Like Korea's Samsung, India Needs Its National Champions

AS SOMEONE WHO HAS spent three decades in the organisation, and handled a wide range of responsibilities in ITC — from digital technology to operations to manufacturing — Sanjiv Puri, many reckon, was a natural choice to take over as the CEO from iconic Y.C. Deveshwar. Puri, 54, an IIT-Kanpur graduate, in an exclusive conversation with BW Businessworld’s Suman K. Jha and Monica Behura, opens up on the group’s priorities and, of course, the comparison with Deveshwar. Edited Excerpts:

Q: You believe that we have political freedom, but not economic freedom yet. You believe in the ‘India first’ philosophy. What does this mean for the group?

ITC has always been very keen to make a larger contribution to the economy. Ever since the time we had the first Indian chairman, ITC did start the diversification foray.

In the mid-1990s, in fact, when Mr Deveshwar took over as chairman, we said we would like to look at areas beyond our current businesses where we could make a significant presence in the globalising Indian economy. At that time, we also said that we will do it in a fashion that creates a lot of value for our stakeholders. So, we brought in ‘triple bottom line’ at the core of corporate strategy, that is, we will not only have economic value creation, but we will be environmentally responsible.

Our market cap has grown by 65 times. Maybe even by, I would say, 80 times. The turnover has grown 11 times. The total shareholders’ returns have been about 24 per cent, which is more than double of the return that Sensex has given during that period. This is also a period where our non-cigarette business has grown 18 times as per topline and non-cigarette profits have multiplied 71 times. At the same time, we have become a carbon positive company, water positive company and solid waste recycling positive company. We have, in the process, created six million livelihoods.