 I would like to get on board Mr. Navella Hoosja once again, the co-founder and director of exchange for media for a few questions and answers around that we have. Thank you. Thank you, Cathy. Thank you, Hemant for a very crisp to the point and insightful 15-20 minutes. Very direct, very honest and straightforward. It's good to see you. Hopefully we'll catch up soon. So Hemant over the next 20 minutes or so what I'd like to do is ask you a few questions about what's happening around us and I'd like to bucket the conversation in two parts. One is about what's happening with the digital technology space and how it is impacting the FMCG business per se. The other part is what's happened with COVID and how companies are responding to that specifically companies like yours, FMCG companies, the role of leadership when it comes to COVID. Let me first start with the technology piece and here I thought it would make it simpler if you talk about the three legs on which a company stands when it comes to digital technology. One obviously is the transformation that you are the internal transformation you're doing to make your company more relevant to today's time, making sure that all pieces are sort of seamlessly working together and you're using the technology The other part is the external facing part where you're looking at how to do a better customer reach out to your sales channels, you spoke about ITC stores, you spoke about the e-commerce part. And the third part obviously is using digital as a marketing tool. You spoke about how when you start your career and that's the marketers. A CMO is holy grail about how to measure sales success through the spends that are going in marketing. So let me ask you on the first leg, FMCG companies as these companies were built over the last 30, 40, 50 years and the digital destruction has been very sudden and very fast especially in the last 18 months. What are the three, four things you've done internally to make the company sort of digital tech ready because this is a space where as you yourself mentioned time is not on your side, time is not an advantage, you have to react very fast. It has democratized the playing field so to say for all companies. So what are the three, four things you've done which has sort of how does that transformation look like from inside ITC foods? Tell us a bit about that. You know, I think, you know, when you actually when you look at transformation from outside, it looks as if something major has happened. When you're inside, actually the evolution is taking place. And the evolution is very, very rapid, certainly, but I think the high quality talent is also able to absorb the changes much faster. But having said that you need to create the backbone as well. And it does require investment to take place, right, if you want to create the backbone, you have to have the willingness to try newer things. And I think to that extent, we have been, you know, fairly ahead of the curve or at least, you know, contemporary with large number of maybe a few other companies. And as I talked about in terms of setting up our social media monitoring system, the customer data hub, you know, so we've been we've been doing that we work very closely in terms of a lot of analytics that is coming in place. And I think, you know, I didn't talk much about that part of it, because I focus much more on the digital marketing piece per se, but when you actually look back in terms of overall marketing. And when you look at your ROIs and when you look at what investment to make between this medium, this whether I'm spending on television or on digital or on consumer promotions or on trade promotions, because each of them actually play with each other. And then and today, you know, we've, you know, you have sales data, which comes in from from your general trade stores, you have got a trade sales data. So there are many sources of data, a sales and data. You have the data, you have got the inputs, you can measure some of the inputs. And then how are you going to make sure that you get the best bang for your buck, because that is going to be always challenging. The other thing I think from our transformation perspective is that there's a lot of learning that is coming in from small brands, you know, from their agility, right from their ability to carve niches. And I think it's for us to kind of respond very quickly. Today, you know, there was this period of time when do will consumer believe that you know I can't trust me brands kind of a thing and therefore I want to look at, you know, specialist brands. But I think the D2C options or e-commerce options allows you to create brands which are available. And you know, because what you have is a great supply chain. Because newer players, smaller players will find it always very difficult to compete with the supply chain, which is fairly, you know, well oiled, which makes sure that, you know, your cost of manufacture remains sharp. And therefore you're able to, you know, get that done. So I think transformation also comes in in terms of understanding the consumer, how insighting is taking place. And I think that's a very, very important point of to look at in terms of how quickly can you get that information, how quickly can you convert them into product and solutions and communication solutions. I think, you know, the backbone of digital transformation, one of the backbones is data. The data is, you know, used, abused, misused sort of commodity in today's world. But, you know, like you mentioned, the example about how Ashirwada, Arta Sales in Delhi 50, 20% were coming from Ecom and the marketing team at that time was not aware. So what do you do now today, for example, to ensure that data is available real time is what really makes a huge amount of difference because that quickens your speed in terms of how you react towards happening in the market. Absolutely. And I think we have a pretty sharp set of people doing the background data analytics, which is made, you know, so there are enough empty number of dashboards available to people. Right where you can see whether you're whether you look at availability with and today when I look at Ecom, you