Memoirs.....Musings of a sales guy at heart.....

Episode 27...

Diageo India....month after month, the performance started getting better and better....

There are some areas worth sharing here....

As mentioned in one of my earlier post, the GOI that time announced 5% roll back allowance for the hospitality sector on their forex earnings....this means if some one earns a revenue of say $200, they can buy things for $10 completely duty free...they have to just pay the local taxes..(there was no GST then)....the idea of GOI was this would attract more tourists to these venues and they can provide imported alcohol, beer and wine at a lower price. While the idea of the GOI was good but it didnt happen that way as the hotels looked at it as an additional income and never bothered to cut down the prices and there was no nodal agency to monitor this too....but we the manufacturers started enjoying better business for our imported brands. Wherever we could, we impressed upon the hotels to part a major portion of the benefits for their banquets....and it helped them to improve their income from the banquets...this was circa 2001/2...do not know whether it is still continued...if it is, the GOI should stop it now as it only drains their exchequer and benefits only the hotel industry....

Also many of these hotels and on trade, strike deals with the manufacturers and get their brands at a discounted price and make those brands as 'pouring' brands. What this means? When a consumer goes to a bar and ask for JW the consumer would get JW but if the consumer asks for scotch, they would get the brand which is the hotels 'pouring' brand...while the manufacturer has to shell out some additional (some time huge depending upon the power of the brand/company) money for making their brands to enjoy the 'pouring' status, it helps the manufacturers to get some decent volume plus greater visibility and trials.

Sudeep did a great job in getting Taj group and Oberoi as partners for us....he is a great negotiator and hence after lots of personal meetings with the F&B and purchase team, we signed off with these two...but the logistics were a nightmare as the supplies have to be effected from the respective distributor situated across the country....it was also a problem when the WS was controlled by state government run corporations....but Sudeep managed this well with his team. This had given us some great visibility across the country and also image and appreciations from HO....SMV and JW were the pouring brands in these chains....We took this model across and tied up with many hotels for pouring..Delhi where we were weak traditionally, went for a course correction and we cracked some great deals....

In the DF sector, Krithi got settled well and with his focus on numbers, we achieved our goals month after month.

But there were always issues with Alpha/the Colombo DF operator.... issues kept cropping up very frequently....

We felt, the domestic market of SL should be strengthened and decided to go for local bottling of SMV. We tied up with ID Lanka using my relationship with Mohan Dissanayake and set the ball rolling. The problem was SL did not have local grain ENA and hence it has to be imported from India....we managed things well and John G cracked every single issue and within 3 months we started bottling SMV in SL at a very affordable price. We wanted to give the distribution to ID Lanka as they had a better distribution set up across the country vis a vis Alphas Colombo centric but Paul T didnt want to let go....so we went for a compromise formula and in the process made all the stake holders happy.

We had a fantastic launch party and the entire Colombo glitterati was present in our party...it became the talk of the town...so another mile stone achieved...

In another get together event, Krithi invited Mahendar of Flemingo for the party and Paul T got very psyched seeing Mahender and threw a tantrum at Krithi and also called me on phone and complained....the reason being, Flemingo was trying to get some port DF business in SL and that has upset Alpha....but as the Karma would have it, Paul T, few years ago joined Flemingo as a consultant!!! Karma at its best.....Apart from these kind of occasional outbursts our relationship strengthened as we were always there for any upliftment of business with our partners. 

CIAL, where Alpha was their logistics partner only, was one area we struggled to get the business improving. In India Cochin Airport DF was the best those days as others were managed by ITDC and in places like TVM and Calicut it was Flemingo....small and dingy and not consumer friendly...but Cochin Airport was global standard but the problem was continuous availability of stocks...Also as a company, we were not getting the best price possible from CIAL due to the tie up CIAL had with Alpha as we need to supply at the same price of Alpha and Alpha would build in their margins and supply. We wanted CIAL to buy directly but despite number of attempts, that didnt materialise at all.

Dhaka duty free was small but managed well by our agent Babu there...Nepal continued to pose problems but we managed to get Alpha and our agent Pramod to tie up on some kind of payment guarantee understanding....this helped us in the short run...the domestic business was excellent....

Bhutan is one area we didnt have to do anything....we just made one trip there to show our faces to the operators.....2 containers a year...nothing more and nothing less....and we were the first ones to visit the DF operator from UDV/Diageo (!)

But we built our RTM very well by tapping the best of bonders....and channelising the demands well. Nandish was brilliant and with proper management of stocks in his bond, things have started going well.

We had few overseas trips (the leadership team) and it was always fun. Half a day review and balance of time just moving around together and bonding well.

As mentioned earlier, Nalin Garg was one of our best HR guys....I remember, once I was home alone (folks were off on a holiday to Kerala) and I got a viral attack....Nalin came one evening around 4ish and spent time with me till 9.....just to give me company....he watched some stupid movie on the TV, ordered food, ate with me and left....such a wonderful gesture....

