 With this, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be moving on to our next segment, our next brand has always managed to connect with its consumers through communication that taps multiple emotions. Be it revving up for patriotic pride, tickling the consumers' funny bone or striking an emotional chord. And not just that, the brand has also been on a journey of sustainability and preserve our lovely planet. Please join me in welcoming our next keynote speaker, Mr. Neeraj Akhari, CEO India Whole Sim, managing director and CEO of Ambuja Simmons Limited. Who will be talking about building a greener India and no better person than these two gentlemen to do it. So I'll hand it over to Neeraj out here. Thank you so much for joining in once again. All yours, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Robin. Can you hear us? Absolutely. So I think we just had a very interesting part of the session in which we talked about brands and the romance of brand and what the business of brands. I come from a very dull industry that way, and yet I'll try to find some of our conversations on the topic called brand. So there's a very quick one about the building material industry in India, especially cement. Smaller as we may sound, we are the second largest in the world just after China. And more importantly, from a marketing perspective, we have about 100 plus players in this industry. With the turnover of the industry turnover of roughly about 175,000 crores or 175,000 crores. Think what you can, you know, if you look at cement at one end of the spectrum, it's a pure commodity play, you know, where many of the people in this industry believe that it's a commodity and therefore we need to figure out how to master this game of commodity and how to make money in this commodity business. And there are many reasons for saying so. One, that there is a huge product parity. There is a huge distribution parity. There is a huge, there is a huge distribution parity, logistics parity, product parity, everything ruled by BIS. So many of us believe that it is a pure commodity play. But then on the other end of the spectrum, I think it's also important to see that it does travel a long distance to becoming very close to a brand. And especially when you talk about the marketplace where a difference between a brand A and a brand B could be as high as 10%. You realize that there is a lot of play for somebody to be operating at the lowest part of the price spectrum and somebody to operate at a very high part. And then we'll talk a little bit more about this in the coming slides because to figure out how do you play in this industry and remain at the top end of the price. And can you also go beyond the current price bands that this market has? And therefore, if you stop that, then how does the play of brand comes in? Some industry specifics, very high fixed costs. So as a percentage of total cost and hence a lot of pressure to get the volume out. And the second part that which is 35% of our total revenue or total cost is logistics cost. And that makes a very different game in the real marketplace. Having said that, I must assure everybody here, the very smart people in this industry as well. Next to me is my colleague Ashish Prashad and there are many others who come from a very different background, mostly from FMCG or from heavy branded categories. And they are also trying to bring new thinking in this industry which was earlier known to be a pure commodity play. The market place so about 65% of the market is what we call individual home builders, which is where the B2C game happens, where the brand game happens mostly. And then the balance is what we call the B2B or infrastructure or industrial segment and so on and so forth, where more of tender procurement happens. Having said that, in no way in that segment there is no brand or no value proposition in those segments also, there is an element of brand and value proposition working. But this profile of this individual home builder is very interesting. I don't know, but we're talking about typically a male female of 35 years plus spread across locations in urban towns in the remotest villages of India in semi urban locations outside the town inside the town you have, they are everywhere. You find the husband is leading the entire procurement or purchase decisions and somewhere you find no, the lady of the house is who was leading the entire procurement decision. Remember that we build a home and most part of India we build a home once in our lifetime. Sometimes also twice but mostly it is once in a lifetime and then he builds it over a period of one year to two years and hence in that two years time, his total purchase will be around 500,000, 5 lakh rupees. And he will be purchasing about eight times to 12 times. I mean, these are the some of the factors which impact the brand, the sale and the branding of this product. And what is also important that in this 8 to 10 times or 12 times of lot purchases he is also used to switch brands. So because in our category, when we say overall home, remember that in home we have got flooring, we have foundation, we have walls, we have roofs, and there are brands which go around to say that okay we are good for the roof, we are good for the foundation, we are good for the walls or we are good for the flooring. But what is important and for us as brand marketers of cement, you should really understand the intent of this individual home builder and we believe that this is his signature to his life. When one builds a home, what one says is this is my success story in this world. This is his nameplate comes in front of the gate. He tells his entire world, his family, his friends, his neighbors. This is my home and this is my signature to this life and this is what I have achieved. So it's not an emotional involvement in this product and that's what makes the game very interesting. What I'm going to do is to take you through a small presentation. A part of my presentation, I will request my colleague Ashish to do the reason that he is a marketer, I am not. I have more of many things for a marketer. So we're going to show you a small presentation and then later we can also open up to Q&A. Somebody can confirm, can you see the screen right? Yes