How India Inc continued to invest in the country’s growth story in 2021 – Part 1

While 2020 was nothing short of a tumultuous ride, the year 2021 has been a year of Recovery and Resilience. We witnessed growth in almost every industry. From reopening of offices to reopening of Theatres, to the beginning of on ground events and the major developments that happened in the A&M sector, we watched everything returning back to normal and cheerfulness coming back to life.

As the year 2021 draws to a close, it is time to recap the major developments across the industry. Adgully reached out to various leaders of different sectors to know about the developments and changes in their sector.

Ahmed ElSheikh, President, PepsiCo India:

“2021 has seen India return to being amongst one of the fastest-growing global economies, despite being hit by a second wave of the pandemic in early 2021. The country’s resiliency is a testament to the government’s progressive long-term reforms, and the resurgence of the economy puts India in a good position for the future. Overall, consumer demand and consumption revival are gaining traction in both urban and rural areas. We as a company, continue to invest in India's growth story, both in terms of capacity expansion and market penetration as we cater to consumers through our diverse portfolio of products. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about the opportunities in 2022.”

Subhasis Ghosh, Joint President & Head – Institutional Business, Marketing and Alliances, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited:

“Another tough year comes to a close. In 2020, the first wave of Covid pandemic hit us; what started as a health crisis quickly turned into a financial crisis. While the world was still grappling with last year’s calamity, in 2021, India’s second wave of Covid surge became the worst in the world.

The life insurance industry witnessed around 5x to 10x surge in Covid death claims in April’21. In fact, Kotak Life has settled more than 60,000 Covid-related claims since the pandemic began. The value of the claims settled is upward of Rs 1,200 crore. We are happy to have stood by the grief stricken families in their time of need. In the coming year, we will continue to be there for them and live up to our brand promise of Hum Hai Hamesha.

Looking back, we witnessed a strong overall growth in New Business. KLI grew by 37% yoy, whereas the life insurance industry grew by 8%. To my mind, the uncertainty of the year gone by offered us time to rethink our overall strategy – improve Customer Experience and find newer ways of keeping our Employees and Distributors engaged, which led to this growth.

Instead of traditional marketing campaigns we focused on customer outreach that focused on health & well-being of Customers; Employees & Agents, vaccination updates, communicating Covid coverage in their policies, tele-medical services, also streamlining & simplifying our claims process.

In the coming year, our focus is going to be on Digital initiatives. We are already working towards new digital partnerships to provide personalised experience to the customers. Last quarter of FY2021 will be interesting, as we will see digital enablement of our distributors for better efficiencies and digital service capabilities to provide 24x7 assistance & insta-services to our customers.”

Gunjan Shah, MD and CEO, Bata India:

“Continuing with agility and resilience at the core of our business, Bata India remains optimistic as we move into 2022. With an enhanced focus on consumer experience, we have been able to measure up to expectations and garner higher consumer confidence and connect. After the pandemic, casualisation has emerged as a dominant trend, and even in the last year, we saw 40% of the sales coming from our casual and active wear range. Sales through our digitally-enabled channels have also grown 3x times, and even in the coming year, we will continue ramping up our digital initiatives. Having witnessed the convenience of online shopping, digital-first retail solutions will remain a key focus for Bata India. Additionally, the year 2022 will see retailers expanding their presence in smaller towns via distribution expansion and franchise networks as they move ahead with their post-Covid recovery. We, at Bata India will also continue to expand our franchise stores & distribution into multi-brand outlets to over 1,500 towns in the next couple of years.”

Dinesh Chhabra, Chief Executive Officer, Usha International:

“The past year, or rather two, have seen the world undergo a paradigm shift as COVID-19 ushered into our lives a black swan event of a magnitude never witnessed before. How did it affect us? There was a remarkable resurgence of humane mindfulness, long lost/ ignored passions, and copious amounts of learnings for both individuals and businesses as everyone rallied together to fight the global pandemic. It also, unfortunately, rang the death-knell for many businesses small and big. Companies across sectors were forced to re-craft strategies to pivot to newer business models, find green shoots for growth, and think innovatively to convert challenges into opportunities. It was no different for the consumer durables industry in India.

