Bangladesh crisis: FMCG majors swing into action
Bangladesh operations said they are stalling field operations and keeping offices shut in the neighbouring country to ensure safety of employees and are closely monitoring the geopolitical crisis there.
Coca-Cola, Hindustan Unilever, Nestle, PepsiCo, Marico and Dabur are among the companies taking immediate steps including sending out advisories to employees to stay indoors and not report to work at office a day after violent protests forced prime minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee to India, executives said.
Some are even shutting sales operations until normalisation resumes.
«It's a global crisis and the headquarters have got involved in monitoring the situation, similar to what happened during the Russia-Ukraine war,» said an executive at a large multinational company who requested not to be identified.
Many homegrown fast-moving consumer goods companies such as Dabur, Godrej Consumer Products, Britannia and Emami, too, have presence in Bangladesh that account for anywhere between 1% and 5% of their overall revenues.
The primary concern for everyone right now is the safety of employees. «In the last few days, because of the disturbance in Bangladesh, we have shut our operations and our primary focus at this stage is to ensure security and safety of our people and our stakeholders,» Rohit Jawa, managing director of HUL, told ET.
«We hope the situation stabilises soon, because it's a very important country for Unilever,» he said. «As soon the situation normalises...we will be back in operation because
