Sindhu Bhattacharya

New Delhi: The champion of multi-brand strategy is changing tack.

Having cornered the largest market share of all Indian companies in the consumer electronics space, Videocon Industries has now decided to junk its famous multi-brand strategy and integrate operations across its myriad consumer electronics and home appliance brands.

These include Sansui, Akai, Videocon, Electrolux, Hyundai, Kelvinator and Kenstar.

As of now, each of these brands has a separate marketing and distribution set-up and for all practical purposes, these brands behave as “external competitors”, according to a top Videocon official.

“Multibranding strategy made sense when there was an onslaught from Koreans and Americans in the consumer electronics space. But now that very few strong international brands are entering this space, there is no sense in maintaining so many brands. We want to slowly integrate and do away with weak brands and for this, a new organisational set-up is being created,” the official said.

As a first step, Videocon has decided to rope in Korean giant LG’s former Indian head, K R Kim, as the group chairman and managing director for consumer electronics and home appliances.

Kim is known for driving LG’s Indian operations to market leadership during his decadelong stint and maintaining its lead over Korean competitor Samsung all the way in India.

He is now retired and is believed to be joining Videocon at Venugopal Dhoot’s personal request.

Not just Kim, many other ex-LG executives who left the Korean company over the last threefour years are being approached by Kim to help with the restructuring process.

When contacted, Dhoot denied that Kim has been approached for the top job. But industry sources confirmed that Kim is most probably joining Videocon before the middle of this month.

His dream team could include at least three former product group heads and two other officials who held senior positions at LG before leaving for competing consumer electronics brands.

But will Kim be able to shoulder the massive responsibility that comes with integrating old, well-entrenched brands and building a lean structure?

According to people who have worked with Kim, he is a brilliant strategist and very wellversed with the India market but isn’t really the best “peoples’ person”.

“Kim is known for his penchant for creating chaos. At LG, he often used the divide and rule policy. He was very fond of setting stiff deadlines and would change proven orgnaisational structures at the drop of a hat. Since LG was functioning with global practices in branding, R&D and most other systems, it could withstand shake-ups. One will have to wait and see how Kim’s working style fits in with Videocon,” said a longtime associate.

A Videocon insider said that the position Kim is being recruited for was earlier handled by the Dhoots themselves, but with the group’s diversification (into picture tube making, retail and oil & gas) the they are engaged elsewhere.

The Videocon Group has 17 manufacturing sites spread across India, China, Mexico, Poland and Italy and is the third largest picture tube maker in the world.

Source : DNA