water. One size fits all - that is the approach of most manufacturers. I haven't seen anyone take this category seriously, in a fashion that benefits the end consumer. Take Pureit. The substance that it uses kills bacteria and viruses, yes, but how safe is it? It is cancerous if there are free chemicals released from its disinfection process. But nobody is willing to venture into that territory and talk about it. And mind you this product is sold across the country. There is evidence to back that Pureit could probably be damaging - that the medium to clean water is not adequately backed by the carbon scavenger that it uses. If the latter is cracked, the release of this chemical called trichloroisocyanuric acid, which along with melamine (basically plastic used to produce cutlery such as glass for drinking water, dinner sets, spoons etc), is cancer-causing. Laboratory reports on this are available. Nothing stops anyone from accessing them. But nobody will speak about it.

How are you different from them?
Our approach is not about one size fits all. We treat water on a serious note and the journey began 25 years ago, which continues to this day. We have about 19 laboratories in the country where 80 to 90 microbiologists are regularly checking water conditions across the country. Every month there are about 300 tests done by every single laboratory of ours. 300 water samples are drawn. Of our own accord we have an outside body that tests are water purifiers independently. How are our water purifiers behaving in customer homes? We do studies such as these so that we can plug gaps and because we believe we have a responsibility when it comes to a resource such as water. You cannot take it lightly.

Will you look at any more acquisitions after Lux?
My priority would be to smoothly integrate the operations of Lux with Eureka Forbes. That will take some time. But we should do it in about two to three years. The immediate fallout of the acquisition, of course, is that our turnover jumps to nearly Rs 3,000 crore from roughly about Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 crore now. We get a footprint in 40 countries. There are synergies that we can harness since Lux's profile of operations is similar to ours. As far as I see it, it is a win-win situation for all.

Will you look at an alliance or association with the Tata Group?
We wish them well. But we do not intend to have any association or tie-up with them.