A journey so chocolatey, a journey so tempting…

I was on cloud nine when I joined Chocolates category at ITC, post MBA from ISB. It was like a dream come true, and I thought my ride is going to be something like that of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!

It was day one , and we had no idea of what all goes into making a chocolate. The best part was, we could go to any shop, buy any chocolate , taste them, analyze them, and try to learn about what goes into making a chocolate. My friends would often ask me if I really get to taste Chocolates, and it was always hard for me to think of any that I hadn’t tried. Lots of calories later, I had hired a team of engineers, technologists, consultants and we felt the time was right to now think about our own chocolate ! We understood the subject well, at least theoretically, or that’s what we believed..

A whole bunch of agency pitches, brainstorming sessions, and exposure to lot of inspirations, we were still not zeroed in on the product. One of these sessions, “Elements” as a concept was tossed on the table, and there was this strange energy and cresecendo, which led us to go ahead with this concept . Thus was born Fabelle Elements. The entire team brought together each and every element of the chocolate to life, with the best of ingredients, the best of sensory pairings, the best of processing and the hardest of the intricacies involved which made them difficult to replicate till date.  The fire was a unique combination of rare chilli combined with a fruity mousse and water had a flowing nectar combined with the salts from the sea. Earth was tried out a thousand times, till we got the texture of the rock soil and the crunch just perfect to remind us of our roots . An instant hit with the consumers, we were proud of our first range of products. There was no looking back, and the standards were high for each product line which came thereafter. Everything had to be just the best, never seen before !

Our first peak of Diwali Season, our hearts racing to see the sales, as we had geared the factory capacity and we were planning big numbers with a nice, exquisite product range . But come Diwali, and we were actually sold out. It wasn’t a good feeling to turn down any customer, but somewhere inside we felt ecstatic for having cracked it.

It wont be surprising how much a leaders brain can become cluttered with over analysis of consumers, products, ideas and pitches from agencies. But most importantly, one should never ever overwrite her gut! This becomes the acid test, which can be substantiated with data/analytics. If it doesn’t feel right in the middle, you will never be able to justify at the top. Because gut is when the left(knowledge) and right(intuition) of your brain come together, in harmony(wise) ! Gut makes you narrow down and maneuver through the clutter and overabundance of information, and helps you focus on the things that matter.  As outlined by Daniel Kahneman in the book ,”Thinking fast and slow”, the importance of appealing the consumers’ intuition based thinking as well as the rational appeal.

As for me, Next step was to put a huge factory and gear ourselves for the big giant that we want to become .The factory indeed is ready and Charlie is waiting to press the button !
More about that experience later..Enjoy the video.