COO of Marico SEA and South Africa Honored as Visionary Leader

11:41:07 AM | 7/27/2023

On July 26, 2023, Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat, the Chief Operating Officer of Marico South East Asia and South Africa, received the prestigious “The Visionary Leader Award” at the Vietnam Excellence Award 2023. The award ceremony was co-organized by Anphabe, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), and other international Chambers of Commerce in Vietnam.

Consistent with the core values ​​of Marico SEA – “Empower to Nurture Talents” through GOWIN culture.

Officially appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of Marico SEA during the period when the market was increasingly volatile and challenging due to the impact of the epidemic, Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat faced many challenges, in which the two key problems were: stagnant business results and personnel restructuring.           

Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat – Chief Operating Officer of Marico SEA shared: “To obtain strong and sustainable development, we need a clear and inspiring strategy, in which the core value is nurturing talent, building internal strength through strong corporate culture. Marico SEA culture is encapsulated in the word "GOWIN" to suit the current business context, including: Growth Mindset, Results Oriented, Win Together, Integrity and Nurture Talent. We believe that by nurturing and being consistent with our core values, thereby inspiring and creating cohesion in GOWIN culture, we created a leverage for Marico to bounce back in this moment.”

Prioritizing the "People" factor, Marico SEA creates an environment where talents can bloom through our Empowerment philosophy. In the spirit of this philosophy, employees are allowed to express new ideas, thereby helping them to maximize their potentials and strengths; where members feel appreciated for their skills, recognized for their achievements, and encouraged to share innovative ideas that are critical to business success

“We have given awards to recognize individuals and teams’ contributions to the Company every day, every quarter, every half year, and every year. We have shared inspirational stories, encouraged creativity, and engaged employees in the company so that we can create a strong, single-minded vessel to overcome the storms,” said Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat.

"Tripod" of success

In addition to building corporate culture and a strong and united workforce, Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat and his associates came together to make strategic changes in business:

Strengthening the core: Realizing that X-Men is the spearhead and needs to be promoted widely, we implemented a series of product repositioning plans by rejuvenating the target audiences with dynamic new packaging and communication to make the brand more relevant to the youngsters. Particularly for X-Men for Boss, the project "Ươm mầm Boss Viet – Incubating Vietnamese Bosses" was created, offering sustainable values ​​for the community, especially for young generation.

As a result, the brand X-Men demonstrated a comeback in the fiscal year 2022-2023 with the best sales growth ever in history. At the same time, X-Men gained market leadership in the men's deodorant and shampoo category and gained significant market share in the shower gel category.

The Food category also saw strong double-digit growth and increased market share for Fish Sauce - our largest food category through our largest-ever mass media promotions for this category.

Portfolio Expansion: For the first time, Marico SEA entered the field of personal care for women through the launch of Lashe Superfood brand and the acquisition of two brands Purité de Provence and Oliv. Now, Marico SEA has "set footprints" in both the men's and women's personal care markets with three strategic women's body and hair care products, Lashe Superfood, Purite and Ôliv.

Commercial Excellence: Marico SEA initiates a strategy to promote omnichannel commerce. For the traditional distribution channel, the company focuses on increasing the performance of the sales team. At the same time, with a modern distribution channel, Marico SEA applied effective promotions, changed the display of products more impressively, and applied product classification methods, thereby gaining a significant market share. 

Looking back on the 3-year journey with the efforts to "Make a difference", Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat has led Marico SEA to achieve impressive business results, pursuing the goal of being one of the fastest growing FMCG companies in Vietnam, at the same time, to inspire and build a strong team. In many quarterly employee engagement surveys, the engagement index has always remained at 85% and above from 2021 to 2023.

This brings many good returns when Marico SEA has won many prestigious awards related to the Working Environment for two consecutive years. Especially, in 2022, for the first time, Marico Sea was in the top 30 in the list of Top 100 Best Places to Work in Vietnam for the first time. At the same time, excelling in the Top 10 best places to work in the FMCG industry, being one of 15 representative enterprises with the happy workforce for 2 years in a row, and won the award “Top 50 EmployerS of Choice by Vietnam Student, according to the survey results of Anphabe”.

Thanks to these achievements, Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat was awarded "The Visionary Leader" in the Vietnam Excellence Award 2023. An award that recognizes Mr. Vaibhav Bhanchawat's tireless efforts, igniting passion and winning belief to "Make a difference", to help Marico SEA to become more disruptive and be the impact.

Van Luong (Vietnam Business Forum)