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.