An Interview with Koustuv Halder, General Manager – Change
Management/Process Improvement, Halder Venture Limited
Transformation leadership has been the cornerstone of Halder Venture Limited’s recent evolution. Under the direction of Koustuv Halder, the company has transitioned from a traditional promoter-led structure to a decentralized corporate model. In this interview, Koustuv shares his approach to overcoming challenges, implementing strategic initiatives, and guiding Halder Group toward future growth and success in both domestic and international markets.
Transformation Leadership: Leading change management initiatives is a significant part of your role. Can you elaborate on the specific challenges you faced while transitioning Halder Group from a traditional promoter-led structure to a more decentralized corporate structure? How did you overcome these challenges?
When I joined the company 2.5 years back, it was rapidly growing financially. It achieved an annual revenue growth of above 20 percent year on year for the past few years. However, after engaging with key stakeholders and taking part in the operations, I realized we need to bring significant changes in order to sustain the growth and build upon this success. We collectively recognised that we needed a series of changes within the organization, to be able to take a leap towards the next phase of growth. One of our primary goals has been to shift from a people-driven model to one that is more system- driven. This involves establishing robust processes and ensuring smooth information flow throughout the company. One of our major goals has been to set processes in place and develop the necessary flow of information within the organization, such that all business activities are based on these processes and there’re backups of all roles in order to keep the company functioning even in the absence of key individuals. Additionally, we are evolving our decision-making structure. Before, the promoters made all the key decisions. As we move forward, we are working to divide decision-making, allowing knowledgeable, and talented employees to take on transformation leadership roles with both responsibilities and accountability. This shift will enable the promoters to focus on strategic growth and expansion while empowering our transformation leadership team to drive daily operations.
The other big transition within the organization has been to move from a manually run system, whereby different departments like accounting, manufacturing, QC, procurement, sales, and the like operated independently, to an integrated Enterprise Resource Planning solution through which all these departments can run in sync with information flow happening across these departments.
All legacy companies go through a phase of transition, from being traditionally promoter run to being run through a corporate structure. This is a necessary step to growth. We understand that adapting to new processes and technologies can be challenging for those used to the old ways. The best way to deal with this is to acknowledge the difficulties that these people are facing, and train younger people within the organization who can adapt to these changes in the system better. They will help guide and assist their colleagues, showing how the new processes can make work more efficient and good. We are in the process of making changes to our system, and we understand that it will take time. We are excited about the progress we’re making. This journey is all about us gearing up for future success and growth.
Brand Development: You’ve been instrumental in establishing the Marketing and Branding wing within the organization. Could you describe the strategic vision behind launching the Odaana and Omaana branded edible oils? How do you ensure these brands stand out in a competitive market?
Even though we have been in the rice milling business for the last 100 years and the edible oil production business for a few decades now and have made a name for ourselves in the global commodity market, our products get treated only as a commodity. It has been hard to create a premium for the superior-quality products that we have been producing. We’re excited to shift this perception with the launch of our Odaana and Omaana branded edible oils. This move marks a significant transition from being a commodity company to becoming a recognized FMCG company. By developing brand recognition, we can break free from the cyclical nature of the commodity market. This will help us produce the best quality products to our consumers and also contribute to developing a brand premium for our products.
We have succeeded in the parboiled rice sector through brands like Bhoj, Diva, and a few others brands in the international market and the Bhojmoti brand in the domestic market. Now, we’re applying the same strategy to our edible oil products. This branding effort will help us achieve our goal of being recognized as an FMCG company over a commodity company.
Technological Integration: Introducing automation and data centralization with Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP is a major technological leap. How has this integration impacted business operations and decision-making processes within Halder Group? Can you share some tangible benefits experienced by the organization?
We’re in the 5th month of operating this ERP tool in the company. There has been a fair share of challenges and advantages associated with this change. Implementing our new ERP system, where all business processes would be dependent on each other has been a significant transition for our team. For example, if the sales team hasn’t uploaded the new sales order on the system, the production team can’t start the production for the same and the accounts team wouldn’t be able to do the necessary related accounting entries in the system. Transitioning from handwritten logs, excel sheets, and basic tools to a fully integrated solution required extensive upskilling for the team. While a few people easily adapted to the changes, it took more time for some team members to get comfortable with the system.
Another big change has been the introduction of an official approval system. For example, the purchase team now needs formal approval from the factory managers before generating a purchase order for spare parts. An accounting data entry associate can’t post a certain entry in the system unless the head of that department checks and approves it.
These dependencies have made sure that there is increased accountability for people who are taking these operational decisions, and also that there are fewer chances of human error in the whole process. Moreover, it helped synchronize the operations of all these different departments, with everyone having a single source of truth when it comes to any business information. We’re still in the early stages of using this ERP system. We can only start realizing the extensive benefits of this system once we have enough data in the backend and are able to generate detailed reports to draw the necessary business intelligence from the collected data, helping us run the business smoothly and drive it forward.
Global Expansion and Innovation: Halder Group has a legacy of nearly a century. How are you leveraging this rich history while innovating and expanding into new markets, such as soybean and sunflower oil processing? What strategies are in place to maintain quality and sustainability during this expansion?
One thing that has remained consistent for us in the past 100 years has been our focus on quality. We have always believed in quality over quantity. This has been ingrained in everyone who has been associated with us – employees, stakeholders, buyers, sellers, etc. We also have processes in place when it comes to procurement of raw materials, setting of recipes for manufacturing of both oil and rice, and packaging our product, to make sure that the top quality product reaches our consumers.
As we expanded into new markets with our existing products like parboiled rice, and edible oil and added new products to our portfolio like soybean oil and sunflower oil, it’s these common values that we all share within the organizations and the processes that we have set in place, that will help us make our business sustainable in terms of quality.
Any new business that we develop, be it expanding into a new market or adding a new product, requires a certain level of handholding in the initial stages- for the first year or two. This helps set the processes in place for that specific business and post that it’s the company values and strict policies that drive that vertical.
Future Projects and Vision: With several process improvement projects and new brand developments in the pipeline, what is your long-term vision for Halder Group? How do you foresee the company evolving in the next five to ten years, both domestically and internationally?
Our first and foremost goal is to become a leader in the businesses that we are in right now – rice and edible oil. We want to focus on gaining maximum market share in the regions we’re catering to; both domestically and internationally. We are just laying the groundwork right now that will help us attain this goal in the next 5 years.
In addition to developing these new brands, we also have a few manufacturing projects in the pipeline that will help us attain the production capacity that we need to become a market leader in transformation leadership in these sectors. Moreover, we are in the process of exploring a few new products in the agri-commodity, green energy, and chemical manufacturing industries that will help us diversify our portfolio in the next 10 years.
Lastly, we don’t want to be just another business that’s growing rapidly. We want this growth to contribute to the development of our country. We want to achieve that in many ways, including creating more employment opportunities in Bengal, fostering entrepreneurship, and focussing on various ESG initiatives. By contributing to the local economy and supporting sustainable practices, we aim to drive growth that benefits both our company and the community.
