Atma Nirbhar Bharat Is An Opportunity For Us

The 123-year-old Godrej & Boyce, which operates in 10 industries — from complex engineering solutions to consumer goods like appliances, furniture and security solutions — across five continents has had a change of guard. Ever since cousin Navroze Godrej, son of Chairman Jamshyd Godrej, relinquished his executive role at G&B in 2017, Nyrika Holkar, 38 has been in charge of the ₹11,500 crore engineering giant. Nyrika’s mother Smita Crishna is the sister of Jamshyd Godrej and owns a fifth of the Godrej empire. Nyrika herself is married to Yeshwant Rao Holkar, the scion of the erstwhile royal family of Indore. She talks to Nevin John about transforming the century-and-a-quarter old firm through customer centricity, digitisation and new technology: Edited excerpts:

- Nevin John

In 2011, the Godrej Group announced an ambitious target of 10 times revenue growth in 10 years. Today it seems group companies are separately pursuing targets. What are your thoughts?

The 2011/12 exercise was a group-wide direction setting for businesses to determine the quantum of investments needed and have a strategic focus for the coming decade. It was a longer-term view rather than the conventional three-year strategic business planning model. In some businesses, we looked at strengthening our play in international markets, while in others, we thought about diversifying into adjacent businesses.

Since G&B is a diversified conglomerate, business realities and industry dynamics for each business segment are vastly different. Some are long cycle and dependent on government orders while others are short cycle businesses that work with private sector companies and can be more agile to scale. So, some businesses grew faster than others. The G&B Board felt that a one-size-fits-all approach could not work for such diverse businesses. It was important to have separate growth targets for each business to be in sync with market realities.

Godrej has transformed a lot in the last 10-15 years, ever since Adi Godrej’s children Tanya, Nisaba and Pirojsha, started leading operational responsibilities. How is transformation and innovation guiding G&B?