Leading through sound biz beliefs

He believes that profit is vanity, sale is sanity and cash is reality. Steering the Godrej group with such sound business beliefs, Chairman Adi Godrej has led the empire to new heights. Godrej spoke to Saurabh Turakhia on future growth drivers, inflation, the group’s new ventures and global pursuits.

What are your global ambitions for the group?

We already have manufacturing and R&D operations in 13 countries and would like to expand further. The current expansion has been through both greenfield ventures and acquisitions. Today, roughly 20 per cent of our group’s turnover comes from outside India.

Though there’s synergy between real estate and retail segments, the Group seems more inclined towards the real estate.

FMCG, retail and real estate are all independent businesses. The property business should develop property and then sell it or lease it out. Retail has to buy property or lease property and then have a retail model. FMCG should concentrate on its brand building. Aadhar, Nature’s Basket and Godrej Lifespace are our three retail models. We figured that Aadhaar would require logistical support and hence went in for a joint venture, where 30 per cent is owned by us and the rest by the Future Group. They will provide the logistics, technology and retail knowledge, while we will provide our knowledge of the agri-businesses.

You unveiled a new brand identity some time back. How important was this for the Godrej Group?

About two years back we identified that with changes coming about in India and among Indian consumers, we needed to revisit our brand identity and our brand positioning. So we set up an internal team. Over a period of 18 months, the team evolved a programme for our new brand look and brand positioning and we launched it in a meeting with about 8,000 of our employees in the middle of April. Then we took it public.