Manwani's mantra for Hind Lever: 3Ms

Harish Manwani sums up his management mantra in 3Ms: margins, market share and middle-class. For him, everything else will fall in place if the company keeps the 3Ms in mind.

"Margins and market share are part of a virtuous cycle and this can be achieved only if Hindustan Lever continues to have the soul of a middle-class company," Manwani said in a two-hour long informal meeting with journalists a day after taking charge as the non-executive chairman of India's largest fast moving consumer goods company.

Like any middle-class family, the company wants to achieve excellence with a high degree of integrity and at the least possible cost.

"Strategy is fine. But that's just 10 per cent of the job. I am more concerned with the balance 90 per cent, which is execution," Manwani says. His message to the Lever employees is simple: either you tell me how to increase market share or how to keep costs in check. Nothing else matters.

Manwani feels there is no need for any organisational restructuring at this point - the company's day-to-day operations are controlled by a national management team - and prefers to focus on product categories rather than brands.

He wants the company to think in terms of market leadership in detergents, shampoos and so on rather than Surf, Clinic among others.

Well differentiated brands (Sunsilk, for example stands for beauty while Clinic stands for health) are just the means of getting leadership in product categories. Each product categories will have a cornerstone brand flanked by others - all with a separate story to tell.

Manwani says he will set external benchmarks for his team. "Wherever I go - be it Indonesia or China "" I ask for two sets of numbers - what is the competition's cost structure and what's their market share. It's no longer enough to look at your internal targets and feel happy about it," he says.

The company will continue to use the "Unilever might" to improve its supply chain and technology platform and ensure a steady stream of innovations while keeping the uniqueness of the domestic market in Mind. "I don't want the company to be hopelessly local and mindlessly global," he says.

Management by objectives is passe, according to him. The time now is for Management by vision. He feels obsession with leadership has to be in the company's DNA and his biggest challenge is to revive the company's image as an employer of choice for the best talents.

"We will continue to send our people to remote villages at the beginning of their careers to sell soups and soaps. Young managers have to listen to the real markets. That's uniquely Lever," Manwani says.

Pointing out that Hindustan Lever will continue to be a powerhouse of growth for Unilever, Manwani says Asia and Africa are the focus areas.

Forty five per cent of the world's consumer spending in PPP terms will come from here and that means a huge number of potential customers for the company.