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J yothy Laboratories Limited (JLL) was a fast-growing, family-owned company in the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector in India, with more than 1,000 employees and 16 factories. The company was founded in 1983 by M.P. Ramachandran, who was the chairman and managing director.
Ramachandran started his career in 1971 as an accountant in a chemical factory at Andheri, Mumbai (Maharashtra) in India. He used to dress in white clothes and white shoes, and always felt that the post-wash products and whiteners available in the market did not do justice to the clothes--and his friends and relatives agreed. He decided to find a solution and developed a formula for fabric whiteners. For many years Ramachandran looked for an opportunity to market his unique formula; unlike the blue powders available in the market, his whitener was a violet- colored liquid that dissolved easily in water.
In 1982, with the help of an acquaintance from the chemical company, he set up a small factory in Guruvayoor in Kerala. The first batch consisted of only 500 bottles, sold mostly to his friends. In 1983, he left his job and officially started Jyothy Laboratories (named after his daughter M.R. Jyothy). The company began as a proprietary concern in Kerala with a seed capital of Rs. 5,000 and a single brand, Ujala, which was sold house-to-house by a team of six sales people. It released its first advertisement in 1986 in a local newspaper, and in 1987 started advertising on the radio (Jyothy Laboratories [2010]).
The initial years were hard, but MPR achieved an annual growth rate of 50%. The company was incorporated in 1992 as Jyothy Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. (JLL). Another factory opened in 1994, this time at Pondicherry, with a capacity of 5,000,000 bottles a day. It was the first plant in a backward area, utilizing government incentives. By that time, Ujala had become the market leader in South India. JLL concentrated on the southern market until 1998, when it went national. By then it had captured 90% of the market in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Within a year it captured 25% of the INR 2 billion (Rs. 200 crore) fabric whitener market in the country (Jyothy Laboratories [2010]).
The company primarily engaged in the production and marketing...