Natural Ice Cream: Professionalizing a Family Business

In January 2018, the second-generation scion and director of Natural, an Indian ice cream family business, was preparing for a meeting with the general manager of the company’s retail operations. The company was founded by the director’s father in 1984 under the name Kamath Ourtimes Ice Cream Private Ltd. and was known for its handmade artisanal ice cream brand—Natural Ice Cream. Several years after his entry into the family business in 2009, the son insisted on professionalizing the company as a means of achieving a vision of growth, despite an increasingly competitive market. In 2014, almost 30 years after the company was established, the general manager was the first professional to be hired by the company. Although professionalization brought about an increase in sales of two and a half times during 2012–2018, the director was sensing a change in the culture of the company, which he found troubling. He wondered if he had grown the company too big, too fast in his haste to transform it into a high-growth enterprise.