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A growing middle class, the distinct advantage of having one of the youngest populations in the world and growing Internet penetration enabling better access than ever before leaves no doubt that India is poised for unprecedented growth, according to Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman & Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited.
Speaking at the company’s Annual General Meeting, Mehta said, “The second wave of the pandemic has been brutal and has ravaged the nation. However, we believe that the effects of the pandemic are just a pause in India’s consumption and growth story. It has been a speed breaker in India’s growth journey but will not change the trajectory.”
He added that the pandemic has pushed businesses to break new ground and reimagine the future that is equitable, sustainable, and purposeful. To achieve this, he said it would take concerted efforts from governments, businesses, and individuals.
Intelligent ecosystems
In his speech titled 'Winning in the New Decade' , Mehta gave shareholders a glimpse of the company’s future readiness. He said the company is building an ‘Intelligent Enterprise,’ and the HUL of the future will be a web of intelligent ecosystems.
Talking about how the power of a strong technology backbone became apparent for the business during the pandemic, Mehta spoke about the ‘Reimagine HUL’ agenda and how it redefined HUL's engagement with consumers, customers and the way the company operates. To illustrate this, he said that today over 500,000 stores in India use Shikhar — HUL’s eB2B app, which helped the company receive orders even when the salesmen could not reach the outlets during lockdowns.
“Technology is going to be the game changer, shaping societies as well as businesses. With education and medical facilities moving into the virtual space, it can, in fact, be the key to broad-based development of human capital, making products and services more accessible and democratised,” he said
On the future of workplaces, he said the new levels of uncertainty and volatility that “we see around us require a fundamental shift in the way we work and the way we help our talent develop to face the challenges of the future."
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