Au Revoir

On 18 Sept 2006, I started this blog. To write about the fun filled culture of FritoLay, India. To get it going there was a short 3 min video of What is it Like to Work for FritoLay? That video uploaded on Youtube (click here to watch it) got us a lot of eyeballs. Research (basically that means all the people I spoke to) showed us that it was the first place for candidates to get a feel of the culture of PepsiCo's Snack division in India. Candid confession: When I saw that a lot of people were using that to decide on whether they would fit in to this culture or not, I did feel a tad bit inhibited and stopped doing videos of giggling employees on candid camera kind of stuff. Thats was truly tempting given the number of applicants who wanted to come into work in a giggly environment! Honestly - someone did say that to me.

Thereafter the focus was more on describing all the fun moments at work. The innovative people that we have here inspired us to do more. The media and other bloggers took notice and we got a gazillion suggestions on what to put into the blog. That made me realize that the challenge in having an unofficial corporate blog are two. One is to avoid sounding like a commercial for the company. More than that is the challenge of getting more than a few enthu guys to post. How do we update the blog continuously and frequently?

Madhu Rajesh was our answer. Besides being a part of the Employee Communication piece of HR, she brought oodles of ideas and enthusiasm to the table with her stories on our efforts at being RJs for a competition (which we lost miserably!) and many more.

Meanwhile it is time for me to say goodbye as I choose to pursue my dreams outside of FritoLay. So this will be my last post on the Frito blog - heck nothing stops me from commenting on the posts as a reader does it? So maybe instead of saying goodbye, I should say Au Revoir.

FORTUNE Teller!

Our very own Indra is back in news. This time on the FORTUNE COVER in its March 3 issue with the title, "What Makes Pepsi Great?" and then answers that question by offering "an inside look at how she has transformed an American business icon." (BTW doesn't she look amazingly cool & composed? She can easily give any Cosmopolitan, Vogue cover model a sprint for their job!)

Getting back to the business, here are the excerpts imparted by PepsiCo headquarters . The article examines the company's success from many angles. It looks at the Frito-Lay and Pepsi cultures that were merged to form PepsiCo in 1965, contrasting "the get-things-done expertise of Frito-Lay and the never-take-anything-for-granted underdog mentality of Pepsi-Cola." The magazine says the result is a "contrarian, risk-taking big company that prides itself on acting like a small company" and has posted an eye-popping compound annual growth rate of 13% over the past 42 years." It points out the company's revenue has nearly doubled since 2000.
The article also highlights "Performance with Purpose," which it says puts a positive spin on how PepsiCo does business both at home and abroad, boiling it down to "balancing the profit with making healthier snacks, striving for a net-zero impact on the environment and taking care of the workforce." FORTUNE lauds PepsiCo for taking on a completely different flavor in balancing the old with the new. It contrasts Fritos and Cheetos with Stacy's Simply Naked (pita crisps) and Flat Earth (fruit and veggie chips); Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew with Naked Juice Pomegranate Blueberry and IZZE Sparkling Clementine; North American Van Lines and Wilson Sporting Goods with partners Lipton and Starbucks.
The article also provides a timeline on how snacks and beverages got healthier, highlights PepsiCo's business unit leaders, discusses the rivalry of Coke and Pepsi, as well as Wall Street's reaction in recent years. To download the online version , please click here

An exclusive family picutre of Indra published by Fortune ......(the smiling tall lady on the left)

The queen of transformation! Surely, Indra Jaisi Koi Nahin! (No one's like Indra)

Frito-Lay India wins Marketing Excellence Award

Our 'Love Mark' flagship brands Lays and Kurkure are not only being loved by the consumer but also accepting accolades from the industry for setting standards in marketing excellence. At the 7th Indra Marketing Excellence Awards held on 23rd February at Pune Pepsico India (Fritolay Division) was awarded under the category “Brand Excellence”. The Award is presented to those organizations who have put passion into building their brands and shifted the paradigm in setting a new trend in Brand Excellence. Top FMCG companies and advertising agencies were among those who were evaluated for the award. The function was held in Pune, attended by approx 2000 people which included senior professionals from the industry.