sir, we can see the screen. Thanks, thanks. So this is the intent guys. So when we talk about India, we are part of what we call the Holstim Group. We have two iconic brands in India or companies in India. One is Ambuja, another is ACC. ACC is nearly 100 years old company. The first cement company in India, most probably a factory of it is first cement factory in the continent. And Ambuja is more modern, still about 40 years old. So it's a two story of two very distinct, very iconic but very distinct brands. And that makes this journey of both Ashish and me very interesting because both are positioned in a different way. Both the business proposals are different, the way approach is different and yet we manage all of that under one roof. So that's how we will take it. What are the emerging trends? This is one slide that I really want to talk about to all of you. And this is what our industry and the future of our industry is guided by these four mega trends. One is the massive population growth, but we have to go a little deeper into this topic. And then there's urbanization. Remember that India is just about 33% urban now versus many other parts of the world where we have already 60% plus. So massive potential for demand increases there and then comes the two new factors of this industry. One is what we call sustainability, but you read it in terms of that our consumers are now asking, are you responsible or not? Earlier the government was asking it, now our plant neighboring communities are asking it, but more importantly our consumers are asking, are you responsible company or not in terms of your approach to climate, your approach to carbon, your approach to water? And then together with sustainability is the next topic which is also becoming very important. One of the mega trends is everywhere in the world we are talking about smart cities. Now this smart city is still something that we're imagining how the cities of future will look. But what I do know that being a little bit more on this earth now that 30 years back, 40 years back the cities will not look the way they look today. And I'm very clear that they will not look from 30 years now the way they look today. So there's a massive change that's happening in the city profile everywhere in the world also in India. People have been to Bombay's and Delhi's and many other cities, one can see that they have changed massively. So how many of you know Marine Drive that was the first concrete road that we built as ACC maybe 50, 60 years back, both Marine Drive, Mumbai and Marine Drive Chennai and today there are so many other Marine Drives in the world. So things are changing and things are changing very rapidly and these are mega trends that are impacting us as well. Ashish, will you take this? Thank you, Neeraj. What I'm going to share with you is from the lens of a building materials company. And so keep that in mind in the way we are looking at the country. In terms of when I'm looking at from Indian perspective, there is a high cement demand and it has been driven primarily by demands coming in from the government's focus on infrastructure and housing. Couple that with increasing in disposable income and the youth population which we have housing becomes an important need. And that leads to long term cement demand grow and there's been given the demand potential. There are a lot of investments which are being attracted into the sector. In terms of consumer expectations and that's what I would want to focus. I think there's an increasing consumer awareness. Consumers are ready to pay premium for quality. A cement is a cement is a cement is not true. Consumers are looking for what are the different ways in which for different applications is they can look at different cement. Long lasting and durable construction because they have the housing which we build is about a housing which is not only for today, but it is for future generations. And all of this, if that's something which we want, we want to bring in as holds him together is how do we make and buy friendly construction materials and we want to be the leaders of this change, which you want to do in the country. And a brief introduction about who we are. We are wholesome. We are the world's largest building materials company. Our aim and objective is to build a stronger India. And, and our aim is to say, how do we do this in a manner that it is something which helps us in being the thought leaders and the changes of building a greener. Our global vision is to be the sustainable and long lasting building solutions company in the world. And our belief and all of this emanates from a inherent belief as a group which we have that future is it written, it's built, and it is about how we gave the world is that's what's going to make the difference and we take our futures in our own hands. Our overall global roadmap of how we see is that we want to build a stronger and durable world, a circular economy will use digitizing to make partner businesses, and we will be a net zero company through sustainability and whatever we do we do it for the community. In terms of vision for India and I think that's something which we are, we are trying to balance between the two brands which we have is how do we reinvent and shape India that is strong and long lasting. And at the same time, it is greener and smarter and above all for everyone. In India holds him operates through two iconic brands, which has been built painstakingly over decades and we have straight through to consistency in the way we build the brand ACC, which is the first cement company of India that's what it starts and that's which focuses around on durability and Ambuja, which which is clearly positioned around the proposition of strength and that those are two important value proposition platforms which are important for the building materials industry if you to look at and those are two platforms on which both the brands play around, and they try and stay true to their own positioning. Our own footprint fairly well spread across but cement, like me that said, 35% of our cost is in distribution so it is a very localized business. We have plants spread across the country in different parts. We have our own integrated units. This is an Ambuja and I