This is what Hindustan Unilever is doing to achieve higher sales; beat Patanjali

In a bid to scale up its numbers and stay ahead of its rivals, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has created 15 teams for each category with separate targets in sales and innovations.

Each team, named as Country Category Business Teams or CCBTs, will run as independent groups and people will get an opportunity to explore their entrepreneurial side.

"These are led by CCBT heads; most of them would be in early 30s and are fully empowered to deliver the plan for the year. This has unleashed huge amount of trapped capacity. Our job is to mentor and coach them. The functional representatives in the CCBT represent the function and in turn dovetail CCBT agenda with the functional agenda,” HUL's managing director Sanjiv Mehta told ET.

HUL has time and again changed and revised its strategy to mop up sales.

The move also comes in the wake of Patanjali's rise to a Rs 10,000 crore company. Many FMCG companies have tweaked their strategies and ventured into yurveda sector.

HUL launched Lever Ayush last year and soon a new brand Citra, an organic skin care brand from Indonesia, will be under its umbrella.

"We sensed that 'natural' will become a big play nearly 15 years back but it was a bit ahead of time. Natural as a phenomena is not just restricted to India but we are seeing this in different parts of the world and are manifested in different ways such as chemical free, organic, herbal, khadi or Ayurveda,” said Mehta.