Young, focused and determined, Rahil Gandhi is the fourth-generation Director at Vadilal Dairy International Limited, a renowned company known for its delicious flavoured ice creams and frozen desserts.
The 30-year-old heir to the ice-cream firm started his entrepreneurial journey at an early age of 23. While Rahil hails from a renewed industrial family from Gujarat, it is his father, Shailesh Gandhi who instilled the entrepreneurial spirit in him.
He started out his journey at Vadilal, by understanding the core function of the business and production management from his manufacturing unit at Boisar in Palghar district of Maharashtra. Once he mastered tricks of the trade, he went on to supervise sales and marketing divisions of the firm. In his current role, he leads the organization and is responsible for defining growth strategies, handling production and operations of Vadilal. He drove sales with his strong business acumen and clear-headedness in terms of market dynamics.
Rahil Gandhi, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from Mumbai University flew to Pennsylvania for the Penn State’s Ice Cream Short Course, which is one of the oldest and best-known educational program that deals with the science and technology of ice cream. He has also undergone a rigorous training programme at M-C Dairy Co. Ltd., Toronto in cheese making, where he broadened his horizons and gain hands-on experience in various cheese variants like Camembert, Cheddar, Cottage, Feta, Cream Cheese etc., including yoghurt and frozen foods as well.
A trendsetter with natural business instincts, he has been instrumental in demonstrating an impeccable growth trajectory at Vadilal. With his immense technical know-how, he was successful in creating an effective brand strategy for the firm. He has been making the most out of every opportunity and churning out strategic plans to generate business from retailers, parlours, events and through public relations.
Under his leadership, the business has been expanded to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa and Kerala, where Vadilal Dairy International Ltd. has got territorial rights. He also introduced the Sales Achievement Module that worked on the analysis of COSR that is Challenges, Obstacles, Strategy, and Results.
He has demonstrated key entrepreneurial traits by setting up distributor network and handling the entire supply chain management from procurement to operations to post sales. Under his understated and approachable style of management, a time-bound marketing plan was rolled out, which successfully met all marketing and sales objectives of Vadilal. He streamlined factory operations by introducing new technologies, inducting staff members and providing training to employees for better productivity and enhanced internal control.
His vision for Vadilal is to gradually change all customized products with new flavours and new product lines, undertake market development with new product placements and to carry out analysis of competitive environs and consumer needs. He also envisions launching new variants as well as recipes and look for 100-150 distributors for covering 15,000 outlets across the area vis-à-vis 40-50 per cent growth plan in next five years.
