Reckitt Benckiser, a global force in household, health and personal care segments with brands like Dettol, Harpic, Strepsils and Mortein, has set a target of growing its Indian operations by 20 per cent year-on -year. Already in excess of Rs 1,200 crore, India is among the eight most important countries in Reckitt Benckiser's global operations.
Reckitt Benckiser sells its products in 180 countries and has operations in 60 countries across all continents, with global sales in excess of £5 billion.
In an exclusive interaction with Pradipta Mukherjee, Reckitt Benckiser's India chairman and managing director Chander M Sethi reveals that plans are afoot to introduce most of its global brands in personal-care, homecare and off-the-counter (OTC) drugs in India. Edited excerpts:
How does Reckitt Benckiser plan to grow its business in India?
Currently, Reckitt Benckiser's India revenues are in excess of Rs 1,200 crore. We have set a target of 20 per cent year-on-year growth. We will introduce more products in India from our global portfolio, backed by consumer insights.
Apart from the introduction of new brands, there is a huge market penetration opportunity for Reckitt Benckiser in India for its existing products.
For instance, specialised toilet cleaners have a penetration level of only 21 per cent in India, while the penetration level is more than 40 per cent in other markets we operate in. So, there is a huge scope for educating consumers in India. This will, in turn, boost sales.
Which brands will be introduced in India from the company's global portfolio?
We have applied for registration licences for a few of the OTC drugs in India. We are planning to introduce 'Mucinex', the OTC brand Reckitt Benckiser acquired for 1 billion pounds from Adams Respiratory Therapeutics in February this year.
Mucinex is the market leader in adult expectorants and is the largest selling brand in US. We aim to introduce it in India in another 18 months or so. We also plan to introduce a few other homecare and personalcare products in India from our global portfolio.
For instance, we are toying with the idea of introducing handgels, liquid handwash, or even our off-the-counter (OTC) drugs. Globally, we have nine OTC drugs, whereas in India we have introduced just about two, so far.
Where are your research and development (R&D) centres?
We have about 12 R&D centres globally. We are in the process of making India one of our biggest R&D hubs to support developing markets like India as well as regions such as East and South Asia, Africa and Middle East.
Apart from carrying out research on new products, the Indian R&D team will also work on product modifications for localisation of products.
Any plans to expand manufacturing capacities?
We are planning many new products which will all be manufactured locally. We will therefore have to invest in expanding our manufacturing capacity. We plan to double the current capacity in two years. We produce around 20 million units every month right now at seven manufacturing facilities in India.
Reckitt Benckiser closed some of its factories recently and sold off the property to real estate developers. Please, throw light on the rationale.
We have closed our manufacturing factories at Behala and Chetla in Kolkata and sold off the land to real estate developers. The move was necessary because the city was expanding and therefore these locations, where we had set up plants around 40 years ago, were becoming major commercial and residential places.
So, we relocated our plants to areas outside residential or commercial areas to avoid any accidents or pollution issues in the area. Most employees were relocated and the ones who did not wish to relocate were given enough compensation so much so that there have been no complaints, so far.
