MAM
Brand building and innovation paramount amidst price wars
MUMBAI: For a couple of years now, consumers have been subjected to the ongoing price war between the detergent and shampoo brands of Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Proctor & Gamble (P&G). Keeping these rigorous price wars in mind, the first day of the India Brand Summit held in Mumbai on 30 October saw a session on ‘Role of brands in the wake of price wars.’
The session was chaired by Reliance Infocomm head marketing and branding Sanjay Behl and the panelists included Monginis Foods chairman Zoher Khorakiwala, UDV India Ltd director marketing Santosh Kanekar and The Times of India Group executive president Bhaskar Das.
Behl kicked off the session by naming various companies like HLL, P&G and Reliance, which had cut costs of their products and hence increased competition in the market. “HLL and P&G indulged in bloodied price wars of their products a couple of years back. Phone calls from Reliance were cheaper than post cards. And factor this; Philips is going to roll out a mobile handset, which will cost less than Rs 1000. The company has set a 2007 launch target but my guess is that it will be rolled out in the next six months,” he said.
Posing a question as to whether price was the only real differentiator left for brands in the market and in the wake of this how do brands manage themselves; Behl opened the floor to the panelists.
Khorakiwala set the mood of the audience by saying that the world’s oldest profession was prostitution wherein women provided the same services but the prices they charged were different based on the quality of their services. “That’s how branding was born,” he said.
Laying down the ground realities of what initiated the brand wars, Khorakiwala said, “Brand wars were created by owners, market forces, customer and technology. Generally it is a new entrant that creates these price wars to generate trails and thus poses a challenge to the leaders in the space. Another reason would be to expand the category and also to prevent a new entrant from succeeding.”
He went on to say that in order for a product to survive in the wake of the price wars, brand building was paramount. “The higher the brand equity, the lower is the resistance to price. The brand has to create a value positioning statement and there has to be product differentiation. Your product has to stand for ‘something’ and not for ‘everything’ in the consumer’s mind space. Finally, price as a sole positioning platform does not create a competitive advantage in the long run,” he said.
DAs, on his behalf said that the concept of price wars was highly over estimated. Citing the example of Jumbo Vada Pav, which copied the McDonald model albeit a much cheaper one, DAs said, “There is a huge process that is involved in low cost operations. One has to keep the value proposition of the brand in mind and the same time figure out how to handle low costs. With all the choices that are today available in the market, the challenge for brands is to be strategically different and know your target audience. One has to apply fluid knowledge and not crystallised knowledge to stay ahead in the game because while price is transparent, value is opaque.”
Bhel closed the session by saying that the changing paradigm of innovation was what was going to be the trigger for survival in the competitive market.
Brands
OpenAI hires Nitin Bawankule as head of enterprise sales, India
Former AWS, Google and Disney+ Hotstar leader to drive AI adoption at scale
MUMBAI: OpenAI has appointed Nitin Bawankule as head of enterprise sales for India, strengthening its leadership bench as it deepens its push into one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
Bawankule, who will join in mid-May, brings more than two decades of experience across cloud, media, and digital ecosystems. Most recently, he served at Amazon Web Services, where he led multiple high-growth verticals and helped accelerate enterprise adoption of cloud and AI solutions in India.
Announcing the move, OpenAI head of enterprise sales, India Nitin Bawankule said he is looking forward to helping organisations transition from “isolated AI pilots to company-wide transformation” and embedding AI into everyday workflows to unlock productivity and better decision-making.
Before AWS, Bawankule held senior leadership roles at The Walt Disney Company, where he led ad sales for Disney+ Hotstar and television networks, driving revenue growth across major sporting and entertainment properties. He also spent over eight years at Google, including a stint as country director for Google Cloud in India.
His appointment comes at a time when Indian enterprises are rapidly scaling AI adoption, moving beyond experimentation to integrating AI into core business functions. OpenAI’s decision to bring in a seasoned enterprise leader signals its intent to capture this opportunity and build deeper partnerships across industries.
With a strong track record in navigating major technology shifts, Bawankule is expected to play a key role in translating AI’s promise into practical, business-ready solutions for Indian companies.
As the race to operationalise AI gathers pace, OpenAI’s latest hire suggests it is gearing up not just to participate, but to lead from the front in India’s enterprise AI story.