However, this is one industry that has bounced back fairly fast ever since the devastating effects of the 1st lockdown. Despite the highs and lows and a fair bit of uncertainty, revenues of consumer appliances companies in India have been growing steadily, and the industry is likely to witness sustained growth over the next year, and if I may add, even the next decade.

We, at Usha, saw a few hard truths driven home, that is, quality wins long term loyalty amongst the value-conscious consumer, rue betide the companies who ignore the power of the rural economy, rising manufacturing prices are a fact – till such time there is policy intervention – and we need choose our path ahead wisely (we chose to keep our quality), proof of purpose is the talk companies need to walk, and digital transformation is no longer an option but a business imperative.

As we close 2021, I am grateful to have been part of this journey of the last two years, for these lessons and the learnings therein that happen once in a lifetime, and only for those that are fortunate to be part of the eco-system where one is thrown headlong into the unknown and has to learn to swim ashore safely. 2022, I daresay, will be a year of healing and growth as we regain our bearings amidst the new normal environment.”

Neeraj Bahl, MD & CEO, BSH Home Appliances:

“While we all continued to fight the long battle with healthcare crisis and subsequent macro-economic challenges, 2021 also presented a silver lining for revival and growth. At BSH Home Appliances, we witnessed a significant jump across most of the product categories owing to our rigor towards delivering cutting-edge products. Overall, the premium category continued to flourish and our offerings in that segment performed exceptionally well. We were able to enhance our market contribution in the premium segment to almost 50% this year. From large premium appliances like our 400 L+ refrigerators and 8 kg+ front load washing machines to small appliances like mixer grinders, we clocked in really encouraging numbers. Even niche product categories like washer dryers and dryers experienced rapid adaption. To ramp up our ability to meet these growing consumer demands we strengthened our ‘Make in India’ commitment and expanded production lines at our Chennai factory. Through strong communication platforms like ‘Indian Kitchen Ka Dishwasher’, we also took a leap in demonstrating our strong understanding of the needs of an Indian household which brought us closer to our consumers.

We remain optimistic about 2022 and have a slew of exciting launches lined up to fulfil need gaps across several categories.”

Malini Agarwal, Founder & Creative Director, MissMalini Entertainment & Girl Tribe:

“From the onset of the pandemic, there has been a spotlight on influencer marketing as a crucial part of the marketing mix. The rapid growth of the creator ecosystem over the last few years collided at light speed with the overnight realisation of marketers everywhere that most of their traditional mediums were obsolete in the Covid world. The result was not just a “trend” towards influencer marketing, but more of a paradigm shift. Digital content & influencer strategy is now top of mind from the very beginning of the media planning phase for most brands and agencies. All this has happened at the same time when the platform and social media ecosystem has seen seismic shifts as well.

With the exit of Byte Dance from India, multiple India homegrown video sharing and social commerce platforms have seen tremendous growth, and some global platforms have also seen exponential growth like Snapchat, which recently surpassed 100 million users in India. Meanwhile, Facebook/ Instagram and Google/ YouTube continue to capture a supermajority of all digital ad spends and remain the most popular platforms for content/ influencer marketing campaigns. The surge in demand from brands, and the increasingly complicated platform landscape has left the creator/ influencer ecosystem in need of two things – support and organisation. The community needs support to navigate all the format and platform choices, to collaborate with other creators more regularly, and to create content – especially video content – more efficiently. The community needs organizations to maximise their earnings and to amplify their content at scale…in other words, to take control of their own monetisation and career growth! This is what MissMalini, and our partners, will be spending our time on in 2022 and beyond, and we can’t wait to show the community what we have in store!”

Khushi Govil, Associate Vice President, Talent, MissMalini Entertainment:

“The first quarter of 2021 was slightly slower due to the second wave of COVID-19 – nobody wanted to sound unethical, and we, too, were very sensitive about it because that wasn’t the right time to market anything. However, things picked up in the second quarter of the year and now, everything is more or less opening up, looking hopeful once again. Brands have started to allot their commercials into diverse streams now, which is amazing.

