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In conversation with Vinita Bali - Emerging India Series 2015-16

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As a build up to the Emerging India Awards presented by ICICI Bank & CNBC TV18, I caught up with Vinita Bali (former MD of Brittannia Industries) to talk about diversification, whether SMEs need to diversify & if yes then what’s the best way for them to accomplish this.

We shot with her at the lawns of the beautiful Leela Palace in Bengaluru. A pleasant breeze accompanied our conversation as Ms. Bali stated that SMEs need to first identify whether they really need to diversify before they blindly jump onto that bandwagon. Especially in a country like India, where there is such a huge untapped market, SMEs should be focussed more on expanding in their existing market before looking at diversification. But that said, when diversifying, SMEs should be cognizant of their strengths and do in depth research about their new market they want to get into before getting their feet wet.

For the 2nd part of the shoot, Ms Bali & I were joined by the VP, Sales & Marketing of ID Fresh Foods, Mithun Appaiah. ID Fresh Foods are a Bengaluru based packaged fresh food provider. They supply freshly made idli-dosa batter and other food products in attractive & easy to handle packages.

Mithun was eager to seek Ms. Bali’s guidance on the diversification issues that they were contemplating – like should ID Fresh Foods tweak its products while attempting to enter into the north-east of India? About wanting to enter the dairy segment? And what should be kept in mind when looking at avenues to diversify into?
Ms. Bali’s advice to Mithun was to stick to their strengths even when going in for geographical diversification and also tom-tom the fact that ID Fresh Foods is providing fresh and healthy food products. The dairy segment has its own challenges which ID Fresh Foods might not want to get into at this point of time. 

All in all an interesting session with our mentor bringing her experience and expertise to the table to help the young gun expand and grow his business.


Stay tuned for the final episode of this series, coming soon.
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