Success comes to those who adapt to changes: Aakanksha Gandhi

Shrugging off the disruptions of last year, businesses and agencies are looking for a strong revival in 2021. Adgully – as part of our annual TRENDING NOW endeavour – has been presenting the strategies and views of a cross-section of industry leaders as they go about reclaiming lost time and market opportunities and build for a stronger future, armed with the lessons of 2020. 

“Success comes to those who adapt to changes. 2020 brought a lot of learnings for us,” says Aakanksha Gandhi, Brand Director, Vadilal. In conversation with Adgully, Gandhi speaks about the importance of e-commerce and how brands should strengthen their monitoring process to track their sales outcome. 

Outlook for 2021

• Increased consumption of take home and big bite impulses so as to eat at home in safety
• Horeca segment will be affected.
• Branded ice creams consumption will go up, unorganised sector of ice creams will go down. People will trust brands that follow strict hygiene and safety standards. Loose ice cream consumption will go down.

Great Expectations

• Our 2019-20 domestic revenues touched Rs 650 crore. For 2021-22, we are expecting to cross Rs 800 crore
• We are aiming to increase our CFAs, depots and cabinets this year.

Key learnings from 2020

Vadilal is a quick learner. Success comes to those who adapt to changes. 2020 brought a lot of learnings for us. During the period where the whole nation was shut down, we strengthened our systems and processes. We increased our monitoring. Today, despite a long distribution chain, we can track our sales down to retailer levels. This helps us monitor our sales better and even our sales force efforts.

We even understood the importance of e-commerce, despite the fact that ice cream is one of the most difficult products for the e-commerce platform because of temperature control. We are now available on all e-commerce platforms, including Swiggy, Zomato and Bigbasket. We even launched vadilalonline.com where consumers can order ice creams straight from us. In fact, we have involved India’s largest cold chain network, ours, and even our retail sales force into the e-commerce network. Last year, we developed 250 retail points in the e-commerce segment and this year we are targeting a total of 400.