Industry: Packaged food & beverage
Stage at Engagement: Established regional brand, facing share erosion from national competitors
Consulting Focus: Portfolio strategy, channel economics & market expansion
Engagement Length: 12 months
This regional FMCG brand had built genuine loyalty over the years, but had spent several years losing shelf space and market share to larger national competitors with deeper trade marketing budgets. Annual revenue was approximately ₹64 crore, with net profit of around ₹3.8 crore, a 6% margin, well below the 11% to 14% net margins typical of well run packaged goods businesses of comparable size.
The product portfolio had grown organically to 42 SKUs, many of them low volume and disproportionately expensive to produce and distribute. This was quietly eating into margins across the business. Modern retail and quick commerce accounted for only about 8% of revenue, even as those channels became a larger share of category sales nationally.
The brand also had no clear answer for how to compete in these channels without simply cutting prices.
The engagement began with a full portfolio profitability review, SKU by SKU. This identified a substantial share of the catalogue contributing very little to overall margin while adding real cost and complexity.
That analysis supported a disciplined SKU rationalization, cutting the portfolio from 42 to 27 SKUs. This freed up production capacity and marketing budget to concentrate behind the strongest performing products.
The consulting work then moved into channel strategy and go to market planning for modern retail and quick commerce. This included pack size and pricing architecture designed specifically for those channels rather than repurposing traditional trade formats.
A revised trade promotion strategy also focused spend on high return periods and locations instead of blanket discounting across the calendar.
The work was not simply about reducing the number of products. It was about creating a more focused portfolio and directing resources towards products and channels with stronger potential.
Modern retail and quick commerce became a more deliberate part of the FMCG growth strategy, with channel specific pricing, pack sizes and go to market decisions replacing a single approach across different routes to market.
Within a year, annual revenue had grown to approximately ₹83 crore, up about 30%, even with 15 fewer SKUs in the portfolio. Net profit grew faster still, to roughly ₹7.9 crore, lifting the margin from 6% to about 9.5% as the business shed low margin complexity.
Modern retail and quick commerce grew from 8% to 24% of total revenue. The brand also recovered an estimated 2.3 percentage points of regional category market share it had been losing.
This was a clear signal that the business was now growing on healthier economics, not just larger volume.
Revenue growth: ₹64 crore → ₹83 crore, up 30% over 12 months
Profit growth: ₹3.8 crore → ₹7.9 crore, up 108%, with net margin improving from 6% to 9.5%
Portfolio discipline: 42 SKUs → 27 SKUs, with revenue and profit both growing on a smaller catalogue
Channel mix shift: Modern retail and quick commerce grew from 8% to 24% of total revenue
The engagement brought together FMCG portfolio strategy, SKU rationalization, channel economics and market expansion to address a business that had grown more complex while losing ground to larger competitors.
The focus was on understanding which products deserved greater investment, which channels offered stronger growth potential, and how pricing, pack sizes and trade promotion could support healthier growth without relying on blanket discounting.
For an established FMCG brand, growth is not always about adding more products or spending more across every channel. Sometimes the opportunity lies in deciding what deserves greater focus and where the business can compete more effectively.
Vivek works with businesses on portfolio, channel and growth decisions where market expansion needs to be supported by stronger commercial economics.
Interested in Beyond Business & Backlog?
