Dabur India

Dabur India, Ltd. had come a long way since 1884. It began as an Indian traditional Ayurveda health products firm and, by 2010, had grown into one of the top four fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in India. The company had established leadership in hair care and personal care products across the Indian subcontinent and Middle East. Numerous multinational FMCG companies were aggressively increasing their market share in India through acquisitions. Sunil Duggal, Dabur’s CEO, was conscious of Dabur’s limitations in matching the deep pockets and global talent of these foreign firms. Duggal decided to look to international markets for inorganic growth which could hedge against the likely loss of market share in India. Dabur acquired an American company, Namaste Lab, which sold a natural hair-curl relaxant to American women of African descent. Dabur planned to reengineer this product formulation to make it affordable for Sub-Saharan Africans and leverage its existing supply chain in Africa to market these products. The case highlights the challenges for Dabur India as it tried to achieve this complex integration and the uncertainties the company faced as it expanded its global footprint.