Sibling rivalry is not something you will see between sisters Schauna, 32, Alisha, 30 and Nadia Chauhan, 24 ? daughters of Prakash Chauhan, chairman & managing director of the Rs 950-crore Parle Agro, the Mumbai-based beverage company that produces Frooti, Bailey, Appy among others. There?s work to be done and the girls realise that. ?Why should there be issues between us?,? asks Nadia. ?They can always be sorted out.?
At a time when family splits are not uncommon in Indian business houses, these words ring true. But is anybody listening? Prakash himself split with his elder brother Ramesh Chauhan, now chairman, Bisleri International, about a decade ago, so the girls are not unfamiliar with where family disintegration can take the business. They rather stick together. ?Our father made it clear that if we cannot work together the business will not grow,? says Schauna, who credits mother Meera for moulding them into confident, young individuals. ?If my father shaped us professionally, my mother made us who we are,? says Nadia.
The girls run Parle Agro alongwith their father and it?s worth noting how they?ve managed to slip into their roles without wrangling or too much stress. ?My father understood our areas of strength,? points Nadia. Agrees Schauna, ?It makes sense to play to your strengths.?
Schauna, for the record, takes care of day-to-day operations at Parle Agro. Nadia looks after sales and marketing, product development, distribution and new business initiatives. Alisha, on the other hand, is focused on the fitness wing V3 of the company.
?We always knew that we would get into the business sooner or later,? says Schauna, who is designated as chief executive officer. Agree Alisha and Nadia, both directors at the company. ?We were inducted early. This helped because we realised what is to be done, not done. Thereby we didn?t harm the interests of the company. We realised the vision of our father and the role we had to play to fulfil it.?
Schauna?s induction was the first ? just around the time when the split between her father and uncle was at its final stages. ?We had to start the business from scratch,? she says. ?Set up operations, new departments etc. It was a great help to my father when I came on board.?
Those initial years were tough but Schauna and her father pulled through. ?Systems, processes had to be put in place. It was a great learning experience for me. I had to hire new people, make sure at the same time that I got along with the existing staff. It wasn?t easy, but we did it.?
When some semblance of order had been achieved, Alisha and Nadia stepped in. ?It was always clear to me that my sisters would eventually join the business once they completed their education,? says Schauna, easily the more mature of the three, who is married to model-actor Bikram Saluja. ?My experiences have thought me a lot. There is much that
I can share. And I would like to be there for my sisters.?
This bonding between the girls is quite visible. They have their lunch together, for instance, when in office. That?s the time, when they vibe, debate, discuss issues, strategise etc. ?In Nadia, I see myself as I was 10 years ago ? bubbly, enthusiastic, full of ideas and energy,? says Schauna. ?Alisha is the more balanced of the three.? Says Alisha, ?I think what holds us together is the fact that we are each other?s best friends. Says Nadia,
?There?s a healthy respect we have for each other.?
Diverse as they are in terms of their personality, united they stand in business. The latter, in fact, has been the great unifier for the sisters. Even as they stand tall today as businesswomen, their growing up ironically was never together. ?Alisha and I were in boarding school, then we went abroad to study, she, to Australia, then to the US. I went to Switzerland. Nadia, on the other hand, was in Mumbai with our parents. So, we never grew up together. It?s when we got into the business that we started working together,? says Schauna.
Now that they are on an even keel, the task is to take the business forward. The girls have their hands full in this regard. Schauna is expanding capacity even as she endeavours to bring down wastage and improve efficiency at existing units, which include five company-owned beverage facilities at Chennai, Ghaziabad, Hyderabad, Patalganga and Bhopal. There is one confectionary-making facility that is coming up in Ahmedabad and five more are due next year. Water manufacturing, on the other hand, is completely done through a franchisee network of 29 plants. Plans are to take this number up to 65 by mid next year.
Nadia meanwhile has her eyes peeled open at the market and its unfolding dynamics. She recently launched Saint Juice, for instance, in the premium fruit juice category ? something she says that had to be done. ?It was a natural extension for us,? she says.
The confectionary business ? an area that Parle Agro got into a couple of years ago ? is also something that Nadia spurs. She is trying to push the packaged water brand Bailey, which underwent a makeover last year, and hopes to keep the overall momentum going with new launches every now and again. ?There was a restructuring of the business last year,? she says. ?We?ve divided the business into beverages, confectionary and water. This should help us devote individual attention to each of these divisions. They are capable of standing on their own, which is why we?ve separate business heads for each of these wings,? she says.
Even as Parle Agro gets going with its traditional businesses, it has plans for more. For one, the company will be expanding its V3 fitness centres through a franchisee network, says Alisha, who has always interested in sports and fitness. ?We have two centres at the moment, but the response we?ve received so far has been good. This has motivated me to take it forward,? she says.
Then there is the preform business, where Parle Agro has been working silently for some time now. The business has been around since 1995 primarily to fulfil the company?s internal requirement of bottles. These preforms, which come in different grammages, are blown to produce bottles, which go into filling and capping at a facility. Schauna who is spearheading this is keen to expand the business to supply preforms to external customers too. She is also keen to expand into designing of bottles even supplying caps, moulds, providing bottling facilities if required. ?This is a backward integration exercise, which can be a money spinner, if we get it right,? she says. The company, says Schauna, is open to the idea of either acquiring existing preform facilities or setting up units if ready land is available for the purpose. ?We have a preform facility at Silvassa in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. We are looking at more since we are keen to grow this business,? she adds.
Fact file
•Schauna is CEO, while Alisha and Nadia are directors at Parle Agro
•The estimated turnover of the unlisted company is Rs 950 crore
•Presence in beverages, confectionary and water
•Expanding presence in health & fitness, plastics etc