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ITC records 3x growth in e-commerce sales as compared to pre-pandemic levels
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IANS | 23 Jun, 2022
Diversified Indian conglomerate ITC Limited's sales through the
e-commerce channel in the last financial year saw a threefold rise over
FY 2019-20 levels, taking the channel salience to 7 per cent.
In
its recently released annual report, the company revealed that it
collaborated with leading e-commerce platforms on all aspects of
operations, including category development, marketing, and supply chain
and customer acquisition. This was augmented by the development of
exclusive and relevant pack assortments, driving digital-first brands,
and enabling platform discoverability through jointly curated campaigns.
ITC's
multi-channel distribution network, which facilitates the availability
of its products in nearly 7 million retail outlets across India, was
further strengthened in 2021-22 with the addition of new markets and
outlets to its direct servicing base. "Market and outlet coverage were
stepped up to appx. 1.4x and 1.1x respectively over the previous year,"
the company said in its annual report.
To cater to the vast rural
consumer base, ITC continued to roll out market-specific interventions
to enhance direct coverage on the basis of socioeconomic indicators and
market potential to achieve growth rates higher than the industry
average. "Direct reach enhancement in rural markets was supported
through a hub and spoke distribution model with the expansion of rural
stockists network to 1.4x over the previous year and collaborations with
rural-focused eB2B players," the company said.
By executing
over 110 new product launches, ITC unlocked new routes-to-market through
several strategic partnerships to deepen capabilities catering to
specialised segments, including 'on-the-go' consumption, direct
marketing and QSRs. The company's business with modern trade continued
to grow on the back of a format-based assortment approach catering to
the needs of a diverse set of shoppers with category-specific sell-out
strategies.
During the year, ITC's Trade Marketing and
Distribution (TM&D) vertical demonstrated a high degree of agility
and responsiveness to mitigate the heightened uncertainty and market
disruptions caused by the second wave of the pandemic. "Concerted
actions, including realignment of distribution infrastructure,
deployment of innovative delivery models, strategic partnerships,
enhanced usage of digital technologies and focused approach to
accelerate growth in emerging channels, were taken to ensure efficient
market servicing and availability of products," the company said in its
annual report.
Several other interventions were also undertaken
by TM&D during the year to enhance operational efficiency and
productivity in order to drive structural competitive advantage. These
include delayering of operations through direct shipments to customers,
smart buying including efficient freight procurement and supply chain
and network optimisation.
ITC also scaled up UNNATI, an app-based
anytime ordering system for retailers, along with the eB2B platform to
cover nearly 3 lakh outlets in 2021-22. It further strengthened VIRU
(Virtual Salesman), a technology solution to enable contactless ordering
by retailers and direct communication with trade, especially during
times of limited mobility or absence of salesforce, using Machine
Learning for hyper-personalisation.
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Customs Exchange Rates |
Currency |
Import |
Export |
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87.50
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75.65 |
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56.85 |
As on 13 Aug, 2022 |
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