The dairy milky way

Chocolate giant Cadbury recently celebrated 60 years of its presence in India. The company, which holds a dominant 70 per cent in the Rs 1,600-crore Indian chocolate market, has ambitious plans. “We plan to double the size of business in the next 4-5 years,” says Robert J. Stack, Executive Director and Chief Human Resource Officer, Cadbury. “To achieve that, we need to build the talent base. We need to increase capacity, which includes expanding existing manufacturing sites. Talent attraction and retention is going to be an HR objective for the company in India,” he adds. Cadbury employs 2,100 people, making it among the top 10 geographies for the company in terms of headcount.

The company’s global headcount is about 50,000. With a top line of Rs 1,300-1,400 crore in 2007, India is also among the top 10 geographies in terms of revenues. Cadbury has also identified India among its 12 ‘focus’ markets. Other countries in that list include the UK, the US, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, Russia and Turkey.

Cadbury believes that the India story is beyond just numbers; talent and innovation are key reasons for being in India. “A large degree of innovation has been coming from India and we see a lot of that innovation in terms of products… being transferable to the other parts of the world, especially developing markets like South Africa, Mexico, Brazil,” says Stack.

Examples include products like Cadbury’s liquid chocolate, Chocki, which was developed and introduced in India but has subsequently debuted in half a dozen geographies. Éclairs is another example of a Cadbury India product that has moved beyond the country’s borders. The company is now working on an “affordable chocolate for low-income groups.”

—T.V. Mahalingam