FOR VINITA BALI – PERFECTION IN HER WORK IS WHAT MATTERS MOST
Learning from the greatest business leaders of the world
Vinita Bali was born on November 11, 1955, in Bangalore. An economics graduate from Delhi University, Bali acquired a management degree from Mumbai University. She pursued further studies in business and economics at the Michigan State University and interned at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Cutting her marketing teeth at the Tata group company Voltas, Bali was handpicked by Cadbury’s India. Her assignment with Cadbury took her to the company’s UK headquarters in 1984. She returned to India two years later as General Manager Marketing. She then moved on to Cadbury Nigeria as Director Sales and Marketing. In 1993, she was named Head of Marketing South Africa, Cadbury’s third-largest market.
A year later, through a massive headhunting exercise, The Coca-cola Company took her in. She was responsible for the worldwide strategy for Coke and one of the key players in helping the soft drink giant to double its growth. She was also credited with crafting the statement for the Coke experience.
In 1997, she was made Coke’s Vice President Marketing for Latin America. Two years later, she became President of the Andean division spanning Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. She was responsible for the change encompassing business direction and organisational culture.
In 2004, Bali wanted to come back to India and Britannia Industries invited her to join as CEO. The company was facing severe financial crisis. Britannia’s share of the Indian biscuit market had fallen from nearly 50 percent to around one-third; the net margins were decreasing.
Bali, whose blue-chip marketing experience
had earned her two other job offers from prestigious multinationals, chose to take on the Britannia challenge.
“I like to go in and take things apart,” she told the Forbes magazine.
“There’s nothing exciting about doing the doable.”
Bali got to grips with Britannia’s ailing business culture in typically no-nonsense fashion, quickly identifying the company’s existing talent as ‘great, good or gone.’ Those who found themselves in the third category were swiftly replaced by the rising stars from multinationals such as Unilever.
Bali took on a punishing workload, visiting factories around the country and routinely putting in 16-hour days.
Her overarching goal was to drive profitable growth by increasing the sales and market share while generating a higher operating margin. She focused on innovation, which she defined as ‘anything that is capable of producing new value.’
As she told a marketing magazine, “Our focus is really on two things. One is to drive innovation and margin enhancement through innovative and differentiated products and the second is to really work on becoming a lean machine when it comes to cost.”
Bali’s commitment to cost-reduction included a programme to reuse previously wasted heat from factories’ ovens.
Under Bali’s stewardship, Britannia revamped its core products and introduced new ranges. A key initiative was the introduction of ‘personal consumption’ products: packs of four or five biscuits designed to be bought by consumers on the go as an impulse snack.
Bali has also spearheaded a growing focus on the health and nutritional aspects of Britannia’s products, leading the company to become the first in India to remove all trans fats from its products, introducing healthier products such as a low-calorie multi-grain snacks and enriching many products with micronutrients. This was in recognition of the fact that for poorer families, cereal-based biscuits were a cheap source of calories that could also be nutritionally beneficial.
Bali took her concern for the company’s contribution to health and nutrition further, distributing micronutrientenriched biscuits at cost to schools in southern India and founding the Britannia Nutrition Foundation to champion child nutrition issues.
Bali’s views on corporate responsibility are as clear and forthright as her approach to business. As she told the Forbes magazine in 2012, “I think it’s ‘corporate responsibility’ - I hate the word ‘social’ – which means finding an area of responsibility within your business model. You just have to dig deep enough.”
After serving for nine years as CEO of Britannia Industries, Bali left the company in 2014.
“I chose to retire because I was clear that I wanted to do something different for the next 20 years. I am moving from one full-time role to fulltime many roles.”
During Bali’s tenure, first as CEO and then as MD, the firm’s revenues have quadrupled from Rs.1,510 crore in 2005 to Rs.6,185 crore in 2013.
What lessons can we learn from Vinita Bali?
These are few of her quotes: “Leadership is not about a title or hierarchy. Great leadership means taking responsibility and ownership to enable change. Above everything else, leadership is a verb – it is about taking action. It is the responsibility of leaders to demonstrate the right behaviour in order to create success.”
“Leaders always see possibilities, not obstacles. They visualise what is possible and find a way to make it happen. They bring people together and the team delivers goods and services that are competitively superior and fulfil the purpose for which the organisation exists.”
“Success is less to do with strategy and more to do with authenticity and integrity. There is nothing enduring about strategy. The truly enduring things are values, character, genuineness and authenticity.”
“Whatever you do is an idea; it is a belief, a principle. If you have this understanding, it is going to be easy for you to change the strategy or its execution.”
“Leadership surrounds us everywhere. Leadership is not a position but is what you do. Leadership is who you are. Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader. But he neither had a title nor an office.”
“Nobody is successful by luck alone. People are successful because they work at it and believe in what they do. This is true for great politicians and business people.”
“Leadership is also the ability to effectively communicate and share your dream with others. There are enough people who will come together with you to create the change you want to make but this requires great energy, great discipline
and effective communication.” “Leadership is not just about conviction. Four other qualities are needed. (a) Leaders must believe in who they are and believe in others. (B) Leaders are people, who have a vision for the future and a trust that it can be attained. (c) Leaders are people who galvanise action and never give up. (d) Leaders are people who create around them a group of energetic people, who share their dream and also work towards fulfilling the dream.”
“People think the arts are only about inspiration and creativity. But they also foster discipline. The dedication, devotion and application that are required in the arts are the same qualities needed to succeed in business.”
“Leadership is about disciplined thought and action and creating an environment that will help produce the best work.”
“Try to become an eclectic person and your career should reflect that quality. Work is important but it is not everything. Fall in love with theatre, the arts, music and sports. Life has to be lived fully.”
“The analogy I use is that you say you are Sachin Tendulkar and so you don’t need to practice. But you are great only because you practice. I admire that in artists and sportspeople. They polish and chisel away till they get it perfect.”
“I once had the opportunity to interview Professor Ted Levitt of Harvard Business School and I asked him how many drafts he wrote before being published. He said he did anywhere between 22-25 drafts. The pen dropped from my hand. I thought if you are chairman emeritus and you are the editor of Harvard Business Review and you do 25 drafts, that is perfection.”
(Lionel Wijesiri is a retired company director with over 30 years’ experience in senior business management. Presently he is a freelance journalist and could be contacted on lawije@gmail.com)