May 2001 Act Local, Think Global Hindustan Lever's strategic and marketing innovations have the potential to transform its business in India and to improve the quality of life of the country's rural citizens. Fast Companies Check out A - Z Fast Companies, our research directory of leading companies. Our fourth annual Best of the Best special report.
Necessity is the mother invention.
That may be the most basic lesson behind Hindustan Lever's remarkable track record of innovation in rural India. That's why every management trainee at Hindustan Lever begins his or her career by spending six to eight weeks in a rural village, eating, sleeping, and talking with the locals. Managers at every level are trained in techniques for talking and listening to consumers. And scientists apply time and energy figuring out how to do more with less. Both researchers and marketers recognized that Indian women who wash clothes at a public tap or river often use the same laundry soap to wash their body.