Nihal Kaviratne, the chairman of Unilever Indonesia who cut his teeth in India with Hindustan Lever, wasn't shocked to find that 63% of Indonesia's 204 million people live in rural areas. So he borrowed from the company's prior success with sachets. "Our whole business is built on low-dose sizes," he says. But how could the company keep the sachets profitable? Although it's expensive to produce so many small units, the sachet material used in Indonesia is less expensive than elsewhere. That means Indonesia gets the same profit margin on a plastic 6-milliliter sachet of shampoo as it does from a 50-milliliter bottle.
Rekha Balu (rbalu@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer.
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