Governance, Commitments and Engagements

Stakeholder Engagement

Employees

We continue to progress our strategic agenda of remaining globally competitive and creating engines for sustainable growth by nurturing quality talent and blending proven skills and capabilities drawn from different parts of the ITC Group. Each business focusses on engaging with employees on a regular basis as well as based on specific requirements through communication meetings, workplace interactions, mentoring and suggestion schemes, employee/manager surveys and talent recognition programmes.

We have strived to attract and retain talent through various initiatives that focus on providing personal development and growth, a work culture that ensures high levels of performance, world-class learning and a conducive work environment.

We have further strengthened the organisational vitality and competitiveness through various efforts including:

Developing agility and creativity to speedily embrace change.

Developing leaders from a pool of talented, passionate and diverse individuals.

Creating an environment where employees are inspired, engaged and aligned with the Company’s Vision, Mission and Core Values.

Farmers

Given their significant role in our value chains, we continue to engage with farmers on a regular basis. A large part of our R&D efforts is dedicated to providing expertise and support to improve agri quality and productivity.

We partner with farmers in ensuring them better price realisation, assured markets and improved productivity. More details are provided elsewhere in this Report.

Suppliers

Suppliers are critical to our value chain and intrinsic to our product and service quality. All our businesses have processes and practices in place such as regular formal & informal interactions, reviews, vendors’ surveys & feedbacks, etc, which are held annually or based on needs to understand their key issues and concerns, thereby ensuring the capability of suppliers/vendors to provide best-in-class products/services.

Cost of materials, products and services, variability in demand, long-term business partnerships, timely payments, technology upgradation, capacity improvement and hygiene standards are some of the key topics discussed during the supplier engagement process.

Supply chain management with emphasis on IT and infrastructure development ensures world-class products and services. Additionally, supplier audits, product certifications, sharing best practices, joint product development, supplier/vendor capacity building, help suppliers/vendors to remain competitive.

Our managers directly supervise significant outsourced-manufacturing sites, which ensure product quality, delivery commitments, compliance with EHS standards and cost competitiveness.

Community

All our Businesses/Units regularly interact with communities surrounding their operations. We actively undertake Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) to assess the needs/aspirations of such communities in and around project areas. These are conducted through specialist NGOs with relevant multi-disciplinary expertise as project implementation partners.

These lead to the formation of village institutions that are the key decision-makers in the planning, implementation and monitoring of specific interventions planned. This is followed by a capacity building phase where village institution members undergo intensive training in financial management and various thematic aspects of each intervention. Interventions are tailored to the specific needs of the target community. To improve the quality and effectiveness of the interventions, we bring in professional/technical agencies to introduce appropriate technologies that complement traditional methods of farming, conserving water, soil and nutrients.

The entire spectrum of activities is carried out by the community through the village institutions – making community participation the fundamental component of the model promotes high levels of ownership and long-term sustainability.

Livelihood support, infrastructure needs, health & sanitation, primary education, women economic empowerment and skill development are the priority concerns raised through these PRAs.

Limited options of alternative off-farm employment combined with endemic poverty continue to jeopardize the livelihood security of small and marginal farmers. In addition, habitats around industrial clusters are typically overcrowded and congested. Infrastructure is poor or creaking under the pressure of an increasing population base, drawn to such regions in the hope of gainful employment. Sanitary facilities are almost non-existent creating unhygienic conditions which have a direct bearing on the high morbidity rates, especially among women, a distinctive trait in such settlements.

Based on this, the various community development initiatives are implemented, which are detailed elsewhere in the Report.

Government

We continue to maintain 'beyond compliance' status by adopting globally recognised best-in-class practices. We proactively interact with Government / Regulatory Authorities on an on-going basis on aspects relating to regulatory and public policy framework through industry bodies and various other fora.