As Eveready Industries battles a string of financial woes and faces the wrath of auditors and shareholders, its flagship brand stares at a turbulent future. But experts say, Eveready can stave off the crisis by leveraging its heritage status and strong supply networks and importantly, by dipping into its own playbook for lessons on survival.

Eveready has been under a cloud in the past too. Union Carbide, its previous owners caused one of the biggest human tragedies of the century during the Bhopal gas leak, and many wrote off its future at the time. But the brand survived and has since ...