Brands
Philips India adds celebrity quotient to its male grooming category
MUMBAI: Macho man is passé; metrosexual is the current breed of men who with a high disposable income is the most promising consumer today.
They don’t mind filling their shopping carts with make-me-look-good goodies. And this is the reason why a bunch of male grooming products have sprung up in the last few years.
The male grooming segment which was projected to be Rs 1,500 crore market in 2012 is expected to reach Rs 5,300 crore by 2016.
According to a Nielsen study on the Indian male grooming segment, there is a rising aspiration among Indian men to look groomed, which has led to the Indian men’s grooming market’s rapid growth of more than 34 per cent.
The Nielsen study further stated that this growth is faster than the growth rate of the total personal care and beauty industry in India. The research company believes time is ripe for beauty and grooming brands to make the most of this growing male attention.
The segment can be divided into sub categories: beauty range of products and grooming gadgets (manual and electronic).
As per a report by Euromonitor International on male grooming sector in India, Gillette India lead men’s grooming with a value share of 28 per cent in 2012. The company has a strong horizontally diversified portfolio of razors and blades, with brands such as Mach, Vector, 7’O clock and many more, enhancing its long term sustainability. Hindustan Unilever was second, accounting for a 15 per cent share. These products fall in to the manual sub category.
On the other hand, in the electronic sub-category, Philips with a range of grooming gadgets for men including trimmers, shavers and stylers, is ruling the market share, claims the company.
To take a step further, the brand is set to roll out an extensive marketing campaign.
The brand has decided to add celebrity quotient to its communication and has roped in actor Arjun Kapoor to be its face in the country. It can be noted that earlier John Abraham was its brand ambassador.
The TVC which went on air on 10 July has been conceptualised and created by Ogilvy & Mather. The brand will also splash its communication on other media platforms. About 15-20 per cent of its marketing budget is expected to be invested on digital.
The business of electronic brands of this segment is growing at 30-40 per cent year on year, mentions Philips India director marketing-personal care Anurita Chopra.
“The Indian market is fast adopting this particular category. The reason to bring Arjun on board is mainly because he brings in positivity which we as a brand are trying to promote through our communication,” says Philips India president consumer lifestyle ADA Ratnam.
However, the pricing strategy of the brand is to make it affordable.
Brands
Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
