With competition from regional players intensifying, Britannia Industries is taking a localised approach of looking “at India not just as one country but as many countries within” to stay ahead of rivals and scale up the strategy going forward, according to Vice Chairman & Managing Director Varun Berry.
Britannia, maker of Good Day, Marie Gold, and Tiger biscuits, would not go for a price war; it would leverage its brand strength, execution, and network of 70 factories and a vast distribution spread across the country, making its product available down to the lowest population strata, he said.
About margins, Berry said it has gone up through cost optimisation initiatives. Britannia has been doing cost optimisation of almost 2 per cent of revenue saving for almost last 13 years. “And as we go forward, we are looking at seeing if we can continue with that 2 per cent, and we certainly have a line of sight to do that,” said Berry.
About the competition from local players, Berry said that the majority of the new players do not survive in the long run as their businesses become “unviable” due to lower profitability; however, the company is looking at each one of these regional players, competing with its localised approach.