know, you've got a lot of other I'm saying Amazon itself is out so much for you to be able to actually consume and see what you can do with it. And I think that's quite fascinating, because you learn so much, you know, which you did not wish you could not learn earlier, because when you go into a normal store you put some point of sale you put some promotion you don't know exactly what you know it takes its time to come in. But today that learning is very, very fast and your ability to try make mistakes is also becomes very, very fast. But I think the the part about data is also two things I would say democratization, it should be available to everybody and simplicity to understand. Because sometimes you have so many of these tableau dashboards and they give you so much information and say yeah, what do I have to do with this finally let me tell you what action I need to take. So I think that becomes because you know I can't just burden people with you know more and more data, I think the what the essence out of it so that one can take action about it and measure that action is most critical. Absolutely simple actionable data is a very important aspect who spoke a lot about him and about people, you know, for talent is one of the key aspects. Every company has, and as we spoke about you know digital having sort of pushed companies to transform at a very sort of short notice. But somewhere there is always inertia to change right, especially when you have competitors who are more nipples smaller faster moving we are thinking much faster, bigger companies sort of are like massive ships which take their time to turn around. Tell us a little bit about you know, the aspects of you know, talent and people how do you manage that during a transformation like this because there are two parts to it one is when you hire younger people they are, you know, more knowledgeable than their bosses so that's one part of the story where you said you know training comes in. And the other part is the market is changing at a certain phase, and the talent you have is perhaps still rooted in what they sort of the training they went through 1520 years back. And this creates a kind of you know a situation where to turn that ship around in a you know digital economy is kind of a very challenging job. Yeah, absolutely novel absolutely true and I think I don't want to be unfair to my to my team, because I think that evolution has happened right and nothing works better than success. Right, and I know that it took some time and I know that you know when my head of digital. In fact, you know, I, when when when she joined us to me I had to be the sponsor of it. I think that onus is on the leadership, because you also have to give the comfort to people that don't worry if it doesn't work. I'm there to take the blame you don't have to take the blame you only take the blame if you don't try. So I think that in a system sometimes that fear of failure. You know restricts people from from from from doing it. At the same time, I find that challenging. You know, the team also works very well right because you know the answer will be very embarrassed to figure out that this, you know, 50 plus year old man knows something more than him in this space. And therefore, to me that that is you challenge, and then you get some phenomenal response because you know what I may think about one they'll come back with five, five new ideas I might have one. But I think that, and I one more thing that works very well I find is that when you put people into cross functional groups, right because different ideas start coming in. And, and how do you create a culture where you know people are free to kind of express themselves it's not easy you know in a legacy organizations these things takes a little time, but I think that's what the only job of leadership is. Yeah, I think very important. A lot of people in fact push them to take risks and give them the comfort that you know, and I was saying that you know there was a time I said no you have to spend this money. Now I know there's more people they're not waste of money. Yeah, that's right and think I'm only going to make sure that you have to spend so much percentage. That was a few years back, and when they spent it and then you discovered something new which has happened, and that becomes the story. So you also have to pick up small successes and really advertise them. Right and saying you know this team has done this have you thought about it you know why don't you do it. And I think today, you know, it's, it's significantly I think we are quite there. Having said that, we may think we are quite there but things are changing so fast. So that you what you know in our traditional marketing era things would change once in two years, how did things change once in two months. So I think that is a constant you know you can't just let yourself slip. Yes. Let me come to you know the your sector your industry specifically the month and talk about the SMCT business. Tell us what is what is the fundamental change in the product mix that you are sort of selling. Has the digital business broken. Have you seen anything say over the last two years as e-commerce sales have picked up as delivery and supply and sales push through digital technology have picked up. Have you seen any significant change any trends that have emerged when it comes to the product mix that you're pushing out. And a follow up to that is that how does that change or that impact your market reach out efforts in terms of you know your marketing strategy. I think. Yes, there is a change in the mix, because the mix that you sell in a general trade versus a mix that you sell on ecom is different. Yes, there may be 200 million shoppers or 60 million shoppers whatever they are maybe today those numbers. They are a little more premium shoppers, at least in these platforms you may find little more value conscious as well as growth risk concern but then it comes to flip that Amazon even in big basket. People are there they have more time to experiment your search helps them to find out about a little more about your product your a plus content showcases in terms of what all