Indian Tobacco Company

ITC is one of India’s foremost private sector companies with a market capitalisation of nearly US $ 18 billion and a turnover of over US $ 5. 1 Billion. ITC is rated among the World’s Best Big Companies, Asia’s ‘Fab 50′ and the World’s Most Reputable Companies by Forbes magazine, among India’s Most Respected Companies by BusinessWorld and among India’s Most Valuable Companies by Business Today. ITC ranks among India’s `10 Most Valuable (Company) Brands’, in a study conducted by Brand Finance and published by the Economic Times.

ITC also ranks among Asia’s 50 best performing companies compiled by Business Week. ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards ; Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods ; Confectionery, Information Technology, Branded Apparel, Personal Care, Stationery, Safety Matches and other FMCG products. While ITC is an outstanding market leader in its traditional businesses of Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards, Packaging and Agri-Exports, it is rapidly gaining market share even in its nascent businesses of Packaged Foods ; Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Personal Care and Stationery. As one of India’s most valuable and respected corporations, ITC is widely perceived to be dedicatedly nation-oriented. Chairman Y C Deveshwar calls this source of inspiration “a commitment beyond the market”. In his own words: “ITC believes that its aspiration to create enduring value for the nation provides the motive force to sustain growing shareholder value. ITC practices this philosophy by not only driving each of its businesses towards international competitiveness but by also consciously contributing to enhancing the competitiveness of the larger value chain of which it is a part.

ITC’s diversified status originates from its corporate strategy aimed at creating multiple drivers of growth anchored on its time-tested core competencies: unmatched distribution reach, superior brand-building capabilities, effective supply chain management and acknowledged service skills in hoteliering. Over time, the strategic forays into new businesses are expected to garner a significant share of these emerging high-growth markets in India ITC’s Agri-Business is one of India’s largest exporters of agricultural products. ITC is one of the country’s biggest foreign exchange earners (US $ 3. 2 billion in the last decade). The Company’s ‘e-Choupal’ initiative is enabling Indian agriculture significantly enhance its competitiveness by empowering Indian farmers through the power of the Internet. This transformational strategy, which has already become the subject matter of a case study at Harvard Business School, is expected to progressively create for ITC a huge rural distribution infrastructure, significantly enhancing the Company’s marketing reach. ITC’s wholly owned Information Technology subsidiary, ITC Infotech India Limited, is aggressively pursuing emerging opportunities in providing end-to-end IT solutions, including e-enabled services and business process outsourcing.

ITC’s production facilities and hotels have won numerous national and international awards for quality, productivity, safety and environment management systems. ITC was the first company in India to voluntarily seek a corporate governance rating.ITC employs over 24,000 people at more than 60 locations across India. The Company continuously endeavors to enhance its wealth generating capabilities in a globalising environment to consistently reward more than 3,77,000 shareholders, fulfill the aspirations of its stakeholders and meet societal expectations. This over-arching vision of the company is expressively captured in its corporate positioning statement: “Enduring Value. For the nation. For the Shareholder.

It is also parent to one of India’s leading technology companies, ITC InfoTech. ITC pays constant attention to its employees by means of minimum wage raising programs, and providing healthcare through the application of preventive measures, periodical examinations for various diseases, and the necessary treatment at all times. It also provides a distinguished health insurance program for the employees and their families, which covers many diseases that aren’t covered by other programs. It offers healthy daily meals for the employees, along with comfortable and safe transportation means from and to the company. In this decade, the company launched a series of educational programs for its employees’ children with both public schools and universities education. The company took on the responsibility of paying all the expenses needed in as part of a motivational educational support policy for distinguished students

In 2003, ITC forayed into the Biscuits market with the Sunfeast range of Glucose, Marie and Cream Biscuits. Sunfeast’s brand essence, “Spread the Smile” connotes happiness, contentment, satisfaction and pleasure.

The mascot Sunny reinforces the emotional aspects of the brand. Sunfeast immediately established itself as a provider of innovative and distinctive products – Sunfeast Marie was launched in an innovative orange flavour and the ‘Sunfeast Dream Cream’ range includes new flavours as well as flavour enhancers. The Sunfeast Dream Cream range is currently available in 8 variants.The Company has also introduced ‘Sunfeast Dark Fantasy’, a dark chocolate and vanilla cream offering for the premium segment in select markets. Riding on the success of its initial offerings, ITC also entered the milk biscuit category with Sunfeast Milky Magic biscuits in the general milk and milk cream categories. Apart from milk which helps mental growth, these biscuits also contain the finest quality wheat aiding physical growth. Both cream and milk biscuits have received enthusiastic response from consumers.

In the last few years the Sunfeast biscuits portfolio has been enhanced to include salted crackers and cookies. The ‘Sunfeast Snacky’ salted crackers are available in 2 unique variants viz. Chilli Flakes and Classic Salted. Sunfeast’s cookie offering, ‘Sunfeast Special’ biscuits are also available in select markets.The Sunfeast Special range currently includes cookies in three variants – Butter, Cashew and crunchy Coconut, as well as cream biscuits in two variants – Choco and Orange. The recently launched Sunfeast Golden Bakery offers the freshly baked taste of cookies in 3 variants – Choco-nut, Butter-nut and Butter scotch. The brand has also launched Sunfeast Nice, a tasty and delightful offering of crispy, sugar sprinkled biscuits.

The Sunfeast product portfolio has been further expanded to include healthy snacking options as well. Sunfeast Pasta Treat’, a whole wheat based instant pasta was introduced as a healthy snacking option for children. After the tremendous success of the 4 initial flavours the instant Pasta range has been extended with two new exciting flavours – Pizza and Chicken. The pasta segment was further expanded with the launch of ‘Sunfeast Benne Vita’ in 4 innovative variants. This range has been enhanced recently with the launch of Sunfeast Benne Vita Flax Seed biscuits that reflect the brand essence of Benne Vita, which in Italian stands for ‘Good Life’. The flax seed content in these protein and mineral enriched biscuits is a rich vegetarian source of Omega III acids.With continued focus on health and nutrition, Sunfeast extended the biscuits portfolio to the nutritional segment with the launch Sunfeast Sachin’s Fit Kit – a range of healthy products co-created with Sachin Tendulkar.

It is for the first time in India that an icon of the stature of Sachin Tendulkar has been actively involved in the product development process as co-creator of the Sunfeast Sachin’s Fit Kit range. It is the shared vision of Sunfeast as well as Sachin Tendulkar that products under the Sachin’s Fit Kit range will enable create “Champions of Tomorrow”. The launch range comprises two offerings – Sunfeast Sachin’s Vitamin and Protein enriched biscuits and Sunfeast Sachin’s Multigrain biscuits.