On a seperate note, just wanted to share how our innovation in India is making us proud gloablly. After creating a special place for itself at ‘Chai Time’ (Tea time) of Indian consumer, Kurkure is now being introduced to various international markets to showcase the unique magic of Indian spices. Check out our brand new campaign ‘Chala Change ka Chakkar’ and change everything you have.....even your life. Ever thought of exchanging 1 day of your life with your favorite celebrity? Well..do leave us a comment, it feels great!

Sum Of Us Is Not All of Us

Last evening we had a great party to celebrate the slew of awards that the FritoLay HR team won at the Asia Pacific HRM Congress. So we had to get our new Managing Director, Gautham Mukkavilli to foot the bill for a Rock 'n Roll party. Gautham has taken over as the head honcho of FritoLay India from the 1st of January 2008. He is a 16 year old PepsiCo veteran who was part of the early team that launched Pepsi in India in 1991. So like all good PepsiCo employees he enjoys our "work hard party hard" culture. Gautham loves to play the flute and guitar and promised us a performance soon. Watch this space for more.

The venue was this cute little place in Gurgaon (I think the place is called JMD Plaza) where the HR team from the FritoLay office had one helluva rocking time. The place plays classic rock and they play it loud and that forces everyone to scream out their conversations.

The high energy HR team had many others from the office joining in to burn the dance floor. Suchitra won the award for finally armtwisting our CFO, Kimsuka Narsimhan to do her first ever dance performance. Thus proving that she can handle all kinds of numbers (that was a bad pun, but y'know the worse the pun, the harder they are to resist).

On the dance floor was Deepika Warrier our Marketing Veep who was in the news recently for signing on Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the star cricketer as our brand ambassador.

We missed having the HR folks in our plants at Channo, Pune and Kolkata at the party. Also missed were the Sales HR folks in the various offices across India ... but here are the rest of us.

Sitting (L to R): Bhavna, Mridula, Umang, Krishna, Mohit and Sekhar

Standing (L to R): Madhu, Romika, Suweshi, Dev, Manvi, Abhijit, Suchitra and Charu

Frito Buzz - True Stories from Life @ Frito-Lay India

This is a quick little Promo of our in-house AV Newsletter Frito Buzz. Our highly inquisitive and info hungry employees would like to be continuously informed of what's happening in and around the organization and they refuse to accept the conventional ways of communication. That’s when we thought of creating our own production house called – ‘HR Entertainment Limited – a product of Employee Communication’ and created this interesting format. Manvi Sarkar, our HR Manager and Amitabh Pandy, our VP Consumer Insights are the anchors of the movie (imagine after we gave him this break, he got a job offer in UK and is now an international star!) and the rest of the characters are as real as it can get including our CEO and the highly enthusiastic women force in our Kolkata Plant. We first released this promo and then the movie was shown to all our employees across the country by creating the ambience and feel of a actual movie show (worx n'all!) . It turned out to be a huge hit :) We had fun making it and employees had fun watching it indeed. Remember, if you are thinking of joining Frito-Lay, do brush your acting skills…who knows you might be our next Frito Buzz star anchor!

Vaisay bhi..Yeh toh sirf Trailor hai...picture abhi baki hai mere dost!!

COMING SOON...FRITO BUZZ 'four'

FritoLay Wins Employer of Choice - Thirst RU

That's not a typo. We did get the "Thirst" R.U. Award But let me talk about our Employer of Choice award in a moment. First things first.

We had already won three awards at the Asia Pacific HRM Congress held in New Delhi a fortnight back. But then this was the national round. So it was a different game. We all keep joking with each other about how inherently competitive a FritoLay employee is. Basically we like to win. Hey I am different. For me winning is not the only thing - it is EVERYTHING!! When we decided to go across to Mumbai (we were apprehensive. Would we win or wouldn't we. It is a tough thing to go to an awards ceremony and then return empty handed. That just sucks.

Well we did win awards. Allow us to preen and strut for a brief minute. The first one was the Global HR Excellence Award that recognizes FritoLay for being an Organization With Innovative HR Practices.