can happen with your product. So for a lot of the premium products, for a lot of the convenience products, right, for instance when I look at, you know, cooking paste for instance this was a big chain that happened in this last one year people at home wanting to cook, and maybe launch our cooking paste by TC MasterChef cooking paste where you, you also build in terms of how to cook because there was a set of people who don't were not very comfortable cooking so that's the audience that is coming in. So when I look at, you know, when I look at organic, you know, we launched a shiva the organic itself mostly on ecom so it allows you a platform to come up with you know more innovative more differentiated products. At the same time, of course, your large sellers will remain large sellers in this platform as well, but the pack size can change, you know, you will sell 200 rupee pack instead of a 30 rupee pack or 120 rupee pack so the pack size changes. So that is another change that that happens. And I think it allows you to experiment much more, right, it allows you to launch newer products because first while you would have assumed key, you know, if I launch this it's a niche product which I will sell it. So I think that that, but having said that it's an opportunity which is available to everybody, it's not unique only to us and therefore to that extent, how well you understand the platform becomes more critical. Yeah, I think what it is doing is it is allowing companies to take risks because the sort of downside is not huge. On the other hand, what it is doing is because it is democratizing the system for everyone, everybody is free to do that. So every company can quickly do that without, you know, making. But I think it's quite challenging and, you know, interesting times I would say not challenging for the, for inside teams, for product development teams to, you know, I'm saying you get feedback so quickly, right, you somebody says this is the part of your launch I didn't like it I didn't had a problem with your packaging and you can change very quickly as well. Yeah, so before I come to you know how you use digital media as a sort of marketing platform that we ask you now given the rise of you know e-commerce and technology like sales and the subsequent change in say the product mix or the packet sizing. Have you also re-looked at your marketing approach in terms of how do you want to reach out to consumers, as opposed to an earlier era when sales would primarily be driven by the sort of you know either the Kirana stores or the large format retailers. Yeah, of course a lot has changed in fact something more interesting is also I'm upset. You know when this spends on digital when I look at and one is to digital for the you know for awareness creation top of the funnel, what's the spend on digital when it comes in terms of purchase, which is what happens at the at the Ecom platforms. I'm finding almost 30-40% of the spends are moving towards this part of it. You know where you can actually you identify your cohorts and you make sure that you create such offers or some options of products which has been actually going so that so not only is there a change which is in terms of how your you know money could have changed from traditional versus digital in terms of portfolio, how the portfolio would have changed. I think within that also there is a change which has happened and I think that is quite an interesting observation. Yeah, very interesting part because you know marketers talk about you know legacy media, the likes of television print being useful more for brand building and using digital more for lead generation and sort of you know point of purchase sales and you know ROI driven metrics and a lot of digital platforms are now trying to also move in the sort of first bucket where they're talking about you know how digital can also be used for the larger you know brand building objectives and not just used for the second part but I see companies like CGF sort of been dabbling in both parts and naturally the sort of sales the ROI driven part as of now has more value delivers more value deliver significant value. Let me come to the you know the other part of the discussion that I wanted to have with you which is about you know what's happened around us in the last 18 months. Hey man, you've led a you admirably, admirably led a large company for many years. The role of a CEO has been you know very challenging in the last 18 months. You look at the pandemic what it did to society or coworkers colleagues individuals companies are naturally different companies responded differently. Tell us as a CEO, what are the few sort of how is him and Malik different from what you were 18 months back when it comes to the role you run. And what are the companies that you've seen around you, which sort of you look up to and say that these are the companies that really stood out in terms of how they handle the impact of the pandemic really well from both from a business point of view and also in terms of you know they're sort of impact on society and and people at large. So I think from the from the perspective of impact on society perspective I think ITC and under the leadership of a chairman. This is an area which has been a focus for ITC always. I think when when when when pandemic it us last year. It was a you know, very simple transformation that okay this is something that is that the company has to look at the actions that were done last year were a little different than what had to be done this year. Last year it was more about you know looking at in terms of support to people to my friends support to you know relief funds and stuff like that. This year it was in terms of coming up in place in terms of need for oxygen need for concentrators, you know we repurpose to you know we even we just realized that one snack plant makes, you know, we fill nitrogen in our, you know bingo potato chips, and you release the oxygen out of it so if you were to repurpose it you can actually convert them into an oxygen plant. And so you know the team did that we converted one in Kapoor Salabit converted one in Monger, but till such time that the