Data is the new oil! | A talk with BP Biddappa, Executive Director HR, HUL & VP HR, South Asia at Unilever

BP Biddappa, Executive Director HR, HUL & VP HR, South Asia at Unilever; recently spoke on the use of Data from Social Media to devise a precision marketing strategy. Social Media for a user and a consumer, in this case, might be a place of retreat, to relax and catch up with the World. But for Brands, the 10 minutes spent on social media generate invaluable data that helps them get closer to the consumer. In today's day and age of everything internet, it is safe to function within the premise of Data being the new oil.

Win in Many Indias

Biddappa addressed the topic while speaking with the latest MBA batch. He says that almost all their decisions are made using this data. The famous phrase data is new oil indeed holds true. He says that this is the fundamental logic behind “Win in Many Indias”, which was recently launched by HUL. WIMI will ensure mixes that are very local. 

He goes onto say that how we decide what tweak we want to mix and the data that we get from the digital route actually is a great input into making that happen. A lot of data is now being used to run our business on a normal basis.

Kan Khajura Tesan

He also says that there is Nielsen and there is CMI and there is Focus Groups but there is so much information now that is now coming to us. He says that they had something called “Kan Khajura Tesan” which was using mobile data. This was specially designed for media dark areas like Bihar, where people couldn't have media. The user had to give a missed call to be able to listen to free radio music. This exercise saw 40 million consumers, who signed up in the first few months.

He further says that the turnover may not be as large as many other companies. He goes onto say that their market cap is probably the largest, maybe top 5 in the country. The number of people they reach is incredibly large. There are 8 million retailers in India. They directly reach 2.5 million of them and their products reach almost all these retailers. They reach over 95% of Indian households. 

He concludes by saying that the sheer magnanimity of the data that is made available to them and in ways that it is used for everything is overwhelming. Data is the solution to most problems faced by a business. Making data the new oil!