In addition we won all three categories of the Employer Branding Awards for 2007-08 at the national level. These were for FritoLay Division being recognized has having the Best HR Strategy in line with Business, Innovation in Recruitment and the fiercely competitive category of Excellence in Training

We won the 3rd Runners Up award for being Employer Brand of the Year 2007-08 the national round of Asia Pac HRM Congress which celebrated 16 years of the awards. Mahindra and Mahindra got the award for being the Employer of Choice. Congrats M&M. This was no mean feat with "2600 entries, out of which 50 companies reached the finals." According to Suchitra FritoLay is "THIRST Runners Up". I agree. Until we win the first spot, we will remain "thirsty for more"!

Here is a closeup view of the awards. And the awardees (from L to R): Madhu Rajesh, Abhijit Bhaduri, Suchitra Rajendra and Sanjeev Dixit.

Sidelight: Both Suchitra ("Suchi" to friends) and fellow blogger Madhu are diehard fans of Shah Rukh Khan. Since the venue of the competition was bang next to the superstar's house and it just happened to be Valentine's Day - yes the competition was on 14th February 2008, Madhu and Suchitra decided to camp outside the Bollywood actor's house (called Mannat - means a vow made to a deity) in Bandra. They clicked this photo of Pepsi's brand ambassador Shah Rukh's mansion (Mannat is marked with the arrow - and that's a road sign. Not what you thought). Both of them swear that if you look hard enough you will see Shah Rukh Khan standing in the Balcony. Leave your comment behind to let me know if you spotted SRK.

FritoLay Wins 3 Awards at Asia Pacific HRM

Just so you know it first from us. Last evening our HR Team went to attend the awards function for the Regional round of the Asia Pacific HRM Congress in New Delhi. The entire HR team had turned up hoping that we would win at least one of the three categories we were competing for. And then the first one happened...

"The award for innovation in Recruitment goes to FritoLay India...". The rest of the announcement was drown by the loud applause. It was great to see how our Employee Referral Program aptly called "Bring a Friend to Work" (there is a neat video on this site). It was recognition for the great done by Suchitra and her staffing team with some superb work done by Umang and the Sales HR Team with Mohit, Avijit, Dhruv and the inimitable Krishna doing some stellar work in making sure the Referral program of Frito becomes a national benchmark.

The second one was the category that saw steep competition from all the companies - Training. But our innovations in linking training to business strategy helped us win ahead of others who were competing on number of training days and all that. That's Suchitra and her Org Capability team at it. The work they have done in building the talent pipeline at Frito is truly outstanding. We always thought so and now everyone thinks so too!

But the biggest recognition came to FritoLay India came for having the "Best HR Strategy in Line with Business". This award had 600 entries and despite that we were recognized for "setting a standard for the rest of the industry". The entire HR team was delirious and was busy hugging and congratulating each other. A million sms messages were sent to friends, colleagues and well-wishers all over. And the responses kept pouring in and are still coming in.

So where are the pictures? Errrr... well.... we did not take the camera along. As one of them explained, "It would have been worse if we had brought a camera and not won any awards." But we will get some from the organizers and share them with you.

See you in Mumbai when we compete for more on Valentines Day!

Radio Jokers!

I and Abhijit, our HR Head, somehow just landed into this Radio One Office Champ contest which is on air everyday between 6 – 8 pm. Although we end up goofing up every time but the fun of the whole thing is that we are able to generate a lot of excitement in the organization. Every evening employees’ Radio’s are switched on and we all eagerly wait for our round to be aired. In a true reality show ishtyle, our success on this competition also depends on SMS voting. (Now I know how unfair these contests could be; you could be at best of your talent n’all but if you don’t generate enough votes, you are good for nothing!!) We are SMSing left, right and centre and are hopeful to win this competition. Check out this cool campaign we created :)

Now let me tell you what’s happening on this contest. The teams are : PepsiCo, Global Logic, Live India, HT, Dainik Jagran……A team of two from each of these organizations is participating by answering on various rounds. First day was an introductory round and we were thrown questions like ‘Kee Haal Hai’??!! Were we to be witty? May be funny, don’t know yet. Imagine what Abhijit would answer when asked, “what would you say to your boss if he has caught you singing looking at his wife”? BTW, we scored 9 on 10. Not bad!!

