How Dabur turned around Balsara

Three hundred people leaving an organisation can never be good news. Not even when the departures happen in the wake of a buy-out.

So it's understandable when P D Narang rates those exits as the most painful part of Dabur India's acquisition of the Balsara group's hygiene and home products business earlier this year.

"You worry about the skills and experience they're taking away, but you aren't sure you can retain them in a new, integrated structure," says the Dabur India group director.

However difficult the exodus was, there's no denying that it gave Dabur the edge it needed. Barely six months after it announced the takeover of the three loss-making companies in January, Dabur made another announcement: the new subsidiaries were now making profits, ahead even of the schedule Dabur had chalked out for their recovery.

The numbers game

In January this year, Dabur India announced its largest acquisition so far: the controlling stakes in three Balsara India group companies. Dabur paid Rs 140 crore (Rs 1.40 billion) for the promoters' stake in these companies (99.4 per cent of Balsara Hygiene Products, 97.9 per cent in Besta and 100 per cent in Balsara Home Products) -- an all-cash deal financed almost entirely through internal accruals.

But although Dabur announced its decision to grow inorganically only last year, Balsara's been on its wish list for some time now. So much so that Dabur, along with consultancy firm Accenture, had drawn out a detailed five-year plan for resurrecting the oral and home care products group two years before the deal was finalised.

Which was urgently needed, going by the financials. In 2003-04, Balsara had reported sales of Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion), with losses of over Rs 8 crore (Rs 80 million).

By the following year, turnover had plunged to Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.50 billion), while losses had escalated to Rs 30 crore (Rs 300 million). Dabur wasn't looking for immediate returns on its investment; the blueprint called for breakeven after a year, aiming for sales of Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.80 billion). Profits could wait until FY07.

They didn't. Balsara Home Products recorded a net profit of Rs 1.1 crore (Rs 11 million) in the first quarter of FY06. Compared to the first quarter of the last financial year, turnover increased almost 52 per cent, from Rs 28.5 crore (Rs 285 million) to Rs 43.3 crore (Rs 433 million).

Balsara's oral care range grew 32 per cent compared to last year, while the home care division registered more than 120 per cent growth. Narang points out that the Accenture study had already listed in detail the problems at Balsara -- limited resources, inappropriately deployed; and no benefits of scale. "There were no big surprises. We knew what was wrong and how to set it right," he declares.

The people paradox

The biggest issue was,  of course, people. Dabur already had 2,300 people on its rolls, while Balsara had 600. Given that the new structure didn't have room for duplication something, obviously, had to give. Dabur didn't retrench anybody, but close to 300 people have quit since January.

A number of people quit citing locational constraints -- Balsara is a Mumbai-based company, while Dabur is headquartered at Sahibabad, near Delhi. Still, some areas were integrated smoothly.

Balsara's R&D team was seamlessly absorbed into the larger organisation -- while Dabur had no experience in home care, making that division's contribution invaluable, the oral care research division possessed skills that complemented Dabur's own team.

The manufacturing facilities didn't pose too many problems, either -- it helped that neither organisation is unionised. Decisions about Balsara's three plants -- at Silvassa (Dadra & Nagar Haveli), Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) -- were taken easily. The Kanpur factory was a small scale factory, with just 10 workers.

So the decision to stop manufacturing there didn't cause too much disruption. And since at 100 workers, the Silvassa plant was clearly overstaffed, about 30 were shifted to Baddi -- a new factory, with just eight employees -- thus solving two problems.

The trouble lay with sales. Points out A Sudhakar, vice president, HR, "We had to account for an estimated Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.80 billion) of extra turnover through domestic channels."And given the two distinct distribution networks already in place, Dabur's HR team had its work cut out.

While the decision was taken to aggregate the smaller business into Dabur's infrastructure, suitable modifications were also necessary. Dabur's original distribution was along two verticals: Line 1 for health care and Line 2 for personal care. Now, with new product portfolios coming in, a third line was created that looks after  home care and all oral care (including Dabur's range) products.

Dabur's consumer care frontline now has 400 people, of whom 120-odd are from Balsara. "Balsara may not have got the required focus if we had continued with just two lines," Sudhakar adds.

