MAM
Innovation and pioneering helped Marico grow: Harsh Mariwala
MUMBAI: Harsh Mariwala transformed his family's trading business in spices and edible oils into Rs 7,300-crore FMCG giant Marico, led by flagship brands such as Saffola and Parachute which sell in 25 countries. The company recently launched Saffola FITTIFY, a range of healthy soups and shakes. Mariwala's other businesses include Kaya, a chain of skin care clinics.
The company also scouts for young Indian entrepreneurs and facilitates the start-up ecosystem through the mentoring platform Ascent Foundation.
Mariwala is someone who walks the talk and lives by example – a catalyst of positive change, said Raj Nayak during a tete-a-tete with the affable Marico founder.
“We started in phases, earlier the name of the company was Bombay Oil Industries. It's an edible oil business where we were selling coconut oil, refined oils to trade as well as some industries. That business was not doing too well, lots of businesses depend on how well you cover your raw material or how the raw material prices behaved, so it was very erratic in terms of margin and performance,” shared Mariwala.
So he thought of converting the oils business from unbranded to branded in order to make it more profitable and sustainable, a bold move which paid off. And that’s how it all started. He started travelling to internal markets, appointed distributors, talent managers, advertising agencies in the interiors of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The consumer product is highly de-licensed, which helped Mariwala to gain profit. Apart from licensing, one clear no for him was entering the high-tech business.
Mariwala mentioned that while his iconic Parachute brand was a success, it was mainly selling in 50 litre tins. Initially, the retailers would buy it and sell it in bottles which were later purchased by consumers. Back then, the market of packed coconut oil was much smaller than what it is today. Later, the idea struck him to create a packaged product which was sold in various parts of Maharashtra. Mariwala’s initial foray was to scale up the existing business across India.
Another well-known brand, Saffola was neglected for a very long period of time, he revealed. After starting the business, his focus was to identify further opportunities. He added, “I wanted to be in the number one position, to be a market leader, as it helps you to get more margin. We grew by innovating in the coconut oil market, during that time the whole market worked on tin containers, then we converted it to plastic. It was not an easy journey; it was a tough conversion. However, it ensured that our growth rate jumped up multiple times. We applied the same innovation in Bangladesh, and now we are the leading coconut player in the Bangladesh market.”
Another key innovation was the lice-killing hair product Mediker, a must-have in Indian households with young kids.
“We acquired Mediker from Proctor & Gamble and introduced it in oil format, the sales just doubled. So, innovation and pioneering helped us to grow,” the business tycoon remarked.
Relating an interesting anecdote behind how the Revive detergent was launched in the early ‘90s and creating a market for a product where none existed, Mariwala said, “We came up with our product Revive out of a personal necessity. I liked crisp clothes, that is how we made Revive which helps to starch clothes without any hassles.”
According to him, for any product, there must be a consumer need which is big enough to build a brand. Moreover, to become a market leader, advertising is very important and once a certain mass is created, one can go back to devising effective cost structures and improving margins.
Everybody still wonders, from where the name Parachute emerged. Mariwala jokingly said that is the question that the nation wants to know. He shared that Bombay Oil Industries was formed in 1947, shortly after the second World War when a lot of Indians got to know about parachutes – and that’s how Mariwala’s uncle thought of creating a brand by this name, which is now a huge success.
On the subject of world wars, Mariwala opined that there is an ongoing war for talent, and one has to treat hiring like marketing. “When there is a shortage of good talent, you have to market yourself first,” he quipped. “That means you have to identify what is unique about you, you arrive at what we call employee value proposition, which is unique in the job market. In our case, unlike big MNC corporations where decisions are taken in closed headquarters, we empower our employees.”
Spoken like an entrepreneur who knows how to make a difference.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
