Smaller Levers

By decentralising decision-making, Sanjiv Mehta has made it easier for Hindustan Unilever to operate with the speed and nimbleness of his smaller rivals

- Samar Srivastava

In 2015, Srirup Mitra, 36, the then category head of Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s (HUL) hair business, was in for a surprise. He was summoned to the management committee, the top decision-making body that runs the company, and told as he recalls, “From this day onwards, ask for forgiveness before asking for permission.” In effect Mitra was being told to take bold decisions and then run with them. A new structure was unveiled and Mitra found himself as head of HUL’s hair care business with complete autonomy over day-to-day operations.

On Sanjiv Mehta’s part it was hardly an empty promise. The chairman and managing director of HUL was pushing through the biggest decentralisation of decision-making the company had seen. A year later when Mitra went to the board to plug the ayurvedic gap in his portfolio, all he needed were four meetings with the management committee to buy out Indulekha—HUL’s first big acquisition after Lakme two decades ago. The only points of discussion were the valuation and the final clearance to do the deal. In the past, a similar process would have filtered across many more layers and played spoilsport with speed—a key ingredient in HUL’s decision-making process today.