Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is embracing change and technology to remain future-fit and embedding purpose into its business strategy, its chairman Nitin Paranjpe said on Monday while addressing shareholders at the company’s 90th Annual General Meeting held in Mumbai.
“Today, a robust digital public infrastructure, the deployment of 5G and increasing smartphone penetration in the country can provide a major tailwind to businesses such as ours. To ensure we lead this change, we are already on a journey to becoming an intelligent enterprise,” he said.
Speaking about how HUL leverages data to stay relevant and agile, Mr. Paranjpe said, “Through our People Data Centre, combined with social listening, we are capturing insights and consumer trends faster than ever before, enabling us to develop solutions in line with the evolving needs of Indians.”
“Our ‘Agile Innovation Hub’, a physical zone developed for collaboration and innovation, is helping us speed up product design, development, and testing, in order to launch innovations faster. Our Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) platforms are directly engaging with digital-native consumers, enabling an end-to-end shopping experience,” he added.
To serve consumers and customers better through technology, Mr. Paranjpe said, “we are digitising general trade through our digital Business to Business (e-B2B) solution--the Shikhar app where retailers can place their orders with us conveniently from anywhere. Today, a million-plus retailers have been onboarded on Shikhar and orders received through it contribute handsomely to the company revenue,” he said.
“We are also digitally transforming our supply chain to enable greater agility, flexibility, and efficiency across the value chain. We are setting up nano factories that enable us to produce in small batches of kilograms rather than tonnes. Our advanced centres such as Samadhan are supporting our customers by enabling faster dispatches and demand fulfilment,” he added.
He said that as India has geared up to become one of the largest economies in the world, and that Hindustan Unilever would continue to play its part in realising the dream of a new India.