think that's very interesting thing to note is while Ambuja cement which is positioned on giant compresses strength. However, if we and our positioning with strength is so strong that if we just show the icon of Ambuja, the lovable giant as we call it eight of them eight of the out of 10 people will recall that this is Ambuja. Ambuja cement was founded by two pioneers who are visionaries and in 1986, the clear positioning was on strength and the giant logo is which cuts across languages and and across cultures. Moving on to ACC of that's it CC is the first event company of India it's considered as a heritage brand when in the last few years, one of the problems which we were trying to solve on is, is how do we build it into a more modern and technology led and how do we make it more as a lighthouse of innovation. I want to share with the team here today is one of the communication when we started building on to the new positioning for ACC, which we started couple of years back. This will give you a sense where the entire perspective was just to say ACC which was not been visible for a long time was bringing back and let me play a video with just announces the approach which we had to make it more modern and contemporary. There's no sound coming to the video. This is just to give you a glimpse about the two brands which we have and to give you a whole seems India presents both the brands put together. We are almost inching closer to 30,000 crores of turnover. We have 30 manufacturing units 60 million plus tons of capacity. And remember this game is about how high you can go about in terms of driving capacity utilization. The category is where we were working around to say how do we make it more differentiated, get products with different value propositions within the cement and building materials, and overall focus around on whatever we do, we kind of lower the carbon footprint for the industry and I'm very proud to say that the India operations ACC and Ambuja put together. We are the lowest CO2 emissions in the in the entire cement sector in the country and that's something which you're proud about. And that's something which we continuously want to drive further towards sustainability. This is the brand Ambuja, the icon, the entire positioning is on giant compressive strength let me take you to some of the stories around Ambuja of what we do as a brand. I want to play an ad. This is something which which is still very fresh very endearing to people and that's something which which still customers and our stakeholders talk about for all of you who might not remember this ad. This might bring smiles to your faces so just have a look at the Ambuja ad. Ashish we have one more minute for the presentation and then we have some questions. Ashish, am I audible to you? Yes, you are. Okay, so we have one more minute for the presentation. Perfect, we have some questions as well for Meeraj and Dr. Bachchan. Yes, but really five minutes. Okay, we kind of reinforce positioning on strength in multiple ways and we've kind of gone ahead and build new communications around on this. This is our latest differentiation within the cement category. We've brought about a water repellent cement which is first in the category, and it is one of the first to reach the 1000 crore mark in the industry. I want to move to Ambuja. I'm in cognizant about that to ACC and cognizant about the time which we have. ACC's positioning is basically focused around durability and how do we make it green and sustainable. I want to talk a bit about new innovation which we have here which is about making an impact on green solutions and it is about the green concrete. Concrete has been sold always on strength and we are now trying to make that change through this and I'll just play this last video and then I will stop that but it'll give you a flavor of how we are trying to bring across differentiation within concrete. So EcoPact is our way of building and difference to the country and this is the first time which you've launched into the country green concrete and that's something which is helping us stand out differently. I want to move through this, but I want you to stay here on this. As whole same, we want to build a greener, smarter and for all as a country and we want to build as a product. Thanks, Ashish. So this was from our side, a very quick one on what both ACC and Ambuja as brands we stand for and what we want to deliver. We can now open up for the questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Khoury. So I have the pleasure of inviting Dr. Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief for Exchange for Media Group and BW Business World to get into some questions with Mr. Khoury here. Thank you so much, Mr. Khoury. If you can permit me to call you by your first name otherwise I'll call you later. Thank you Neeraj and Ashish, thank you for your fantastic presentation. You were able to weave in both the fact that you were the first and you stay focused on new goals like sustainability. Of course, it's a lot about, you know, strength. You're able to also reinforce that brand activity. Let me ask you Neeraj. Now, the last 17 months have been unusual for all of us, you know, whether I'm in the media business or in the business of building icons through cement. Give us a sense of, first of all, how have been the last 17 months different for you, both personally and professionally? I mean, you know, it almost sounds like the easiest phrase to answer this question because we have heard about disruption but this was not much beyond disruption. I mean, this has changed the model of life, not only of business. And for us it was quite difficult, you know. I mean, the challenges that we have faced as a larger group in India having about more than 20,000 people on site, it was a very, very difficult phase. But it has also brought in us new ways of managing the business, new ways of managing life as well. I think we were always clear that business will be able to manage. We will be able to come out with solutions to manage the business. The bigger challenge was how do you manage the motivation, the spirit of people who are working with you, especially in 2021 when many of us had some, let's say, personal pain, in losing a friend or a relative