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          A well-known listed multinational company, Reckitt Benckiser (RB) has shown a commendable business growth during the last one year. It has been striving to reach higher sales and profit margin through good planning, sharing the fruits of success and striving to build a happy but performance-driven company of the best professionals who value sound conduct in a quest to reach good corporate governance.
This correspondent interviewed Mr. Ata Safdar, Managing Director (MD), Reckitt Benckiser (RB) in Bangladesh to find out the deeper reasons for the success of the company. The interview runs as follows:
The Financial Express (FE): Please elaborate on Reckitt Benckiser's operational activities and its philosophy of business as it stands today.
MD/RB: Reckitt Benckiser is an FMCG -- fast moving consumer goods company -- which is focused on offering the consumers the most competitive solutions for their household care needs. We are present virtually in most households of the country through our world famous brands which are sold across the country. Amongst our leading brands are Dettol, Harpic, Mortein, Veet and Disprin just to name a few. We have a major factory in Chittagong. Bangladesh operations of Reckitt Benckiser is part of the South Asia region, with India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia grouped in this regional set-up.
We are a result-oriented company, meaning the people who are part of the Reckitt team know that working hard and producing result is the only way you can do well here. Reckitt is an equal opportunity employer, which seeks to employ and retain the best by giving them the best opportunity to perform and best opportunities or rewards as the fruit of their hard work within an work environment which is conducive to bringing out the best.
FE: Growth of your company, in terms of profit, is three times and total sales are up by close to 40% in 2005. What have you done right to make this happen?
MD/RB: We have looked at all aspects of our business and made sure that we improve in every facet. People are the main strength of our organisation; we hire the very best and carry them with us. We have increased our distribution network which has actually doubled in the last two years; we have looked at the consumers and sought to meet their needs better. Hence, we have gone into innovation and introduced quite a few new product like the New Mosquito coil -- the Hex coil -- which has been a great success. We have introduced Dettol Skin care soap another big success for us, as this product is an answer to the consumer's need for a Dettol soap for daily use. Dettol Liquid Hand Wash Soap was a long felt demand - now the Bangladeshi consumers have a liquid hand soap with the power to kill most germs. Recently, the Mortein vaporizer, was introduced - all you do is plug in the vaporizer and mosquitoes do not want to come near you! So a combination of better distribution, marketing and innovation supported by overall business capabilities have been the most critical success factors for us.
FE: What are the reasons behind your company's success from the perspective of the Reckitt employees. What drives them? How do they behave, perform and how are they rewarded?
MD/RB: We seek that our employees reach their potential and we in turn give them the support and tools to achieve what we expect from them. The team includes me as well, so, we all are in this together and the success belongs to all of us. An RB employee is different from others in that they are steeped in the organisation's values which are achievement, commitment, teamwork and entrepreneurship. These values drive the business's overall performance and are key factors for motivation and make RB a great business to work for. The induction to these values commences from the onset of the joining of a new employee. There are schemes and programmes which reward them for their achievement. We take pride in our code of conduct which is explicit and form a cornerstone for the organisational behaviour for all employees. The hallmark of RB family members are zeal, enthusiasm and the enjoyment they bring to work.
FE: May we ask about the basics of your performance evaluation process? Not many local companies have system in place, this may be informative.
MD/RB: The process begins with the employee doing a self-assessment thereby giving his/her own input on the key tasks for the year agreed beforehand, rates himself/herself on the work skills and the organisational values. The evaluating manager uses the inputs and updates his evaluation of the concerned staff on the parameters listed above. Then there is room for a senior person, once removed from the assessor to review that. Transparency is maintained at all levels and all parties made accountable -- making the process useful for future development of the staff.
FE: Thank you for going into this and it was informative indeed. What is the system to reward staff and see that employee financial future is positively addressed?
MD/RB: There is this workers profit participation fund, which takes into account the aspect you are referring to. The staff with a basic salary less than Tk 9000 can take advantage of this. We put in 5.0% pre-tax of the profit in the kitty. This is divided into the employees with basic salary less than Tk. 9000. Then there is another system in which almost all employees have participated. This one is based on the global performance of the company. Employees can save from Tk. 500 to Tk. 28000. This money is invested on behalf of the employees and additionally they benefit from improvements in performance of the RB PLC globally. This scheme also gives employees a stake in the global performance of Reckitt, a true representation of the concept of Reckitt being a global company. Apart from the above, every two years we have the union-management discussions to update the benefit structure for the unionised employees.
FE: This has been a good meeting, Mr. Safdar. So, where do we go from here?
MD/RB: Well, Bangladesh market is a big market. All denominators show encouraging progress, large consumer base, rising income, foreign investment and rising remittance all contributing to a pro-active environment. RB people now really believe that they are capable of enhancing their performance to date.