How an MBA Project on Study of Business Strategy of GCPL will Benefit a Student?

Project is a compulsory part of MBA programme. As part of the curriculum during the last Semester, students are required to take up MBA project work in their area of specialization for completion of the course. The project binds together academic concepts learned during MBA programme by students in their area of specialization, enabling them to apply academic theory and principles to handle the real managerial issues. Students are required to carry out in depth study into a particular organization or business area using the knowledge and skills they developed through the academic programme.

About Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL)

Godrej Consumer Products is a part of the 123-year old Godrej Group with a proud legacy built on the strong values of trust, integrity, and respect for others. As an emerging market company, it has witnessed rapid growth and are pursuing its exciting and innovative aspirations. Today, the Group enjoys the patronage of 1.15 billion consumers globally, across different businesses. In line with the company’s corporate objective of international expansion, GCPL is building its presence in three emerging markets, namely Asia, Africa, and Latin America, across three categories (home care, personal care, and hair care). GCPL ranks among the largest household insecticide and hair care players in the emerging markets. A leader in household insecticides in India and Indonesia and are expanding footprint in Africa. The company is a leader in serving the hair care needs of women of African descent and are the number one player in hair colour products in India and sub-Saharan Africa, and among the leading players in Latin America. GCPL ranks second in soap products in India, first in air freshener products in India and Indonesia, and lead in wet tissue product in Indonesia.

Besides strong financial performance and innovative, much loved products, GCPL’s priority is to remain a good company as well. Approximately 23 % of the promoter holding in the Group is held in trusts that invest in the environment, health, and education. A detailed study of the organisation is required to be carried out as part of the MBA project work.

Present business view of GCPL

Recently GCPL has reworked its business plan with a global view. GCPL has for more than past 10 years had a global strategy. One of the big drivers of GCPL’s growth in the past 10 years has been international expansion which has been largely acquisition driven, along with some organic expansion. In fact, the company has been managing its product pipelines globally for a long time. For example, when it launched hair colour product -Godrej-Expert Rich Creme, it benefited significantly from the insight coming from our Latin American business. The company is now reworking to accelerate this and think of business even more internationally. Ambition is to do an even better job capturing the synergies that exist across countries.

Strategy for volume growth

GCPL is aiming for a double digit volume growth over the next few years. The company believes that there are huge amounts of volume growth available to its brands simply by increasing the penetration of the core categories in its core countries. As an FMCG company, it’s easy to be almost seduced by new categories and that certainly has a role to play but the majority of GCPL’s growth will actually come from increasing penetrations. So, the number of households using GCPL product categories such as household insecticides, hair colour and others still has a lot of headroom to grow. Therefore, the company thinks that by focusing on that across all the elements of the marketing mix, there will be a lot of volume growth for the company. So the reworked strategy of GCPL to be studied in depth and highlighted in the MBA project work.

Benefits to a student for MBA project on GCPL

The organisation selected for this MBA project study is Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL), which operates in the Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. Fast moving consumer goods are products that sell quickly at relatively low cost. FMCGs have a short shelf life because of high consumer demand (e.g., hair care, skin care, food products etc). These goods are purchased frequently, are consumed rapidly, and are sold in large quantities.

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector is India’s fourth largest sector with household and personal care accounting for 50% of FMCG sales in India. Growing awareness, easier access and changing lifestyles have been the key growth drivers for the sector. The urban segment (accounts for a revenue share of around 55%) is the largest contributor to the overall revenue generated by the FMCG sector in India. However, in the last few years, the FMCG market has grown at a faster pace in rural India compared to urban India. Semi-urban and rural segments are growing at a rapid pace and FMCG products account for 50% of the total rural spending. The FMCG market in India is expected to increase at a CAGR of 14.9% to reach US$ 220 billion by 2025, from US$ 110 billion in 2020.

FMCG giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Himalaya, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Lakmé, GCPL and other companies (that have dominated the Indian market for decades) are now competing with D2C-focused start-ups. Due to FMCG & D2c companies, advertising volumes on television recorded healthy growth. FMCG continued to maintain its leadership position with 29% growth in ad volumes against the same period in 2019. Even the e-commerce sector showed a healthy 26% jump over 2020.

Therefore, an MBA project work in a leading FMCG company like Godrej Consumer Products Ltd will fetch multiple benefits for a student in gaining an in-depth knowledge of marketing, which will also help him/ her in getting employment after completion of the MBA project or MBA curriculum in any FMCG or D2C or Ecommerce company.