or even somebody in the family. So I believe, and as a CEO, I would say my bigger challenge was how to keep people motivated, how to keep people challenged, how to keep people, people and their spirit back. This is a big challenge. Dr. Bhattra and I still believe that most of us are trying to, still in that journey, you know, of how exactly to do it. So we spoke about that. We are not yet in a pandemic world. And we don't know the future. And just to say, we are not disrupting for at least two decades, we've been talking of the term hookah. I think the last 17 months were truly hookah in the true sense, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Now let me ask you, what are your key lessons as a leader, as somebody who leads such a large organization, iconic, it has impact, which is huge. What are the key lessons that this pandemic has taught you? So first thing first, Dr. Bhattra, I think as leaders, and I speak for myself, first time they realize the importance of people. And that they matter. And that without them, the companies don't exist. And they are not just the people who sit in the offices, they are also people who drive your dump or trucks, who load your cement, who do everything in the company. So that I think there's a first learning that people matter. And I believe in Ambuja and ACC, we have good profit from people. But this last 17 months has given us real importance of whom we call colleagues and people and people who work with us. And how can we be a partner with that? But on the business side, there were three or four ideas that I will talk about. This time has taught us how to become flexible. I think we have very rigid business models, very rigid ingredients that we will use, the way we will sell, the way we will manufacture. This 17 months has taught us, and in those trying times, we have all learned how to become far more flexible. And today, if we were using coal earlier, we were now using pet coal, we were using dealer visit to book orders, now we're using digital tools and so on. So I think in every part of our work, more flexibility has come and I wish that we would be able to continue this. The second part, and this is very important in the CEO, this was a time when you kind of lost sight. So I think one part which I am very happy that as an organization, we did not lose sight. And we kept on our, what I would call the true North very firmly. So we launched new brands, the brand that Ashish could not talk today, Kabaj is something that we launched in these trying times, we launched a special cement for very distinct value proposition. Then we, and I would also call about that we have launched more than 6000 crores of new expansion projects in this time. When things were really looking dark, we said, no, let's go for expansion at this time. So I think it was important for us leaders to not to lose that sight because there was a lot of negativity around every channel and every newspaper was talking something that the earth is going to fall on your head. And there's a time when we said, no, let us not lose sight, let us do what we have decided to do. The third part is Dr. Bhattra as a manager and as a leader is a sheer management intensity that is required at this time. So it has taught a lot about management intensity, especially in terms of execution of how do you execute when things are not really favorable? How do you execute? How do you practice management intensity? How do you monitor your results? How do you monitor your performance? And last and not the least, I would say Dr. Bhattra, this time has taught that relationship matters. Be it with your suppliers, be it with your customers, be it with your employees, be it with your families, be it with your anybody in that in your ecosystem, relationship matters. And these are my learnings and my ways of looking at this pandemic that a lot of positive things in this in terms of our own capacity to change and adapt and do new things. But for sure it has been a very painful journey. Thank you so much. But it takes a lot of courage for a leader, that too of a large organization to think that while we always consider people first, but to realize their importance in a deep way in this pandemic is your biggest learning. And as Simon Sinek said, we don't thrive despite our challenges. We thrive because of our challenges. Challenges make us better. And I totally believe in that. And someone asked Mother Teresa, what is the purpose of life? And she said it philosophically, the purpose of life is to have a life of purpose. And you know, I think the last 17 months have given us a purpose, small things. One is going back to basic second relationship matters. Third less is more. Fourth is question every driver of business. What is essential? What is not essential? I think that's the subtext of what I said, what you said. My last question, as I can see Robin on the screen is, you know, pitch and exchange familiar about marketing, advertising, communication, leading to business. Your communication, your advertising has always been very emotive. It has had emotion, it has had humor. And clearly, it has worked in some way for you. Going forward, what are the communication paradigms that have changed? What are the new things you're adding onto your communication mix? We know digital has become big for everyone, not just for your category, categories that for, you know, like chocolates, you know, it's a low value and e-commerce and chocolate. I was talking to Deepak Iyer on one delay. So three years back, they had zero e-commerce. Today it is substantial part of their business. So give us a sense of how has your marketing mix, your communication mix evolved in the last 17 months? I think that's very clear to all of us that there is an increased dependence on what I would call the social media and these dependence on digital too. It in no way says that the traditional ways are no longer working. That would be wrong. So we are still developing new films for e-commerce. In fact, just coming out with one more version of a film with the same Goman Irani and some other actors. So I don't think we are going to change so dramatically in the sense that to completely say no to one medium and yes to another medium, I think the change will do, we also do