A ‘Desi’ Multinational –A Case Study of Hindustan Unilever Limited

Keerthana Raj and Sreeramana Aithal

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: India has become a second home to many multinationals’ over the years. The fact that India has second largest population in the world is alluring because it translates itself into a huge opportunity to encash for marketers across the globe. Hindustan Lever Limited which set foot as the subsidiary of Unilever has been one such multinational which has almost become a home grown brand. The strategies adopted by this corporate leaves no stone unturned in cashing in on the tiniest niche markets available. Reaching the four billion populations in the base of the pyramid markets has been a topic of research in recent times. Lot of exploratory and case studies have been made in this field. This paper is a study on the strategies developed by Hindustan Lever Limited which has been one of the most successful companies to foray into the emerging markets in South East Asia and successfully tapped the base of the pyramid in India. A case study using archival material and secondary information sources suggest that having a global lookout and one world one market strategy is not successful when attempting to cut into base of the pyramid segments in emerging markets. The critical aspect here is developing grassroots’ connection and social empathy which should translate to a cooperative spirit which will leverage the strengths and overcome the weaknesses.

Keywords: Base of the pyramid; Grassroots; Marketers; Multinationals; Niche; Strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A1 A14 M2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-01-02, Revised 2018-01-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sea
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Published in International Journal of Case Studies in Business, IT and Education (IJCSBE) 1.2(2018): pp. 1-12

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