other orders that ITC had done would come in. There was a lot of, you know, for your own employees for your larger ecosystem, you know, almost 100,000 people in some way or the other in our distribution systems in our factory systems in a logistic system. So to look at that and to and to protect that. Personally, I think this time around was more somber and I personally don't think this was one of those where you can take credit about the CSR because whatever you do is not enough. Right, so therefore I don't want to talk too much about it, you know, because whatever is there is it has to be done and that's part of your responsibility so they know about talking about it. Coming through in terms of, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, coming through in terms of about the business part of it, right and in terms of, there were two phases last year was a phase and this year was a phase from a business perspective. Last year was a very, very different phase from, you know, the, the, everything was shut, but foods was supposed to be essential services, so we had to get our factories going in as quickly as possible. We had to work with every state government to convince that these are all essential products allow it to get manufactured you have to work to make sure that your logics this can happen. And most importantly, the fear factor was way higher last time than it was this time around. Right and how to motivate how do you make sure that your people are coming to the factories to run the fact and everybody else is working from home, how do you make sure you know how do you still motivate people to be there. In fact, on the side I have never stopped coming to office. So that was in my mind one of the things that you know, so I've always, you know, because I'm essential services so I can, I can come to work. And I think there if you were to say how did him on change at that point of time, I think there was a change that I realized there was not enough time for participative decision making. Right, that was a time where you had to take decisions immediately so we had groups and you had to take a call and you're working from six o'clock to 12 o'clock in the night you had to make sure that and we had a phenomenal time I think we sold the highest that we could that whatever we could make we could sell. But that was a difference for those three months there was like complete you know one one decision one way simple go ahead and move. I think this time around it is, you know, you're back to normal because supply chains haven't got disrupted some stores did shut down, you know, so to that extent some on the go consumption got impacted. But, you know, from a business perspective, this was, you know, fairly almost routine. Yeah, some some markets got impacted because they were shut for a longer period of time. But last year was a different experience a growing up experience for you know everybody. It has to be very honest and straightforward reply him and before you go I can't let you go without talking about social media and its impact on, you know, brands and marketing and we've seen so much that's happened around us in the last few years. You know, tell us, you know, brands walk a very thin line between being value driven and taking a very sort of conscious stand about things versus capital hitting to criticism and sort of bullying so to say. And we live in a unfortunately, for good or bad, we live in a world which is very polarized opinion wise politically and so on so forth. What is your view on, you know, how brand should navigate a mile, this minefield called social media because there's no running away not being on social media is not the choice anymore. So what is your view as a as a marketer and as the CEO of a large company, what's your view on what what your advice would be to a CMO today who's sitting in the hot seat. So level it's a tough question and you've kept it for the last, you know, I think to do brands want to walk the line where they take positions. For that it depends upon the brand's DNA and what the brand is trying to differentiate itself with. Right. So, so if you're one of those cutting edge brands which want to be in that conversation certainly you'll have to take those risks, right and I think social media is also a lot of noise after some time it really does. And, you know, the noise, you know, you have to brave it for three days and then something else will come up. Having said that, we have actually experienced the negative in terms of, you know, humours around the product, right and it was about two years back on our share what one of our biggest trends that there is plastic in the art. You know, plastic costs much more than wheat does. But this was the that was the kind of a rumor that came in and actually I saw that you know the sales just collapsed in Hyderabad for instance, and I could see it like from you know people are scared about buying it because there is a tumor. So, when that happened you had to come up front, you had to, you know, we, you know, to some extent, you know this debate about, you know, in terms of, I'll give you an example. You know, somebody puts up a video on Facebook, we have to go to the court, we get a court order because it's a false video, we take it down. And after three days somebody else puts up the same video and you go back and say please pull it down this and only have to get another court order. So to go back to the court to get court orders after court orders. So, so those are some of the challenges that happen and I hope that with the new laws that are coming in at least some of these fake news should get, you know, addressed it though they don't have to be such a painful, painful process. That's right. Thank you, Hemant. Thank you for your time today. I hope the pandemic is behind us very soon and we are able to do this face to face. Back to you Khyati and I'm looking forward to the rest of the sessions. Thanks for taking time out. Thank you. Thank you, Naval. Thank you and wish you all the best to your session. I will always a pleasure to speak with you on your team. Thank you so much, Mr. Malik and Mr. Ahuja for that wonderful conversation.