a lot of new medium. That's the first part which I would say. That will do a lot more of new media. I still believe people are reading. I still believe that people are as inclusive as they were, especially when they are building homes and they are looking for various channels for getting information about the products and services that they get. So things like the new ways are coming up like on-site digital services. These are things that we are bringing in now as new levers. But I am very convinced about it Dr. Bhattra that we should not leave the traditional ways because they still add value to our business. They still are there. We print media or we eat television. They still matter. Absolutely, you will agree. It's not either or. India is a beautiful country. To take any product category, it is not either or. People may have added, my parents who are well in their 80s have added digital to their way of living. But they are still predominantly like to go to the bank while they may have used it once in a while to use digital banking. My last question to you before we wrap it up. We've talked of people. We've talked of marketing business and has profits. Let me talk of the planet. You come from the cement industry and the cement industry is a huge consumer of water and a lot of natural resources. Clearly, it's your responsibility and in your annual report, in your earlier interactions with media, you exercise sustainability a lot. Give us a sense of what more are you doing in terms of making your own business even more sustainable than what it is today. Let me put this question into the other two parts. First part is the product itself. Half of the world and half of India, even today, does not build homes with modern building material. And it's an enormous responsibility on all of us that how do we make that population participate in this so-called developed India. So for me, one of the biggest challenge, both on a personal level as well as on a professional level is to imagine a future where all of the people in India from any economic background are able to build a home for themselves. And this is a big challenge if you look at most parts of the country. You have still the so-called jhopri that we used to call it in a bad language, but in a house made of not much modern building materials and hence quite fragile, quite weak, quite not healthy or doesn't have sanitation. So I believe that is a major topic for us. It's not just about affordable housing, it's to reach a good home to every citizen of this country. And therefore the business model to that level has to change and demand has to become more affordable, so has steel and so on other products. The second part is on sustainability. And unfortunately for the company, steel prices have gone really high and a bit of it may be supply and demand, but a bit of it was correction because it really goes down. So there's a lot of dynamics to play, but yes, you're right. If we have to move towards the Prime Minister's region of housing for all and affordable housing, it has to reflect in the prices of the commodities that go into that house. So the model the way I see Dr. Bhakka is to how to sell cement at 50 rupees a bag and still make money for a business. And this is innovation challenge for us and it's not easy, but we have to work on those. But the second part and I hope some of this intersection will happen is I can't believe that 20 years from now we'll make the cement in the same way we are making it today with mining with this and that, no, we will not. We are all seeing the world changing. They are going to demand much more responsible action from us in terms of climate change. CO2 will be almost very expensive something. I mean, we have already seen this happening in Europe. It will become so expensive that you will not be your business will collapse if you are going to do the same way. So it's a difficult journey, but I do see in the future, more and more green products. We already are bringing in some of the variants of developed world into eco-pact is an example, which I think is making impact. But more and more so it will quickly change my mind in terms of the carbon emission kind of a product. Remember, concrete is the second largest consumed product after water by human time. So, you know, we are talking about this size of this problem, all for the solution. And 7% of the carbon emission is by our industry. So I believe we have just started, Dr. Bhattra, and there's a long way to go to be far more responsible. But we are very determined that we will go in that one and we will do things in the right things to do in that one. Thank you so much, Mr. Akhore. We could have gone and done some more thought-provoking answers from you and continue the conversation. But we've completed our time and thank you to you and Ashish for making time and sharing your vision. And clearly, there's a move towards a sustainable way of living in every domain, whether it's for individuals or for institutions. And clearly, as you said, people are very important. The purpose is very important and the planet is very important and good to see your organization movement towards these practices. And thank you for being bold and brave by saying you, in spite of your long years of leadership and career, saying I realize the value of people even more in these times. So thank you so much and thank you, Ashish, for your presentation. We're grateful to you for making time and for those of you who missed the complete conversation, the presentation earlier and then the Q&A. You can log on to exchangeformedia.com, YouTube channel to watch it or pitch on the net. YouTube channel to watch it or read it on exchangeformedia.com or pitchonnet.com. This was Mr. Neeraj Akhore, who is the CEO of India of Holsem and MD, talking to us along with his colleague Ashish. Ashish, thank you for such a comprehensive presentation. And we are grateful to you from exchangeformedia that you could take our time and be part of the pitch brand talk. And you're being here added to the lineup and the gravitas of the speakers. Thank you so much. I'll give the podium back to Ravind and I'm sure he'll take it forward with the other set of speakers. Thank you so much. Thanks Ravi. Thanks, thanks Urbata. Thanks a lot.