Ups and downs have been a part of Hindustan Unilever's nine-decade India journey. Its adaptability gave it the right to win
Brooke Bond Lipton merged with Hindustan Unilever in 1994
In the nine decades that Hindustan Unilever has been a part of the Indian business landscape, it has managed to achieve a rare distinction reserved for very few Indian businesses. The purveyors and users of its products don’t think of it as a multinational company. Instead, they think of its products as Indian, its managers as Indian and its owners as Indian.
While all three of the above may not always be true, it shows the extent to which the company has worked to adapt to the Indian consumer. In the company’s own words, it aims to ‘do well by doing good’.
It’s a journey that started in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Limited when the Swadeshi movement was at its peak and a rise in import duties meant that sales of the Sunlight soap—first introduced in England to reduce the drudgery of washing clothes—fell to record lows. It was then that Andrew Knox of the Overseas Committee of Unilever said, “The decision was taken to start manufacturing in India, which was not cheap inherently, but was the cheaper option when freight and import duties of 25 percent were taken into account.”
At that time, though, the company was run by managers from the parent; it was among the first multinationals to go public in 1956—557,000 or 10 percent of the outstanding share capital went in public hands and 21,673 Indians became shareholders. This contributed to the company Indian-ising over the years.
But the journey was not without its ups and downs. Among the first was the price control order on soaps that came during the Chairmanship of T Thomas starting 1973. At that time, the company had two major businesses—soaps and Vanaspati. Both were under price control and the situation meant that in 1974, the company registered its first loss. Naturally the Indian managers were concerned about the fact that the parent might lose interest in the India business. T Thomas met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who asked him how much the company could produce a new ‘janta soap’ for. He gave her a price that was 50 percent more than the controlled price.
(This story appears in the 23 August, 2024 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)