It’s competition that makes you innovative: Ashish Chhabra

When I go and work with a simple salesman, or visit a small general store in a remote corner of India, I perceive the business in reality. I understand the dealers better, how they sell, what the consumers really want…” — ASHISH CHHABRA

Joint Managing Director of the Hygienic Research Institute Private Limited (HRIPL) that has in its portfolio brands such as Vasmol, Streax and Fluorozone, talks of building a Rs 700 crore business in hair and skin care in the face of tough competition from MNCs, and how he relies on actual market visits to get insights that help him run the company ON HIS JOURNEY AT THE COMPANY SO FAR

I enjoy my journey. It’s about 25 years now... To begin with, I worked in all departments like advertising, marketing, production, purchase, etc., and finally realized that my passion lies in marketing, advertising and branding. I love my work, and like to experiment with innovative things. In fact, in 2020 we won an award for packaging for one of our fancy colours – for design as well as the practical aspect, how easy it is for the consumer to open the product. When I joined the company, we had the brand Vasmol, a hair oil which would gradually give colour to the hair with natural oxidation. Those days, powder hair dyes and black henna were prevalent, until around 2001-2002, the big era of colours dawned in India with the entry of MNCs in the field. Consumers wanted everything fast and quick, whereas our oil-based colour took time. So, we decided that we should also go with the fashion. Slowly and steadily, the term ‘hair dye’ died – it became taboo and synonymous with ‘harmful for the hair’. At that point, we tied up with an American company to come up with a formulation and brought those colours to India, launching them with Malaika Arora as brand ambassador. Then on, we saw big growth and diversified from colours to hair care, with a professional division catering to salons with specialised products like hair straighteners, hair spas, hair masks and so on.

ON THE COMPANY’S USP IN A COMPETITIVE MARKET

Competition is cut-throat, but we know our market, we know how to cater, so we create our own segments. It's not only in India, we export our products to many countries in the world - GCC, some South African and South American countries. Competition is always going to stay. You can’t run away from competition. The more the competition, the more innovative you have to be.

ON ALLIANCE WITH SHAH RUKH KHAN FOR STREAX

I have just one comment on our alliance with Shah Rukh Khan – ‘Streaxy’! ‘Raho Streaxy With SRK’ is a campaign I really love – it’s my favourite out of more than a hundred ads for our brands on which I have worked. When the creative heads at our agency Lowe and I were not able to come up with that one great idea that could be the catch line across television, social media and OTT platforms, someone who was present there suggested replacing the word ‘sexy’ with ‘Streaxy’ – totally in line with our product - and that’s how the music video happened. To this day, I remain hands-on, fully involved at every stage in our creative communication. It’s one thing very close to my heart, and one I won’t leave easily. I push my team to get the best out of them and don’t like to compromise where campaigns are involved.

ON MARKETING AND ADVERTISING BUDGET

Our annual marketing and advertising budget would be in the vicinity of Rs 75 crore.

ON BRAND PORTFOLIO & DIVERSIFICATION

We are looking at some very interesting new products for the GCC market, which need to be treated differently and we are working on them with great vigour and force. All are mostly around hair care; a few are skin care products.

ON GROWTH OF BUSINESS IN INDIA AND ABROAD

In India, our most profitable markets are the East and South. While the pandemic affected our business like everyone else’s, in the long term, we should be looking at 18-20% growth year on year. That should be the goal.

ON VISION AND FUTURE PLANS FOR HRIPL

We have more investors coming into the company. The hair care market is booming. I envisage a lot of growth, but would not want to divulge some of our plans. Overall, we want to be a Rs 1000 crore company in two years. We want our team and our business partners to grow happily with us. Happiness is the key. We are a very close-knit family kind of organisation and believe in taking care of our employees and we want to grow together.

ON STORIES FROM THE GROUND

I like to travel to explore the market, and am lucky to have covered almost all the States in the country, right from Arunachal to Kashmir to Tamil Nadu. I like to be on the ground. When I go and work with a simple salesman, or visit a small general store in a remote corner of

India, I perceive the business in reality. I understand the dealers better, how they sell, what the consumers really demand, what questions they ask, how the small shop owner in a small village guides the consumer to use what – the insights and market understanding I get at those levels are invaluable. So, I understand what the consumer needs and then sit at the drawing board with the team to define those gaps in the market and encourage them to write a concept note for a product. We brainstorm over the ideas, the concept is further refined and put to concept testing with professional market research agencies. With their findings and feedback, we get into assessing all aspects, R&D and product development. When COVID was at its peak in 2019, we were badly affected by the lockdown as 25% of our business comes from sales to salons. Everybody was only talking of COVID. I wondered how to motivate our team. Then I and a couple of my colleagues decided to go to the market, of course with precautions. Despite my family’s protests, I was clear that I as the team leader had to bring in confidence within the team by leading from the front.

The key was to take precautions. So, we brought in doctors on call for our team, and psychologists to help them deal with frustration and mental issues. There were Zoom sessions with our team members to motivate them to be happy, besides other initiatives. We are proud to say that we at the Board level took a hit, but retained 100% of our employees through the pandemic, and paid salaries with no cuts, though we couldn’t give them increments.

ON BIG LEARNINGS FROM HIS CAREER

Always be a good listener. Never argue with your customers, even if they say something wrong, as customer is God and he/she is always right. Listen to them, give them due respect and then follow it up. We address customer complaints very seriously and promptly. If a phone call does not suffice, the concerned team member may even go and visit the consumer who has complained, to resolve his/her issue.