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First-ever India Business Icon Awards
Entrepreneur Magazine, India’s best selling magazine for startups, small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs, held the first ever India Business Icons Awards 2011 on June 10 to honor entrepreneurs who are leaving a mark on their field with their business acumen and corporate style.
The awards were held by Entrepreneur Magazine, which is published by Network18, in collaboration with CNBC TV-18 and title partner Seagram’s Blenders Pride at Hotel ITC Grand Central, Mumbai, and aimed to honor entrepreneurs from virtually every field of business in India, including Travel, Information Technology, Hospitality, Pharma, and also the Social sector.
Ajay Bijli, Chairman and MD, PVR, was adjudged the Business Icon in the male category while Meher Pudumjee, Chairperson, Thermax Limited was given the award in the female category. Anirban Roy, Founder and MD, SEED, was awarded as the Young Business Icon whereas Tara Thiagarajan, Chairman, MMFL, was announced the Social Icon. Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Vice Chairman and Founder, Infoedge was presented with the award for his services to the IT & Telecom sector.
Chetan Maini, Chief of Strategy and Technology, Mahindra Reva was conferred with the India Business Icon Path Breaking award while R C Juneja, Chairman & CEO, Mankind Pharma was accorded the India Business Icon Pharma Award.
The India Business Icon award for Travel & Tourism was allocated to Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird Group while Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Vice Chairman and Founder, Infoedge, was rewarded for his contribution under the Popular category. Deepak Puri, Chairman and Managing Director, Moser Baer, was honored with the Lifetime Achievement award.
Defining these men and women as the next generation ambassadors for the India growth story Bipin Chandran, Editor, Entrepreneur Magazine, said, “While statistics and strategies are paramount in determining which businesspeople rule the roost, a leader is not just about profit and cash flows. Business leaders are those men and women who display a sense of style and stature in their respective industries while creating big businesses that stand distinct from the crowd-much like them.”
Mankind Pharma clocking the highest growth rate amongst the top 10 Pharma companies
India is among the fastest growing drug markets in the world and all major drugs firms have adopted various strategies to increase sales in the country such as alliances, new product launch, increasing sales force, acquiring brands or firms.
For the month of May alone, the latest data, Abbott posted 26.3% growth in sales, the fastest among the top 10 companies. Among the top 10 companies, Delhi-based Mankind Pharma clocked the highest growth at 27.2%.
Manforce by Mankind is the market leader
When taking a guest lecture at a Mumbai college recently, communication specialist and advertising guru Alyque Padamsee short-listed three epic books for a discussion: Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms, Dickens' Oliver Twist and Vatsyayana's KamaSutra. Promptly, a hand went up: "Sir, why have you included KamaSutra, how can we read a condom!".
The student wouldn't have earned too many marks for his literary prowess but he would have scored for his knowledge of brands in the post-liberalisation era. After all, it was during the first flush of economic reform - in the September of 1991 - that the makers of condom brand KamaSutra (KS) chose to paint Mumbai city a flaming red with steamy hoardings of Pooja Bedi and Marc Robinson displaying openly the sultry benefits of the 'rubber johnnies.'
Unsurprisingly, as per data from the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), the market leader is a relatively new brand called Manforce from Mankind Pharma. Older ones like Moods and Kohinoor follow, but then there's no KS.
Mankind Pharma strengthened it’s IT set-up by partnering with IBM for implementation of SAP ERP, and a customided Enterprise Portal for deployment at customs and freight (C&F) agents. This ERP implementation will bring all organisation–wide functions of Mankind on the common platform, improve financial reporting and consolidation and provide better inventory visibility across organisation as well as flexibility to change business processes, in response to external and internal changes.
Mankind Pharma is one of the fastest growing pharmaceutical companies in the domestic market with year-on-year growth of more than 40 percent, having pan India presence with a comprehensive network of 60 C&F agents, covering more than three lakh doctors, and 8000 stockists. With the range and nature of products Mankind is dealing in, the current supply chain management mechanism including inbound and outbound logistics and the current IT system landscape demanded to implement an organisation-wide ERP. As part of this engagement, IBM will be involved in providing end-to-end solution for Mankind including organisation-wide implementation of ERP, as well as on-site support to Mankind after Go-Live to manage all SAP modules implemented including Financials, Logistics and Enterprise Portal across all its C&Fs.
“IBM's strong industry experience, coupled with successful implementations locally, helped us choose them as our ideal partner for this project. Some of the key benefits post implementation of this project will help us bring all the business functions on a common platform, integrate multiple applications for a single view of information, provide data consistency and most significantly reduce Supply Chain costs by better inventory view and control,” said Arjun Juneja, Director, Mankind Pharma.
Mankind Group selected IBM to meet their business requirements on key factors that highlight IBM’s strength like pharma industry insight and experience, unique end to end system integration capabilities, research, consulting and business transformation outsourcing, technical excellence and optimal global resource model. IBM team built a platform of trust, understanding, and confidence with Mankind Pharma by demonstrating expertise, fast response times and end-to-end capabilities to win this key engagement.
Commenting on this deal, Vanitha Narayanan, Managing Partner, IBM Global Business Services, India/South Asia said, “We are delighted with the opportunity of working with a fast growing company like Mankind Pharma, in the rapidly expanding pharmaceuticals sector. With our deep knowledge and expertise in working with dozens of pharma clients across the world, we are confident of creating a robust IT platform for supporting Mankind's business. Our solution will also benefit Mankind with better operational efficiency and cost control.”
The pharmaceutical company has called the pitch for two of its existing brands - Unwanted-72 and Kaloree 1 (sugar sweetener), as well as two new products that the company will launch in the shoe care market and insect repellent category.
Mankind Pharmaceutical has called for a creative pitch for four of its brands, of which, two are the existing brands Unwanted 72 (contraceptive pill) and Kaloree 1 (sugar sweetener), and two new products that the company will launch in the shoe care segment and insect repellent category. The size of the account is said to be around Rs 20 crore.
The development has been confirmed by a senior official of the company, who on conditions of anonymity, states that the company is bullish on building all its brands, both existing, as well as those that will be launched in the future. The company is concentrating on consolidating its portfolio of brands, and hence, getting advertising agencies to create a sharp image in the consumer's mind.
This is the third such creative pitch that has been announced by the pharmaceutical company. In March this year, the company awarded the creative duties of three of its brands -- Prega News (pregnancy detection kit), Don't Worry (sanitary napkin brand) and Kustody, the deodorant brand that will soon be introduced to Grey Worldwide. Last week, Mankind handed over the creative mandate for three of its existing brands -- Addiction (men's deodorant), Manforce (condom), and Gas-o-fast (digestive tablet) to McCann Erickson.
For the record, Mankind Pharmaceutical was established in 1995, and is currently one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the country. In 2010, the company decided to foray into the over-the-counter (OTC) market, and launched various products such as OTC drugs, condoms, pregnancy test kits, oral contraceptive pills (OCPs), sanitary napkins, and adhesive bandages.
