Five Indian companies make it to the list of The World's Most Innovative Companies, which includes 100 names from across sectors and countries
Image: Danish Siddiqui / Reuters
Leading the pack
HUL / Rank 8
Hindustan Unilever has featured on the Forbes list of The World’s Most Innovative Companies twice before, and this year it breaks into the top 10. The FMCG giant—it is India’s largest consumer packaged goods company (by sales), with a market capitalisation of $50.1 billion—has innovated across product categories, by adding enhanced features to existing products and by launching entirely new products as well.
For instance, with an eye on sustainability, and reducing the amount of water required to wash clothes, it relaunched Rin (bar and powder) in 2017, with a ‘smart-foam’ technology that saves up to half the amount of water required otherwise. A similar strategy has been used to launch the new Surf Excel Quick Wash. Also in the homecare category was the launch of Domex Toilet Cleaning Powder, targeted towards rural and lower-income families, which traditionally use detergent powders to clean toilets, since liquid toilet cleaners are more expensive. The new Domex cleaner is in a familiar form—powder, sold in sachets—but is more effective, and also costs less than half of other alternatives.
Speaking on innovation at an event in June 2017, CEO Sanjiv Mehta said, “When we look at the future, we think of how our future portfolio must look like, and then we put disproportionate money behind innovation and building the categories of the future. And that is where a market maker mindset comes in.” HUL’s parent company, Unilever, invests around €1 billion in R&D every year, and has filed over 20,000 patents applications for innovations in numerous products and brands.
HUL also undertook internal restructuring to enable nimble decision-making. It also removed layers within its hierarchy to make divisional heads report directly to their respective global heads at Unilever’s London headquarters, to enable quick decisions and reduce rollout time of its innovations.
(This story appears in the 20 July, 2018 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)