Following Dabur policies at Balsara did mean some expense. Salaries were hiked to bring them in line with the Dabur structure; and external consultants were brought in to conduct detailed assessments of all employees and redeployments were made on the basis of their recommendations.

Since Line 3 covers Dabur and Balsara products, and is managed by employees of both organisations, substantial re-training in selling techniques was also required. Using the "train the trainer" module, about 55 managers conducted workshops for sales staff across the country. "We've invested in several thousand manhours of training," says Sudhakar.

Still, this year's wage bill is likely to be 50 per cent lower than last year's. While the departures have meant huge savings in staff expenses,  recruitment costs also came down across the group, since Balsara people helped fill vacancies in group companies. "Everything worked out much better than we planned," says Dabur India CEO Sunil Duggal.

Brushing up ops

That's especially true of the operations. Charanjit Mohan, executive director, operations, Dabur India, says he was worried when the acquisition was announced. "If, on a scale of one to 10, Dabur is eight, Balsara was just four," he remarks.

There were several problems. Wastage was costing Balsara close to Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) every year; there were no standard operating procedures for process or finished good checking; and quality control was lax. Even the factory layouts were sub-optimal: too many buildings, leading to waste of power and man and materials movement.

Changes were quickly introduced. Kanpur was converted into a C&F agency; Silvassa now manufactures mainly for Balsara's private label business and Dabur International, taking advantage of its proximity to ports. Even at Baddi -- which was commissioned only last year -- some capital investments were put on hold while quality and sourcing were upgraded.

The biggest overhaul was in the purchasing strategy -- previously, critical raw materials such as sorbitol and calcium carbonate were purchased through direct negotiations.

Dabur introduced e-sourcing at Balsara, extending the Ariba system of reverse auction it uses to Balsara as well. The result has been that procurement costs have dropped by 6-7 per cent.

In fact, the scale benefits from combining procurement and manufacturing processes have helped both outfits. For instance, the Dabur combine now accounts for 11 per cent of the demand for toothpaste tubes, up from 4 per cent pre-acquisition. "Our bargaining power has gone up tremendously," points out Mohan.

Marketing mores

And not just in procurement. Given its considerable bargaining power with media buying houses (Dabur spent more than Rs 170 crore (Rs 1.70 billion) on advertising last year), Dabur was able to negotiate far better rates for Balsara advertising. "We've budgeted Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) for Balsara. But its worth is closer to Rs 60 crore (Rs 600 million), given the discounts," points out Narang.

But first, some reorganisation was needed. Given its limited resources, Balsara could really focus on only one brand in a year. It picked on Promise. That wasn't the best decision under the circumstances: a white toothpaste, Promise is an undifferentiated product competing in a market dominated by Colgate and Pepsodent.

Balsara's other oral care brands, on the other hand, stood a better chance of carving out market share for themselves -- while Meswak is a premium herbal toothpaste, Babool straddles the economy and herbal platforms. Dabur's immediate focus is, therefore, going to be on Meswak and Babool, and the high margin, high growth home care products.

The first step has been to form a consolidated network that effectively covers the entire country -- while Dabur's strengths are in the north and east, Balsara is popular in west and south India.

And the new Line 3 reaches deeper and wider into Indian markets than Balsara did -- while Balsara concentrated on larger towns with populations of between 100,000 500,000, Dabur goes further into rural India, reaching towns with populations of even 5,000.

Advertising has also been upped for Balsara products -- including Odonil and Sanifresh, which haven't appeared on TV before. Actor Vivek Oberoi has been signed on as brand ambassador for the oral care range and new creatives are being planned for all products.

The Dabur logo has been included on the Balsara oral care products and consumer promotions are also being planned. Already, Meswak's price has been slashed by Rs 10 to help bring in volumes, while toothbrushes are being offered free with Babool.

The home care range, though, will remain independent of Dabur, given the lack of synergy. "There will be no overt Dabur connection," says Duggal.  Instead, consumer sampling exercises will form the bulk of the marketing activity. The sales team will target queues outside theatres and stadiums and offer samples of Odomos, emphasising the need for out-of-home protection from insects.