We as a team jelled very well....regular outings and leadership meets....and our reviews were crisp and to the point...

We had Nira (our own) and USL plant at Nasik but had to shift as we sold off Nira and we didnt continue our JV with USL....and fortune favoured us....Vishal Jaiswal set up a plant to bottle only Diageo brands at Aurangabad....and totally to Diageo standard.....we all went for the Bhoomi puja....and it became operational in 6 months flat....thats the efficiency of Vishal and his team. This plant helped our manufacturing team to produce world class without any compromise....

We started bottling Black & White, Vat 69, Entire SMV range, Gilbey's gin et al at this new plant.

Also built a strong relationship with the Maharashtra excise. Mr. Ramakrishnan was the excise commissioner during that time and what a wonderful bureaucrat he was.....always welcoming and ready to extend a helping hand and clear the road blocks....I feel Maharashtra excise department is one of the best in the country.

We also tied up with AABL at Indore, during this time to bottle our SMV there....we used to buy grain ENA from them and they had bottling facility too.....the idea being to supply the entire north and some parts of east from AABL... Anand Kedia the owner, young and energetic....wonderful guy to deal with....

UK was looking at a break through, in terms of business growth and as I had mentioned earlier, the agenda was to grow the super premium in India...the sale was coming from DF shops but that was not commensurate with the potential of this segment...Andrew Morgan and team were after us to come out with some concrete plans....they called us to 8, HP London for a review....the leadership team decided to send me and Amar Raj....and I was mandated to do the presentation....we wanted UK to see the potential in India for local bottling of JW Red and also the lobbying required to bring down the prices of BIO brands.....also look at local bottling of J&B with our world class facilities at KAM in Aurangabad....

If you are not used to the way of Brits working and also how the reviews are conducted, here the brief....

The meeting, mostly starts at 0800hrs....and everyone is there...there would be simple and nice BF spread in the conference room itself....and everything is as per the timelines....lunch is normally at around 1230 and goes for an hour and in our case it was in the ground floor of 8, HP....a beautiful bar with snacks.....and meeting gets over at 430....then to a pub nearby for a beer and straight for dinner....

Andrew Morgan chaired this meeting.....and there was some initial butterflies in my stomach as it was a huge opportunity for me to showcase my potential as a strategist and a potential CEO material...Simon Lenton was there too and other HO guys....the show started and went off perfectly well.....and all the questions were directed at me and Amar took a back seat and allowed me to hog all the lime light....it was one of my best days and our guys in Bombay office was anxious to know the outcome....so during the breaks a call to Bombay office...no whatsapp those days....whether things progressed on the dotted lines? 1) They realised lobbying is the most important thing and reduction in duties would make our brands affordable and coupled with our distribution strength in terms of availability the projected volumes can come thru...2) They were not keen on bottling either Red Label or J&B outside India but agreed to bottle some other scotch brand.....3) They agreed to release some funds from the central kitty for ATL and also send one of their master distiller/Blender to conduct the 'Journey of taste' sessions...part of the  experiential marketing.....Ian Williams was the guy assigned to India...Master Distiller at our Cardu unit.....This journey of taste was a huge hit with consumers....to cut the cost we started doing this consumer direct contact program with local talents. Another improvisation by team India. Santosh Kanekar as the marketing head was a relaxed, cool and easy to get along guy....he did a great job with initially Ashu as the BM and later Mohit.....

The leadership team jelled so well and Amar was a great boss to work with. Sridhar was a great support as head of finance and so as Nalin as head of HR. Nalin had a great equation with Simon the HR head of our cluster....

And we got Keith Taylor as our boss. Keith used to be part of Nigerian operations and got shifted to UK to manage India, Africa and ME....Another great boss to work with. 

When the UK team comes for review, initially we used to take them out to some nice joints for drinks and dinner but realised it would exceed our budgets and changed the venue to our guest house where Amar was staying. And it turned out to be a great idea as everyone appreciated this private setting and the expenses were cut down...

Krithi and Sudeep did a magnificent job and those 3 years were the best of times in my career. We all bonded so well and there was no back biting and there was so much of bonhomie and the targets were achieved in the 11th month itself and things were so smooth. 

Diageo keeps coming out with something or other. They introduced something called Break through thinking and appointed this two member team who promoted this concept to conduct sessions on this...our divisions boss, Andrew Morgan got transferred to manage the Europe cluster and we got Stuart Fletcher in his place. Stuart a great guy but I didnt see any major contribution coming from him (!)....Team India were the Heros from 2002 to 2005 as we kept delivering our numbers...the going was so good....but....

One fine evening, at the closing time, Sridhar and Nalin barged in to my cabin, shut the door and broke this heart breaking news.....

Next episode..... 

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