Round Two was a disaster – Bollywood quotient! Who’s got the time yaar to read Filmfare or watch Bollywood ka Boss!! Anyway, we jumped into this without any arms and ammunitions and yet came out with flying colors. WE GOT ONLY 6 ON 10, LOWEST OF ALL!! Good fun (was made of both of us!). For God’s sake how on this earth will we know “what role J.D. Chakraborty played in Satya”?

Round Three was Flirt quotient. Abhijit was very happy this time and as expected he did a great job of flirting with the RJ and the lady who called him to check out his flirt quotient. We scored 8 on 10.

Today was round Four & Five. Cricket quotient and Talent Round. Well, we are the masters at that. A perfect 10 on 10 in Cricket and 9 on 10 on Talent. Hope our happiness is not short lived and we are able to sail through tomorrow’s Quiz on Delhi. God bless us!!

But, are you voting???? SMS OC FritoLay to 53650 right now!!

Snack Smart!

On one fine afternoon, we caught Saif to do this little promo for us. Let us know what do you like about this Ad and what you don't. What do you think the Ad is trying to convey? Simply post your views in the comment box and who knows we might get Saif to answer your questions...

AR Rahman Concert in Delhi

What would you need to do if you wanted to listen to AR Rahman, Hariharan, Chitra, Kailash Kher and Rapper Blaze in Delhi. You had to go to the mega concert that was held last evening in Delhi. If you were a PepsiCo employee you got to see the show. You had to find your place among the 25,000 fans who ranged from six year olds to their grandparents (children below five years old were not allowed in).

AR Rahman came across as an immensely talented composer who has yet to make the transition to being a huge entertainer. He is an artiste who just focuses on creating great music and leaves the flash and glitz to others. I love the way he has transformed the face of Bollywood music by bringing in new sounds and singers with each venture.

When the concert started with Rahman singing the operatic overture from the film Guru

"Jage hain der tak hamein
kuchh der soney do
Thodi si raat aur hai subah to hone do.
Adhe adhure khwab jo pure na ho sake
Ek bar phir se neend mein woh khwab boney do".

Translated that would mean

"I have been up till late, let me sleep some more
Let me dream again and complete those incomplete wishes"

Rahman's voice left me with goose bumps as he closed his eyes to focus on the music that draws from the traditional Operas. Cut to the song Maiyya Maiyya from the same film, and you can smell the influence of Turkish music as clearly as the rich notes of their coffee!

For me the highlight was to see the legendary Sivamani perform. The percussionist with his trademark bandana created magic with the solo performance where he drummed without missing a beat even as he twirled his drumsticks and threw them in the air as the double bass drum thumped away. He has used even the humble wok used to make biriyani, to create music!! According his official website

"Siva was adept with his drumsticks even at the tender age of 7 and went on to give his first stage performance at the age of 12. "

He led a troupe of twenty dhols to give us a glimpse of a track from the yet unreleased Bollywood film Jodha Akbar.

Allah Rakha Rahman was born AS Dilip Kumar on 6th January 1967 and has played keyboards for Ilaiyaraja. He has a degree in Western Classical Music from the Trinity College of Music at Oxford University. Last evening he played his hits from Hindi, Tamil and even English compositions. We got glimpses of Rahman playing the synthesizer and even a grand piano. The only thing that jarred was the sound system that was truly awful. The system did not do justice to the master of music.

PepsiCo Shakiras

The newspaper Mint in its issue dated November 5, 2007 provides some statistics on the growing focus of organizations to hire more and more women. PepsiCo features in the 10th spot in India – thanks to the PepsiCo’s worldwide focus on Diversity and Inclusion. With Indra Nooyi being the most powerful woman in US, now it is our turn to celebrate. Over to the Diwali Party. Here are glimpses of our Diwali Party on 2nd November.

No, it is not a group of Shaimak Dawar Performers; these are the same colleagues you will see in the offices of PepsiCo.

From Left: Reshmi Tikmani, Surabhi Bist, Suweshi Sharma, Manika Sahni, Himani Bahuguna, Vidhisha, Aarti Shouri and yours truly. Our very own Charu was the co-host for the evening.

