Consumer Goods Practice Area

Overview

At a time when consumer markets are experiencing a massive wave of business innovation, all consumer companies face a basic strategic question: will they be among the few companies in their industry that are creating the future or will they be relegated to playing catch-up?

The Consumer practice is dedicated to ensuring that our clients are the ones creating the future. We help clients innovate, dissect their competitors and accelerate their future. We help clients ask the tough questions that enable them to generate promising new ideas. We also accelerate the process by which they test those ideas in the marketplace and ultimately make them work.

Our work covers the major forces driving consumer and retail businesses today, including globalization, changing consumer trends, value chain deconstruction, changing retial landscape and mergers and acquisitions.

Our Practice

Consumer Goods is the firm’s second largest practice, with a global integrated network of over 66 offices with local Consumer / Retail Practice nodes.

The practice creates breakthrough innovations for clients in the consumer goods industries. We work collaboratively with our clients to deliver insights that produce results - through a deep understanding of the consumer’s point of view and a refusal to accept standard compromises in the business.

Our India prractice works across various sectors with a mix of clients - both Indian companies and MNCs. We help our clients make lasting improvements in their sales process, cost structure, brand positioning and targets, and innovation/time to market. We focus on adding valuable and unique customer insight and research to our work. We serve many of the worlds leading consumer brands, helping them navigate the challenges of an increasingly global consumer.

Industries within the practice

BCG’s Consumer Goods practice serves six broad consumer segments:

• Consumer Packaged Goods
  The consumer packaged goods subtopic covers five key areas: food products, consumer paper products, cosmetics, detergents and household cleaning products
  
  
• Retail
  We engage with clients in the business of clothing/apparel/shoes retailing, food retailing, Do-it-yourself retailing, specialty retailing and also with large department stores.
  
  
• Home, Fashion & Leisure
  The home, fashion & leisure subtopic covers eight key areas: apparel/shoes, appliances/white goods, furniture, house wares, jewelry, luxury goods, sporting goods, DIY and gardening tools and products.
  
  
• Travel and Tourism
  The travel and tourism subtopic includes the following areas: urban transportation, airlines, railways, cruise lines, hotels/resorts, casinos, transportation infrastructure and travel management.
  
  
• Media and Entertainment
  We partner with global media players to identify and address both the challenges they face and emerging opportunities they should be targeting. The M&E subtopic includes: media and advertising, music, news, film/movies, radio, television, publishing, theme parks, toys and games, convergence in media and e-commerce in M&E.
  
  
• Consumer Services
  This subtopic includes educational services and gyms, fitness and health clubs.

Projects’ snapshot

A snapshot of select projects done recently in India include:

• Strategic valuation of a confectionery and food business
  The project team valued the various business units of an Indian food and confectionary company along various dimensions of market growth potential, distribution, product portfolio, pricing. The project resulted in a detailed business valuation for all the businesses and estimation of synergy benefit accruable to the acquirer.
  
  
• Business turnaround for a consumer durables client
  A major appliances player found itself under severe cost – price squeeze due to rising raw material prices and falling realizations. Project required developing and executing a blueprint for sustainable business turnaround. Work covered a comprehensive cash release program, new product development, organizational development and development of a business strategy for sustainable profit position.  Project led to significant improvement in margins with the client on track to achieve financial break even.
  
  
• Growth strategy for one of India's largest premium apparel company
  The project encompassed assessing the future growth of the premium apparel market in India and determining the drivers of this growth. By understanding consumer perception towards the client’s brands, we identified the key imperatives needed to influence the buying behaviour. The project also involved a detailed assessment of the client’s retail strategy and developing a plan for future expansion.
  
  
• Development of 10 year India strategy for leading MNC
  The project team assessed the market potential for each of the client's category and developed strategic options for developing the market, gaining market share and growing the business in India. The team developed long term scenarios and what it would take to win.
  
  
• Organizational restructuring for the Indian arm of a leading global media company
  A global media major embarked upon an ambitious strategy in India with aggressive growth targets. Project required developing a comprehensive restructuring blueprint to align the organization with the business model changes and growth aspirations of the client. Project led to development of a more effective organization structure, redesign and implementation of key processes like artist and repertoire management, content screening and acquisition, project management for new releases, inventory & returns management, copyright and legal processes
  
  

People

Abheek Singhi is the leader for the Consumer Goods Practice Area in India.