Richardson Vicks Inc. (RVI)IntroductionRichardson-Vicks, Inc. has been a global leader in the marketing of branded consumer products for healthcare, personal care, home care and nutritional assistance. The company's product line can be traced back to 1905, when Lunsford Richardson, a North Carolina pharmacist, founded a company to sell Vicks VapoRub, which he had developed "especially for children's croup or colds." The company experienced rapid growth after World War II as it added new products and expanded operations overseas. From a management perspective, marketing has been the key to RVI's success. Two projects of great potential interest to the Indian subsidiary of Richardson Vicks Inc. (RVI) were very much on the mind of Gurcharan Das, president of Richardson Hindustan Limited (RHL), as he soon revised his company's strategic plan 1984.