Indra Nooyi with Women Leaders of PepsiCo

Diwali with a Difference at Pune

This Diwali Pune Plant decided to celebrate it in a different way by inviting BVJ Education Institute (an Orphanage for street children) to the Plant premises. Kids had a great time making plasticine models, dancing and playing. A talent show was also organized followed by prize distribution.

Inviting Nominations for the Kurkure Moment of 2007

We are institutionalizing a Kurkure Moment of the Year Award. The HR group was recently at Rishikesh for a rafting trip. Thats when we came up with that idea. At the end of a hard day of having fun - what with beach volleyball, long adda sessions in the tents on the beach, after moonlight treks in the jungle (where Umang wore a Halloween mask and gave Manvi the shock of her life), we got chatting around the bonfire on the beach about what were some of the craziest moments in our office that had us in splits. Here is the nomination from the HR team:

Colleague says to Bhagyashree aka Bags of our Marketing department, "Hey, are you on Orkut?"
Bhagyashree responds, "Nahi Yaar, I am on Kurkure."

Thus was born the idea of collecting the Kurkure Moment from other colleagues and other offices.

Who can nominate: Anyone. It does not have be limited to just Frito employees. We promise to be unbiased and fair.

How do you nominate someone: Just send us the incident with details and possibly a photo of the moment or of the person if you can. Mail it to madhu.rajesh@intl.pepsico.com
Please put the subject of your email as "Kurkure Moment Nomination". Please mention the name of the organization and location where the incident happened.
What kind of incidents qualify: Hey, anything that spiced up the and brought everyone together. So a fun quip, a practical prank ... a Bakra... anything that is a pur Kurkure Moment. Talking of Bakras, I would love to share the Bakra we played on the HR team during the Annual HR Meet. But my lips are sealed. Ask Umang or Charu what it was all about. Or ask Krishna about the Bakra he played on the gang during the bus ride back from Rishikesh. That was a "bloody nasty" trick he played on everyone. Ask me, I was victim too.

Taal Se Taal Mila - A Trip to Bhimtaal

Vaibhav Modi, our Sales HR Manager got a chance to take our Central Region Sales Team and families to Bhimtaal. Based in the heart of Kumaon, 22 Km from Nainital, the city of Lakes, Bhimtaal is named after the famous Mahabhrata character - Bhim - renowned for his extraordinary strength. Bhimtal is at an altitude of 1371 mtrs. and 4498 Ft. It has the largest of the lakes in this region.

Vaibhav shares “stunningly green landscapes, breathtaking view of Mountains and
amazingly peaceful surroundings alleviated my soul to the core. The resort
was situated amidst the beautiful mountains and amazing scenic beauty of
Bhimtaal. A refreshing trip to the lake, games and dancing around a bonfire
gave us all a time of our lives. I’d ensure such trips happen more often to
constantly give our employees the break they deserve and that too with their
families.”

Rapid RAFTaar

The rush of adrenalin when the raft swings wildly in the arms of a tempestuous rapid is a heady feeling that is called adventure. At a site called 43things.com you can find out the various things that people have listed. Things they want to do. It talks about various dreams that people have. I know that one of the 43 things I wanted to do always was to go river rafting. And ... I did. The Human Resources team decided that we should celebrate a successful year by doing something that we would all cherish. The HR Meet for 2007 was held on a raft!

Partho Pratim Saha is one of the four people who brought rafting in a big way to India. The other three people being Ajeet Bajaj - the man who went to the North and South Pole on a ski, Yousuf Zaheer and Ajay Mehra.

Camp River Wild is about 27 kms from Rishikesh. The Pauri Garhwal area is gorgeously pretty and being there on a full moon night made it even more so. Watching the sands turn silver in the moonlight and the quiet gurgling sound of the Ganges flowing by creates a magical concoction. Ever tried going for a midnight trek though the jungle in the moonlit night? You have to try it out is all what I can say.

The next day we went Rafting. Rapids are graded on a scale of 1 to 6. You do not want to encounter a grade six rapid if you aren't a skilled rafter. I discovered that the rapids have unique names and that there is a story behind each name. The first one we hit was grade 3 rapid called "Sweet Sixteen" after the romantic story of a sixteen year old British School girl who came there a couple of years back and fell in love with her rafting instructor. The next one was called "Mala's Curves" - Mala is the name of the village where the rapid is and not what you thought.

