Posted by Mumbai: Eureka Forbes, an iconic name in Indian households, hardly needs an introduction. The Mumbai-based consumer appliance company, renowned for its Aquaguard water purifiers, has been a market leader for over four decades. Yet, behind its familiar brand lay a legacy business model in need of reinvention.
The seeds of that reinvention were sown in September 2021, when Advent International, a Boston-based private equity firm, acquired a 72.65% stake in Eureka Forbes for ₹4,400 crore (approximately $597 million) from the Shapoorji Pallonji Group.
Far from being a routine financial transaction, this change of ownership ignited a sweeping digital transformation that sought to redefine the company’s strategy, operations and customer experience.
A New Vision
Advent International’s investment came with fresh ambitions and vision that was beyond improving product sales and expanding market share. The new ownership envisioned something much broader: to harness technology as the cornerstone of future growth. It made bold moves – invested in technology led initiatives, experimented with new ideas and even hired young talent from fields like technology, engineering and data science.
“A lot of us joined then. And one of the early realisations is obviously, there are different legs to this transformation of the company, but one very important leg is the digital transformation,” recalls Eureka Forbes’ Chief Digital and Product Officer (CDPO) Nithyanand Shankar. He has been recently promoted to the role and position of Chief Business Officer (CBO).
Shankar is among the tech talent that joined the company, more than two years ago. Prior to joining Eureka Forbes, he served in a variety of leadership roles at P&G for a very long time. Then had a six-year stint at Amazon, leading a bunch of businesses, setting up new categories and also overseeing the product and tech teams. His tech background and long work experience – all have been very handy in charting out digitally enabled Eureka Forbes’ business transformation journey.
Shankar breaks down the company’s digital agenda into four core pillars — identifying business opportunity, simplifying customer interactions, enhancing product design and form factor, and empowering field force to better serve customers. Each pillar addressed a specific challenge within the business, yet all were designed to work in concert toward a unified goal: making Eureka Forbes more agile, data-driven and customer-centric.
Customer Interactions: From Calls to Clicks
Water purifiers, led by the Aquaguard brand, remain the company’s flagship category, bolstered by a loyal user base exceeding 15 million households. Unlike many home appliances, water purifiers require regular maintenance (their filters require replacement every one to two years).
Historically, this led to significant call centre traffic: roughly 75% of service requests were managed via outsourced telecom vendors, resulting in high costs and uneven customer satisfaction.
To address this, Eureka Forbes brought call centre operations in-house, gaining tighter quality control and direct customer feedback loops. In parallel, the company partnered with a top design agency to relaunch its customer app early in the transformation journey.
The new digital platform gives users end to end control: monitoring device health, scheduling service visits, tracking spare parts orders and even accessing usage insights.
The results have been striking: digital versus call centre interactions have inverted from 25/75 to over 80% digital. App downloads surged from approximately 300,000 to more than 1.5 million, while customer app ratings have climbed steadily.
“We started off about 300,000-odd app downloads, but today that number has gone up 5x with more than 1.5 million downloads. And we’re getting very good feedback about the app,” informs Shankar.
A Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Ecosystem
Recognising the potential to monetise its expansive customer base beyond service revenue, Eureka Forbes developed a robust D2C channel. In August 2024, the company launched a new customer website – eurekaforbes.com.
The portal was equipped with all the features consumers expect from leading online marketplaces: multiple payment options, no-cost EMIs and a seamless exchange programme that incentivises upgrades to newer product models.
Upgrading a water purifier or adding an air purifier has become frictionless, explains Shankar. Exchange schemes reduced the financial barrier, while targeted offers keep existing customers engaged with our latest innovations. Since the launch of consumer website, the business through the portal has increased 5X.
Meanwhile, the field force team of over 8,000 technicians has migrated to a new technician mobile app. Equipped with real time routing, diagnostic tools and instant access to customer histories, technicians can resolve issues more efficiently, boosting first visit fix rates and reducing repeat calls.
In-House Tech and Data
A transformation of this scale cannot rely solely on external partners. Eureka Forbes invested in building a 35-member in-house product and technology team, encompassing front end, back end, mobile and web development, along with a dedicated data engineering team.
“We actually have a full stack capability built in-house. That includes backend, frontend, app, website, data engineering and also the data science team of around 7 to 10 people, which is again a new age capability that we’ve built,” says Shankar.
Given just the sheer size of its 15 million strong customer base, it’s hard to predict, the kind of volumes of customer data that company would have at its disposal. That certainly makes a strong case of having a data science team in-house.
“We built this data science team in house because of, exactly the fact that we not just have purchased data of over 15 million customers, but also have multiple interactions of them,” Shankar notes. This purchased data of customers is actually of an exhaustive nature, because it provides a wide range of information and insights.
For instance, how customers purchased water purifiers against water softeners or vacuum cleaners or soft/ others. How many of have taken AMC plans and its expiry/due dates, or what are the NPS (net promoter score) given by customers at different interactions and so forth.
“So, we actually have a very holistic view of these customers,” Shankar says. Obviously, the data science team plays a vital role in extracting variety of insights from those large volumes of customer data that help different business functions and operations in the company.
AI/ML Enhancing Experience, Retention and Supply Chain
The true test of any digital transformation lies in the measurable outcomes it delivers. At Eureka Forbes, AI and machine learning models-power at least four high impact use cases:
- Service Recovery: Automated detection of negative NPS feedback triggers proactive outreach and personalised remediation.
- Churn Propensity: Predictive models identify customers at risk of not renewing AMC plans, enabling targeted retention campaigns.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): Segment based propensity scores help tailor cross sell and up sell offers, optimising marketing ROI.
- Supply Chain Forecasting: Advanced demand planning algorithms align spare parts inventory with real time usage patterns, reducing stockouts and working capital.
“Leveraging AI/ML, we have improved customer experience and service quality, enhanced customer lifetime value and revenue, and supply chain optimisation,” adds Shankar.
In just over two years, Eureka Forbes has transitioned from a legacy appliance brand to a digitally enabled, customer-focused business. The digital transformation initiatives under CBO Shankar’s charge have reshaped how the company connects with customers, manages its operations and builds internal capabilities.
By bringing core technology functions in-house, investing in data science, and simplifying customer touchpoints across channels, Eureka Forbes has laid the groundwork for a more agile and responsive organisation.
(Watch this entire conversation with Eureka Forbes’ CBO Nithyanand Shankar on TechHerald channel on YouTube)