ITC has been adjudged the 'Best IT User in FMCG' by NASSCOM. The award was presented at a ceremony in Mumbai on Tuesday, July 29, 2003. "ITC is overwhelmed by a feeling of profound fulfilment in winning the prestigious NASSCOM IT (Information Technology) Users Award'', Mr Anup Singh, Director, ITC Limited, said. "The Award is a recognition of ITC's successful integration of its IT usage with its business processes and its inspiring mission of creating value to society and the nation'', he added.
ITC's internal IT architecture is based on a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This VPN infrastructure supports the Company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) initiatives. ITC constantly focuses on optimally leveraging IT to continuously enhance the efficiency of all its operations.
The growth of the Company's trade marketing capabilities and activities, together with the state-of-the-art IT transaction backbone and the large and rapidly growing e-choupal rural network, provide a unique national infrastructure reaching out, for the first time, to the innermost recesses of rural India. This digital infrastructure thereby creates a extremely cost-effective broadband IT network that can take care of a whole range of business transactions, be it marketing, sourcing or supply chain management. The reach and power of the potential scope for marketing and business that this digital network unfolds, gives ITC a strong and sustainable competitive advantage in the fast globalising Indian business environment. Equally, it also enables ITC to creatively and innovatively use IT to transform lives and landscapes, and make a meaningful difference to the quality of life in rural India. ITC, as a Company, is truly proud to be 'Citizen First'.
The NASSCOM Award also reflects the inherent potential of IT to strengthen India's knowledge infrastructure, thereby enhancing the international competitiveness of Indian business and the country's economy. Leveraging the potential of IT to create sustainable economic value is all the more important and timely at this juncture, when India is trying to cope with the imperatives of intensifying global competition and the imminent advent of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) framework.