Consumer Is Boss

CONSUMER IS THE BOSS: TURN 1 BRIEFING

Situation

Manila, January 2009

You are in a meeting with rest of the multi functional P&G laundry team. The meeting has been called by the GM who is extremely concerned about the state of the business in Philippines. She expects the team to come up with an action plan on how to turn the business around. You know that you need to come up with clear action steps, backed by solid reasoning, and fast!! You decide to start at the logical place, by reviewing how things went wrong in the first place.

Background

The laundry business, contributing 40% of total P&G sales in Asia, is a key priority for the company in the region. Amongst the various countries, where the laundry business operates, Philippines market is the largest and the most profitable (45% of sales, 50% of profit). P&G with its brands, Tide, Ariel, Perla and Mr. Clean has historically enjoyed the leadership position in this country, with Tide being the leading brand in the category.

FY 2008/09 is a disastrous year for P&G Philippines laundry. For the first time in fifteen years, Unilever is threatening to over throw P&G’s category leadership. Already, Surf has overtaken Tide to become the leading brand in the category. This was mainly behind the launch of Surf powder, promising to give outstanding cleaning at fraction of the price of other powders. (Read Tide!!). Tide, consequently has lost 5% share in just 1 year, mostly on Tide Powder.

Volume share FY 06/07 FY 07/08 FY 08/09

P&G Total 35% 37% 31%

Tide 23% 24% 19%

Mr. Clean 9% 10% 9%

Unilever Total 24% 25% 30%

Surf 16% 18% 23%

Breeze 8% 7% 7%

The Challenge

The GM has clearly outlined her objective: Regain clear leadership of the Philippines laundry market. The objective is easy enough to understand, but hard to deliver on. As the CMK manager, you have the responsibility of helping the teams come up with the best strategy.

The Task

Think of your role as a CMK manager,...