‘Why should I be worried about inflation?’

C.K. Venkataraman, MD of Titan Company, says the jewellery company has benefited from recent economic uncertainties when people turned to gold

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Titan Company, India,s largest branded jewellery firm that had sales of ₹28,799 crore last year, managed to grow its top line and bottom line (₹2,197 crore) to beyond pre-pandemic levels in FY22. This success did not come easy. The Bengaluru-headquartered Titan had to transform itself into a more agile and digital-savvy entity with stricter controls on its finances after the blow it received during the first wave of Covid-19, says Managing Director C.K. Venkataraman. In a chat with Business Today,s Arnab Dutta, the 61-year-old Venkataraman says that with the Tata group firm,s business now on track, Titan aims to become the market leader in all key categories it is present in. 

Q: The pandemic has disrupted companies and businesses. What changes did it bring to Titan?

A: First, the behavioural change of the people has resulted in us being spoilt for effective solutions that finally go to scale. While earlier it used to take 10-15 days to gather people to discuss an idea, the virtual medium has allowed us to discuss an idea on the go, within hours. This has resulted in significant increase in the number of new ideas not only being discussed, but also being experimented [with] and piloted.

The second major change is in the accountability over our finances and ownership of numbers that has gone deeper into the organisation. Earlier, it used to be some 10-15 people who were responsible for profits and sales; now it is 100. That has resulted in a much better control over our [financial] results and the consciousness has become very deep.