Hindustan Unilever accounts for over 11% of Unilever’s global sales and is its second biggest market after the US in terms of revenue. So it comes as no surprise when its global chief growth officer and marketing officer, Esi Eggleston Bracey says, “India is the heartbeat of Unilever.”
Speaking at CNBC-TV18 Global Leadership Summit (GLS) 2024, Bracey shared that India is the only market leader that sits on Unilever’s global executive team.
“We’ve renewed our strategy into 2030 and have reaffirmed the critical role of India in delivering our growth,” she said.
If India doesn’t grow, we will not be able to accomplish our objectives. So India is unequivocally crucial to Unilever’s global growth strategy.”
She also mentioned that among many other trends, “in India we see a rising middle class and affluence. We see doubling the number of people in the middle class until 2030, and we also see increased urbanisation.”
Global growth
On the global growth strategy, Bracey said that she is confident of the continued volume-led growth of the company amidst the headwinds.
“…our growth will come from volume-led growth, from penetration, offering superior value through our brands, across the whole brand experience and continuing to earn a premium,” she said.
Everything is changing, yet nothing is changing
Highlighting key consumer trends, the growth leader mentioned how the company has the privilege of serving 3.5 billion consumers each and every day around the world, while being in over 190 countries with over 400 brands.
“I do say ‘everything and nothing has been changing’, which means the fundamentals of what people need don’t change. The fundamental foundation of how you build a brand doesn’t change.
But people’s lives have changed and in ways that are enormous. There are so many trends that are driving the change,” she said.
According to her, by 2050, almost 70% of the world’s population will be living in an urban environment. “We also see in terms of these macroeconomic shifts, population shifts, in terms of aging, we have seen and project by 2050 a tripling of people living over the age of 80.
India, on average, has a younger population, but it will also age over that time period. So we see tremendous macroeconomic changes.”
In line with that, one of the trends also includes the wellness revolution, where people want to live better both physically and mentally. “And that is changing and creating enormous opportunity for us to grow and boost our brands,” she said.
Leveraging AI capabilities
In terms of technological advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) is helping Unilever to unlock the potential of its ’30 power brands’ out of the bouquet of 400 brands under its umbrella.
“Technology is a tool to do things better, faster and more productively,” she said .
AI capabilities are also helping the company to drive premiumisation and productivity.
It is using technology to speed up the innovation cycle as well. “The other thing is to expand and create new markets, with innovation- coming to market quicker with those innovations and a more bigger and disruptive way,” she added.
For instance, a product like Wonder Wash, which it cuts down the cycle time of doing laundry in a machine by 15 minutes, was brought to the market in an accelerated time by the prototyping that it was able to leverage by using AI.
“We’ve been using 500 applications of AI for decades. We continue to use that for the strategy to build our brands and to innovate.”
In India, the company was able to innovate and launch Sunsilk with onion and jojoba in three months instead of an 18 month or two year period.
“The AI-leverage of innovation allow us to identify the trends, the ingredients, and do rapid prototyping, significantly reducing cycle time.”
Global risks
Bracey believes that since so much is changing around us, one has to keep oneself fit, fueled, inspired, educated to deal with the changes and understand the changes that people who consume products will go through and look at that as opportunity.
“I have a range of leadership principles. One of them is manage your energy, not your time. Because time is finite. Energy grows,” she shared.
Being inclusive
Being inclusive is unequivocally another critical pillar that will drive growth for the company, noted Bracey.
“There is more diversity in the world growing than ever before, and people are more demanding for authenticity, self-expression and identity than ever before. People don’t want to be put in a box. Our ability to understand that is essential for our growth. So that means in business we have to create and attract the same diversity of people.”
Another trend driving Unilever’s growth is the wellness revolution.
For instance, the company acquired a business called Liquid IV- a supplement that is added to water for superior hydration, in 2020. It has become more than four times its size in four years, and is slated to be Unilever’s next billion euro brand.
Bracey highlighted that in 2020, the global wellbeing market was about €4.4 trillion and in 2024 it has reached about €7 trillion.