 "Saugata Gupta")
The thrust would be on growing organically, as the company aims to become an emerging markets specialist, said Marico managing director Saugata Gupta.
"Asia and Africa offer opportunities for growth as opposed to Latin America and the US and Europe," he said. "Markets that interest us are those with sizeable low- to middle-income consumers, where the product penetration is low, and there are younger people. We are also interested in markets where the penetration of general trade is higher than that of modern trade because we can leverage our India experience," he added.
Marico has created two business clusters. One for South East Asia, and the other for the rest of South Asia, West Asia, and Africa.
The first cluster will have Vietnam, Myanmar and Malaysia and the second Bangladesh, West Asia, Egypt, North Africa, sub-Saharan and South Africa.
Marico veteran B Sridhar, who has worked in sales and international markets, is chief operations officer (COO) for the rest of South Asia, West Asia, and Africa. Ashish Joshi, will join from Colgate, Thailand, as chief operations officer for South East Asia. Both will report to Gupta.
Country heads within these two clusters will report to the two COOs.
Marico has also identified product categories to push growth in international markets. This includes hair nourishment and male grooming, though some markets such as Vietnam could have food and South Africa hair care.
The maker of Parachute and Saffola is also moving into Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
"Gaps such as West Africa and Indonesia will be filled. But that will come later," Gupta said.
Marico is not the only company ramping up its international play. Godrej Consumer Products Limited, Dabur, and Emami are increasing investments in international markets as Indian demand revives slowly. Godrej Consumer Products said it will like to increase its annual African revenue from Rs 1,200 crore to Rs 6,000 crore in five years.
Both Gupta and Godrej Consumer Products managing director Vivek Gambhir said 2015-16 would be better than the previous year for the Rs 3-lakh crore fast-moving consumer goods sector in India.
