“What we are leveraging is our distribution bandwidth. As for products and services, if it is an emerging market, it makes sense for us to get in on our own.”

Vital Statistics

Name	Yogesh C Deveshwar
Date of Birth	4 February 1947
Education	BTech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi (1968); AMP Diploma from Harvard Business School, USA; Advanced Training in Hoteliering and Services Diploma at Cornell University, USA
Mission/Vision	"To enhance the wealth generating capability of the enterprise in a global environment, delivering superior and sustainable stakeholder value"
Company	ITC Limited
Designation	Chairman
Tenure in current position	January 1996 to today
Tenure in company	38 years: since 1968
Experience	He joined ITC in 1968 and was appointed MBO Advisor to Corporate Headquarters in Kolkata in 1974, he took over at ITC's packaging and printing plant in Chennai and was appointed general manager of the division in 1978. He joined the board in 1984, taking charge of the Welcomgroup as its Chairman. In 1991 he took over as Chairman of the tobacco division.
World class competency	Ability to plan and implement a vision
Salary	Rs 21721855
Google hits	17739
Number of employees	20,000

 

Company Performance FY02 - FY05 Revenues: Rs76.4bn RONW 27.8 % Net profit: Rs21914mn Growth rate 22.6% CAGR Net profit margin: 28.7% ROCE 31.9%

Smart Achievements

• Increased the reach of e-choupal to 5,500 kiosks across six states. Generated Rs 8,500mn in sourcing and Rs 500mn in distribution. Launched concept of Choupal Sagars to thrust into the rural retail space. Merged ITC Bhadrachalam with ITC and enhanced cash flow of ITC Bhadrachalam by 75%

• Acquired paperboards business of Bilt Industrial Packaging Company including its 65,000 MT per annum manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu, improved the business with a better sales mix so that exports are growing at 20% against the market growth of 8%

• Started marketing popular safety matches brands, agarbattis, wheat flour and biscuits, and personal care products and packaged foods

• Innovation: set up a Rs 2,270mn modernized pulp mill at Bhadrachalam in an attempt to become the first producer of elemental chlorine free (ECF) paperboards and specialty paper (PSP) in the country

Summary

April 04, 2005: Yogi Deveshwar, Chairman, ITC Limited signed a 'deed of settlement' with the revenue secretary K M Chandrasekar, ending a seventeen year old feud. The Government agreed to withdraw its claim of Rs4,530mn on ITC. In return ITC agreed to forego Rs3,500mn it had paid as pre-deposit to the government's excise duty claim of Rs8,030mn. For Deveshwar this was not just a settlement, it was a sign off on firmly establishing ITC's image as a fair player. In fact in the last few years Deveshwar has been on a mission to clean up the company's image and bring it respect. ITC was always regarded with a degree of skepticism on the basis of its mainstay business, as well as the various disputes it was involved in. But today it has a new image. A large part of this can be attributed to Deveshwar's rural initiatives. Today ITC is considered a grassroots Indian company that has invested heavily in crucial sectors of the economy much before such efforts became laudable.

• Buoyed by the initial success Deveshwar has scaled up quickly. From 2,700 kiosks in 14,000 villages in 2000, today there are 5,500 choupals in over 35,000 villages covering more than 3.5mn farmers across seven states (Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Rajasthan). Currently in a mere five years. the initative already generates Rs 8,500mn in sourcing and Rs 500mn in distribution.

• By 2010 Deveshwar plans to extend reach to 11mn farmers across 100,000 villages in fifteen states. When you compare this to Hindustan Lever's eshakti, which according to a recent Business World article earns a little over Rs1,000mn, the magnitude of Deveshwar's accomplishment can be truly appreciated. Now he is planning for revenues from e-choupal to overtake that of tobacco by 2010.

• One reason why e-choupal has been so successful is because the project generates employment in the villages. Farmers are employed as workers and even picked as a sanchalaks to organize the choupal.
  
  In addition Deveshwar is continuously providing value added services to his customers. For example when Sivakumar, CEO, International Business Division ITC, received feedback from the sanchalaks that there was high rural demand for personal care products, he immediately told Deveshwar of this opportunity. Deveshwar realized that through e-choupal ITC had a captive customer base and using the same infrastructure, it could sell a range of products and services to the rural community.

• So began the second phase of the e-choupal initiative in September 2004. Deveshwar launched a new concept of Choupal Sagars. These were basically fashioned to be rural malls. The idea behind Choupal Sagar was to leverage ITC's penetration into the villages. Through its network of e-choupals ITC was already broadcasting the latest commodity prices to the farmer. If they found these lucrative, the farmers sold their produce to ITC.