Britannia gets into restructuring mode  ( August '19,2004, ET)

Britannia Industries has kicked off an organisational restructuring by changing executive portfolios and reporting structure in the last six weeks.

In a marked departure from the past, sales managers and purchase managers of branches across the country will now report directly to the concerned national managers at the FMCG major’s corporate headquarters in Bangalore.

Till recently, all the managerial functions were under the direct scanner of zonal general managers. Britannia had a policy of having four independent business units — Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi zones — headed by a general manager.

Under the new dispensation, zonal general managers report to the head (industrial strategy) for industrial strategy and cost reduction activities. For all other matters, they report to the chief operating officer Nikhil Sen.

V Kaul, the company’s technical head till a few days ago, has now been designated as head of technical and industrial strategy. The buzz is that zonal general managers will be redesignated as regional industrial managers.

While the branch purchase managers report to the national purchase manager on purchases of key items like fat and sugar, they are still accountable to zonal mangers for local purchases. All branch sales managers will now directly report to the national sales manger.
While GS Arora and V Tiwari are the general managers for the Mumbai and Delhi zones, respectively, Saroj Chakravarthy is the GM for the Calcutta zone. R Wakhle, who was the general manger for the Chennai zone, was recently put in charge of product development.

According to sources, Mr Ramani is expected to replace Mr Wakhle as the head of the Chennai zone.

Mr Sen did not respond to a questionnaire on the organisational recast. His office said that he could not respond as he was busy in meetings.

Another major change that took place recently is the bifurcation of the post of national sales and marketing manager. Satish Mane, who recently left to join the Chennai-based CavinKare, had been handling the sales and marketing portfolios for a long time.

Post-bifurcation, Naveen Chopra is the new national marketing manager and A Mukherjee is the national sales manager. S Pendharkar is expected to manage the quality brand. He was earlier looking after the snacking division. N Shridhar, who had been roped in from Coca-Cola, is directly reporting to the company chairman Nusli Wadia. Wadia group sources said that the chairman himself conducts monthly operational meetings.

Brand managers, who were only looking after advertising & promotions, are understood to have been made responsible for the profitability of the brand. In some important cases, Britannia has issued circulars for employees to get a taste of these changes.
Sources said that the restructuring will enable the corporate headquarters to have direct control on all the major functions. “Recent restructuring is aimed at improving the performance of the employees,” said an industry source close to the company.

The restructuring comes shortly after the departure of around 20 people from the organisation, including six senior people and eight middle-level executives. Prominent among the executives who left the organisation are Satish Mane, Harikrishna and Ravi Mannath.

While Harikrishna, who was the GM, human resources, has joined Banglaore-based Arvind Brands, Ravi Mannath, the former company secretary, is now with MRF. G Sarkar, who used to be a general manager in the finance department, has also quit the reorganisation.

Sunil Alagh, the former managing director of Britannia, resigned from the organisation in July.