Nearly
ten years ago, ITC chose the road less travelled. It articulated an inspiring vision;
chose a challenging corporate strategy, and formulated a world-class execution plan with
unmatched investments in technology, brands, people and governance. The result: the ITC of
today – a transformed organisation, driven by vision, powered by vitality;
internationally competitive; a national asset, creating growing value for the nation and
the shareholder.
ITC’s transformation was inspired by
the vision of sustaining its position as one of India’s most valuable corporations
through world-class performance. Thus inspired, ITC made the more difficult strategy
choice of creating multiple drivers of growth. Its arena would be areas of the emerging
Indian economy that best matched proven internal capabilities. In executing such a
corporate strategy, ITC’s greatest challenge was to enable the various businesses
make the transition from competing in a relatively protected environment to winning in an
intensely competitive and rapidly globalising market.
Responding to this challenge called for a
paradigm shift in the corporate mindset, leading to a new focus – acquiring
international competitiveness in cost and quality in each of ITC’s businesses
through: (a) substantial investments in technology, processes, innovation and brands that
leverage unique insights derived from closeness to consumers; (b) a strategy of
organisation based on the governance principle of distributed leadership to unleash the
entrepreneurial energies of ITC’s world-class human resource.
During this decade, ITC gave expression to
a deep-rooted belief that the creation of shareholder value provides the only basis for a
company to make a sustainable contribution towards the superordinate goal of creating
national value. A unique spirit of synergising business objectives with a larger sense of
social purpose has inspired ITC to consciously contribute to enhancing the competitiveness
of entire value chains of which its businesses are a part. It is this spirit of ‘a
commitment beyond the market’ that shapes the quality of ITC’s partnerships with
the various constituents of its value chains – farmers, suppliers, employees and the
State. Such a commitment propels ITC to contribute far beyond servicing financial capital
to enlarging economic, social and environmental capital. This concept, currently gaining
increasing acceptance as ‘the triple bottomline’, has been at the core of
ITC’s transformation.
The last decade has thus been witness to
ITC’s continuing evolution. From being a provider of quality products and services to
becoming a world-class organisation. From generating profits to creating enduring value.
From touching people to transforming lives.
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