Unilever restructures HPC marketing in A-P

The reorganisation will consolidate marketing and innovation efforts out of its new Singapore regional base and follows the July 1 appointment of M S Banga as HPC group president for Asia. Banga was head of Unilever's Indian subsidiary Hindustan Lever prior to the appointment.

The revamp will see Nihal Kaviratne, who oversaw acquisitions of local brands and helped bolster Unilever's Indonesia operations during the turbulent post-Suharto era, named as head of the home and oral care business.

In charge of innovation for the Asian region for the home and oral care business will be Unilever Vietnam chairman Michel Dallemagne, and Hindustan Lever's (HLL) category head for skincare, Vivek Rampal, will head innovation in the skin care business.

The three will be based in Singapore, while the innovation chief for deodorants, Unilever Philippines CEO and chairman Howard Belton will continue to be based out of Kuala Lumpur. The three will report directly to Banga, and the new structure takes effect in January. An HLL spokesperson said: "The purpose of this reorganisation is to leverage regional scale for bigger and better brand innovation and thus improve business performance.

"The alignment of innovation in every country within HPC-Asia to the regional structure will ensure sharing of best practice and knowledge on our brands through Asia and will further enhance functional skills in the innovation area."

It is expected that officials constituting the Singapore-based innovation team will operate at a level similar to country heads, with individual innovation managers for each brand across Asia reporting to the above officials.

However, so far, each country has devised its marketing and innovation strategy for every brand under its umbrella.

The new set-up will ensure that there is no duplication in efforts and that best practices will be followed across the region as devised by the innovation category heads.

However, industry observers believe the reorganisation will have far-reaching consequences, as the roles of marketing officials across the region will be redefined.

In addition, advertising and marketing initiatives for each country in the Asian region will be spearheaded out of Singapore.

Meanwhile, in another reorganisation, Arun Adhikari, managing director of HLL's HPC business in India, will now head the HPC business for the entire South Asian region. Besides India, South Asia includes Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Nepal is already a subsidiary of HLL.

The Asian HPC operations contribute US$8 billion to the global HPC business, which has a turnover of $20.4 billion and is growing annually at a rate close to five per cent.