If you meet anyone from the FritoLay HR team, don't forget to ask them about the two major bakras (practical pranks) that some enterprising souls played on the group. The group has been sworn to secrecy so that the same tricks can be recycled and pulled off on some other unsuspecting group in the office.

World Cup At Frito-Lay

World Cup At Frito-Lay

There was a blast at Frito-Lay office in Gurgaon on the eve of India Vs PAK-T20 FRONTIER. The spirits of employees was visible every time the Indian cricketers hit a six. Each time a bowler took a wicket, you could hear the screaming right across the hallway.

In the trade mark Ganguly style – and possibly even Salman Khan “ishtyle”, some of our employees at Financial Services office removed their shirts when the Indian bowlers took the last wicket and make victory a reality.

Environment Friendly Amsterdam

"Be careful! Watch out for the bikes!!"

The locals warn the group of us gawking tourists as try to navigate our way through the city of Amsterdam where the Human Resources Conference of PepsiCo International is being held. From 24th to 27th September, the city of Amsterdam sees repeat performances of the above variety. There are 600,000 bikes for 700,000 residents of Amsterdam and 220,000 trees. There are 2500 houseboats that are sprinkled across the 165 canals that are dug in horse shoe form to garland the city.

Parking a car - even that tiny car that you see below - is a prohibitively expensive proposition. So bikes become the mode of transport for everyone. It is environment friendly and has no fuel bills. That goes well with the PepsiCo philosophy of Performance with Purpose that has Environmental sustainability as one of the three planks of our growth. The other two being Human Sustainability and Talent Sustainability.

With environment sustainability an important component of the “performance with purpose” strategy, PepsiCo has decided to replenish whatever it takes from the environment. “We’re going to reduce our water usage and move more rapidly towards the ideal of ‘net zero’ —for every litre of water needed to make our products, we’ll return a litre to the water supply,” says our chief Ms Nooyi. We want to roll back greenhouse gas emissions as the company grows, continue light weighting packaging and recycling while identifying bio-degradable solutions.

Back to Amsterdam. I saw this lady who had her guitar strapped across with her kid sitting at the back and a dog sitting pretty in a basket slung at the front of the bike. Where's the picture of that, you may ask. She was just zipping past and by the time I pulled out my camera she was gone. But here are a few more bike pictures.

Ever since I had seen the movie Silsila - the Yash Chopra classic in 1981, the scene of the tulip fields and windmills has been imprinted in my mind. I always wanted to see those fields. Sad to say, I did not make it to the tulip field but have pictures of glass versions along with the mandatory windmills and clogs (shoes) . So enjoy!

Engage Everyday Program Wins the Global Award

The Global HR Conference in Amsterdam held from 24-27 September 2007, the Engage Everyday program got showcased as a global best practice. The HR team from FritoLay then went on to win the Global Award for Talent Sustainability. I don't know what it feels like to win the Oscar, but this felt just as special to me.

It was a grand event held at the famous Amstel Intercontinental Hotel - the pride of Amsterdam. Since its opening in 1867, the Hotel has played host to several celebs and world leaders. Located on the Amstel River, this gorgeous Hotel hosted the crew and cast of the film Oceans Twelve.

The Engage Everyday program has been impacting lives of employees and communities around our factories. The program is driven by employees of the families where they work to impact lives in the communities around our workplace. More about the program in a separate post.

No Need for Speed

If you are the kind of person who lives in a city and then complains about the fast pace of life of the Metros thenvisit our plant in Channo. That has the kind of lifestyle that we city dwellers get to experience only when we go on vacation. We go to these places, unwind and then come back to regale our colleagues about the lifestyle of the smaller towns.

There is time to stop at the dhaba and grab a humongous glass of lassi on your way to work. In the evening our colleagues have a ritual of stopping by for a relaxed chat with friends over some piping hot jalebis.

Vipin Dhariwal our correspondent sent us these pictures. The event in question was the slow cycling race.While the aspirants to the prize were many, there was only one winner.