ITC’s digital investments powered mainstreaming of digital-first culture: Sanjiv Puri
New Delhi, July 26 (IANS) At the company’s 113th AGM address, Sanjiv Puri, Chairman and Managing Director, ITC Ltd, shared his vision on ‘ITC: Stakeholder Value through Purposeful Performance’.
In his address, Puri said ITC’s digital investments power mainstreaming of the digital-first culture, transforming all facets of operations – from insighting to product development, smart sourcing to on-time efficient delivery, superior brand engagement, and marketing through real-time content, connect, and commerce.
“ITC’s Trade Marketing & Distribution infrastructure has transformed into a smart omni-channel network, with a 2x growth in market coverage with three out of four retailers carrying our FMCG products,” Puri said.
ITC has also launched six exclusive D2C platforms. The e-B2B platform of ITC, UNNATI, continues to be rapidly scaled up, covering nearly seven lakh outlets.
ITCMAARS — the ‘phygital’ eco-system that enables wider agri-tech adoption — enhances efficiencies and access to markets as well as financial services. Leveraging the power of collectives, the ITCMAARS ecosystem now constitutes over 1,650 FPOs covering more than 1.5 million farmers.
“By 2030, we aspire to connect over 10 million farmers. The predictive, hyperlocal and dynamic advisories coupled with an input marketplace have enhanced net farmer returns up to 30 per cent in a short span of time.
“Over 10,000 plus soil tests, with personalised crop nutrition recommendations based on sophisticated AI-based algorithms, have been facilitated resulting in 10-15 per cent reduction in fertiliser usage and 15-20 per cent improvement in crop yields,” Puri said.
He added that agri-tech solutions are also being progressed across multiple value chains including drone usage, which focuses on nano nutrients and crop protection.
Through remote sensing, ITCMAARS has digitised 6 million acres covering 1,000 FPOs to help deliver contextual and crop stage-specific personalised advisories.
Recently, ITCMAARS launched the world’s first GenAI-based regional voice chatbot for farmers called ‘KrishiMitra’ which has been co-developed with Microsoft.
ITCMAARS also harnesses the collective knowledge garnered over decades to provide the farmers best-in-class services. This includes the experience gained from ITC’s Baareh Mahine Hariyali programme, which enabled a substantial increase in farmer incomes.
“The expertise gained has also enabled us to implement such best practices in 45 aspirational districts. Exclusive PPPs with NITI Aayog in 27 such districts have improved yields up to 30 per cent, and reduced cultivation costs by nearly 15 per cent, thereby boosting farmer income by up to 60 per cent. In addition, over five lakh farmers are trained annually in best practices through the Farmer Field Schools and demonstration farms organised by ITC,” Puri said.
ITC’s wholly-owned subsidiary, ITC Infotech, sustained its growth momentum and global expansion through capability-led strategic partnerships, he added.
In line with its ‘Orbit Next’ strategy, ITC Infotech also augmented its portfolio of solutions. During the year, the company acquired Blazeclan Technologies to strengthen its capabilities in the Cloud services space and to make scalable progress in digital transformation solutions.
–IANS
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