I expect 2022 to be a game-changer since 2021 has set the stage for countless new opportunities. This year, we had influencers and talent coming up with their own products, NFTs taking over the world by a storm and much more – the scenario is changing completely, which is why I am very excited for 2022! Apart from that, I am also eager about the upcoming trends. For instance, till today, the digital world was a 2D idea, but now, it is on its way to transform into an immersive 3D experience. Additionally, the creator economy is also heading towards bigger and greater things like investment and so much more. 2022 will be a groundbreaking year for everyone with all that it has in store, and I am super excited to witness it all!”

Koji Wada, Managing Director, Fujifilm India:

“The year 2021 has been really eventful for us at Fujifilm India. We have once again established our commitment to bringing world-class innovations to the Indian market. Our medical division has been the pillar of strength for us and the medical industry. With advancements like the CAD-EYE function and the AI-based COVID-19 pneumonia analysis program, we have contributed to reducing the burden from the shoulders of medical practitioners.

Similarly, our camera division, which includes Instax and Digital Smart Cameras, have been doing phenomenally well with new introductions to our product offerings in the past few months. Additionally, our latest offering in the Graphic Arts segment has revolutionized the way of printing entirely. 2021 was also the year of giving back to the society for Fujifilm India with our Never Stop: Screening to Reduce TB Campaign. We reached to the remote corners of Northern India and made available a mobile health screening facility to the marginalized sections of the society for free-of-cost. Fujifilm has always made sure that we provide quality services and products to our customers and help them in creating value for the world. Fujifilm India is stepping in 2022 with the same commitment and vision to empower the lives of people through value from innovation. We will Never Stop innovating for a better world.”

Manish Bandlish, Managing Director, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable:

“The year 2021 was yet again a dynamic year, however, the revival has been remarkable for us at Mother Dairy. Preparedness, coupled with collaboration, resilience and agility, played a vital role in the pandemic stressed quarter of this year, to ensure wellbeing of each and every employee as well as business continuity in order to serve our consumers. The year saw new products, markets and experiences, both for the business as well as the consumers. Despite the happenings, this year saw consistent supplies as varied channels such as e-commerce continued big-time. In addition, the consumption trend of consumers which began witnessing a change last year are persistent this year as well with in-home consumption and preference for packaged foods going strong.

To further cater to the evolving consumer needs, we introduced new products across the indulgence, convenience and health & wellness spaces – extension of varied value-added dairy products such as ice creams, packaged sweets & cheese spreads, strengthening of our portfolio of nutritional offerings with the launch of Nutrifit Probiotic Yogurts as well as the introduction of new Safal frozen vegetables. In 2021, we launched around 20 new products in line with the growing consumer preferences. With focus towards convenience and nutritional offerings, we will continue to launch new products going ahead. We also expanded our milk sales operations across more towns of Bihar and West Bengal. For our home-turf, that is, Delhi/NCR, we embarked upon a journey of strengthening our network of consumer touchpoints mainly in the form of kiosks and franchise shops and have set course to cover the length and breadth of this region with a collective count of over 2500 exclusive Mother Dairy consumer touchpoints by FY22-23.”

Pavitra Singh, Chief Human Resources Officer, PepsiCo India:

“While COVID-19 pandemic has kept everyone on their toes, it has equally thrown huge opportunities to transform and contribute in many meaningful ways. One big change has been the way we work. New ways of working and engagement, policies, and enablers, how and what we evaluate – measures of performance, soft skills like empathy and trust will all be tested differently in this new digital environment. It will be an interesting journey in 2022 with a lot of learnings along the way.”

Samta Datta, General Manager - Marketing, Soothe Healthcare:

"For Paree Sanitary Pads, 2021 was instrumental from a 'consumer centricity' perspective. Be it the launch of our double feather product that led to the cradle of innovation within the sanitary category or with young and popular voices like Janhvi Kapoor joining our journey. This year we have solidified and consolidated our entire Paree portfolio to cater to our core TG. Keeping the same strategic intent, our initiatives like welcome back Paree with top colleges and association with MobiKwik, Reliance Milkbasket have further supported us in our growth.

While Modern marketing will be the buzzword, thanks to Mckinsey, we at Soothe Healthcare believe that customer centricity never goes out of trend, so for 2022 our focus will be to find the cultural pulse and engage with consumers"