Storyboard18 | Marketers to Leaders: Startups taking early bets on people allows them to flourish much sooner: Sukhleen Aneja, Good Glamm Group

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In an exclusive interaction with Storyboard18, Aneja talked about new-age companies taking bigger risks with their talent, what made her join the startup, challenges faced by marketers transitioning to business roles and why beauty remains a highly under-leveraged category online.

There are organisations which are fundamentally in the business of building large scale brands. Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), for instance, is fundamentally creating products which are used by consumers daily and understanding of commercial acumen that comes having done both sales and marketing allows you to understand the frontline functions extremely well which are the demand creation functions.

So, the entire demand is created through consumer needs and is serviced through the sales functions. When you understand the frontline functions, your ability to be able to influence, empathies with the organisation and also do a strategic understanding of being able to create what might be the roadmap for the organisation for the next three to five years. What invariably becomes a strength for people who come from sales and marketing and especially marketing is that it is one function in the company where you have to ace strategic thinking and an ability to be able to create a vision for the organisation while delivering on your current footprint.

I’ve had the privilege of having worked with three of the most respected FMCG companies in the country. My experience with Hindustan Unilever (HUL) was phenomenal for me. We were able to understand consumer insights, creating formidable brands which are backed by consumer insights and gained a sharp perspective on understanding retail trade in India. I handled the UP (Uttar Pradesh) market as area sales manager.

Trade in India is extremely fragmented. You have a large modern trade vertical, then there are emerging trade channels which are online. Post the COVID-19 pandemic, the inflection point has emerged which allows a large number of consumers from offline to online. In that context, I think the first decade I spent at HUL was a formidable experience to be able to gain that perspective.

Then I made a switch and came to Reckitt again which is a sharp and commercially savvy organisation and L'Oréal Paris which gave me a firm understanding on brand building as well as a privilege of working in Paris which is the mecca of beauty brand advertising.

To that extent as I join Good Glam, it is a beauty unicorn and it is a company that has mote in transforming content into commerce. My experience in working in organisations in the last two decades give me commercial acumen backed by the ability to build brands. Fundamentally, we are in the business of building brands so to that extent I do want to bring in the rigour and the discipline of process marketing into a startup which already has fantastic strengths in being agile and the way they have grown in the last one year has been formidable.

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What Darpan Sanghvi (Group founder and CEO of The Good Glamm Group) is trying to build with an entire digital ecosystem, that is what I found most inspiring. An ecosystem where you have content which is a very strong pivot with companies like POPxo/ScoopWhoop, a large pivot in influencing and brands that can leverage this ecosystem to be able to create a business model that doesn’t exist.

There will always be an area that you bring in a position of strength and there will be areas where you have to partner with people who have greater understanding and skill in being able to bring that to life. No CEO ever works in isolation so you always work with people who transform businesses.

At the end of the day, phenomenal teams work to create great businesses. I think having sharp strategic thinking helps, being able to make clear portfolio choices, make decisions at a speed which is required for a startup to really ace their business. The idea is to remove the challenges that the teams are already facing but equally at the same time when a person who’s had an experience in large legacy organisations comes into a new age company must also bring with us a few processes that helps the organisation streamline itself without compromising on the speed.

Hindustan Unilever used to be considered as the talent powerhouse in the country. If we actually see a large number of people who have taken over as CEO in organisations came from HUL. which was an out and out sales and marketing organisation. Frankly, it is not a new trend. There are people who have taken on greater responsibilities having come from commercial backgrounds especially in FMCG where it is the natural route. In time to come this trend will only continue because at the end of the day all the businesses with consumers at the heart or even where the technology may be transforming the consumer business it is all about understanding what makes the consumer tick. B2C businesses need that understanding. Therefore, this experience becomes extremely invaluable when you look at creating magical products that finally find a consumer voice.

There are some consumer habits that have changed forever post covid. The way online adoption has happened, or how time spent at home has gone up, that will change the way we consume categories or how we shop for them.

From a consumer lens, online is here to stay, in-home consumption is definitely going to increase. Online allows many new brands to be born today and thrive so I genuinely think that the traditional brand business has to watch out for the future as many more consumers are willing to take risks with new brands, trends and ideas.

D2C (direct-to-consumer) revolution in India has just started even in the category that we are playing (beauty) it is still so under leveraged online. The online purchase is still dominated by apparel, technology and groceries. Therefore, there is immense headroom for growth.

However, what doesn’t change is at the end of the day a phenomenal product wins and companies still require phenomenal brand building to create a memorable structure in people’s mind. Those basics remain the same but because of digital there’s hope for many businesses to be born.