Enterprises Need to Navigate the ‘TURN’ to Reimagine the Future, says ITC’s Sanjiv Puri

Says we are navigating a critical ‘TURN’, a pivotal inflection point shaped by Turbulence, Uncertainty and Rapid change that calls for Novel strategies, innovation and solutions to reimagine the future

Excerpts from ITC AGM 2025 Speech by Chairman Mr. Sanjiv Puri:

As we gather at this annual meet, we are all deeply cognizant of the fact that we live in an era of unprecedented change. Geo-political conflicts, geo-economic fragmentation, elevated uncertainty in trade policies, the accelerated climate crisis, rapidly changing consumer preferences and regulations as well as the societal impact of dynamically evolving areas such as Artificial Intelligence are today raising significant concerns. We are indeed navigating a critical TURN, a pivotal inflection point shaped by Turbulence, Uncertainty and Rapid change that calls for Novel strategies, innovation and solutions to reimagine the future. This underscores the imperative to redefine growth and competitiveness, build resilience and adopt a new paradigm of compassionate capitalism.

Enterprises of the future will need to navigate the TURN, that I mentioned earlier. Future readiness is not merely about adapting to change, it is about anticipating, innovating and proactively shaping the future. And this is what the ITC Next Strategy has set out to achieve, redefining the next horizon of growth and competitiveness, creating larger value for stakeholders.

Today, I would like to highlight 2 key pillars of this strategy, namely, the creation of a future-ready portfolio and the need to build anti-fragile supplychains.

ITC is building a portfolio across all businesses to win the markets of tomorrow, harnessing its extensive institutional synergies to seize emerging opportunities. This is powered by a three-horizon strategy that focuses on 1) fortifying the core, 2) addressing value-added adjacencies and 3) nurturing new vectors of growth aligned to emerging trends.

Global turbulence has exposed the fragility of traditional supply chains, reinforcing the need to build agile, diversified and localised manufacturing and supply networks, whilst systematically addressing climate challenges.

ITC has over time invested in creating and nurturing several integrated supply chains in India that are today pillars of resilience and competitiveness supporting large-scale livelihoods. These value chains from farm to fork, plantations to paper & packaging together with their distributed manufacturing footprint promote local entrepreneurship, MSMEs and domestic sourcing with multiple alternatives to provide resilience in an era of intense uncertainty. ITC’s extensive manufacturing ecosystem of over 250 factories also includes several state-of-the-art Integrated Consumer Goods Manufacturing and Logistics facilities established across the country. These facilities are structurally designed for efficiency, agile responsiveness and resilience. Today, 90% of ITC’s raw materials are sourced locally, enhancing resilience of business operations.