Honeywell Establishes Critical Care COVID-19 Jumbo Centre At Dahisar, Mumbai

* Critical Care Centre part of INR 18 crore grant pledged for COVID-19 relief in India this year

* Well-equipped ICU for COVID-19 patients at Dahisar COVID-19 Jumbo Centre in Mumbai handed over to the State Government

* 120 oxygen concentrators, ventilators, N95 respirators, and PPE kits donated for distribution across Maharashtra

Honeywell today announced that it has established an intensive care unit (ICU) facility at the Dahisar COVID-19 Jumbo Centre in the city to treat critical COVID-19 patients. This is the second such facility set up as part of Honeywell’s COVID relief efforts in the country. The company established a similar facility in Bangalore, Karnataka, set up five COVID care centre across multiple cities, and donated essential medical supplies including 120 oxygen concentrators, ventilators, N95 respirators and personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospitals in the state of Maharashtra. 

Earlier in May, Honeywell also established a 20-bed COVID care centre at the Employees State Insurance Corporation Hospital in Bibwewadi, Pune, and plans to establish a COVID paediatric care centre in the city by the end of August.

“We are glad to see companies like Honeywell coming forward and inspiring industries to support the Government in augmenting the state’s healthcare infrastructure,” said Shri Subhash R. Desai, Hon’ble Minister for Industries, Mining, and Marathi Language, Government of Maharashtra.

“This critical care centre established at the Dahisar COVID-19 Jumbo Centre and the COVID care centre established earlier in Pune will not only provide essential healthcare during the pandemic but will also enhance healthcare capacity for the state’s future requirements,” he added.

The 10-bed ICU facility in Mumbai features necessary equipment to support critical COVID-19 patients. These include five class I ventilators, Fowler beds, BiPAP machines, multipara monitors with and without capnometers, a portable X-ray machine, an ECG machine, an infusion pump, and a laryngoscope set.  Additionally, Honeywell is providing N95 respirators and kits to the centre.

“Honeywell has committed INR 22 crore towards COVID relief in India and has partnered with several state and local governments to help address the ongoing pandemic,” said Ashish Gaikwad, Managing Director, Honeywell Automation India Limited and President (Interim), Honeywell India.

“We have established COVID care centres and critical care centres in six cities across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Haryana, and Uttarakhand. We are also donating essential medical supplies such as oxygen concentrators, ventilators, N95 respirators, and PPE kits,” he added.

Honeywell has established a 10-bed ICU facility in Bengaluru, similar to the one in Mumbai.

The company has also set up 20-bed COVID care centres in Delhi, Pune, Gurugram and Nainital. These centres are being run by the respective local and state governments and are equipped with beds, oxygen supply, PPE kits, medical consumables, and basic medical infrastructure to treat non-critical patients.

To date, Honeywell has donated 1,000 oxygen concentrators, 10 ventilators, 10,000 N95 respirators, and 2,500 PPE kits to various government and private hospitals across the country. 

About Honeywell India

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 technology company that delivers industry-specific solutions that include aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. All of Honeywell’s global businesses have a strong legacy in India, built over the last eight decades. Honeywell’s India commitment is evident in three state-of-the-art manufacturing and engineering operations, and four global centers of excellence for technology development and innovation. Honeywell employs ~13,000 people across different locations including Bengaluru, Chennai, Dehradun, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Madurai, and Pune.

StockEdge & Elearnmarkets.com Aims To Onboard 1 Crore Users By FY’23

* Kotak Securities has recently acquired nearly 10% stake in the financial markets-focused firm

Kolkata-based financial markets education and analytics-focused fintech firm - Kredent InfoEdge Pvt. Ltd. (KIPL), which owns and operates the platforms - StockEdge and Elearnmarkets.com, aims to grow its user base from over 23 lakh currently to 1 crore by FY23, following the recent capital infusion of INR 10 crore by Kotak Securities. The company is also looking to raise Series A in a few months from now.

KIPL, the holding company for both StockEdge and Elearnmarkets.com, has invested in building an alternate ecosystem for first time investors in India with the intent to democratise the financial markets. Currently, the company has two growing platforms under its fold - Elearnmarkets.com for financial education and StockEdge for data analytics in stock markets and mutual funds. 

Launched in 2014, Elearnmarkets.com has evolved from a standalone education portal to becoming India’s largest platform for practical financial market education with over 200 market experts sharing their knowledge in 9 languages with over 10 lakh learners. The platform has grown by 400% in the last 15 months. On completion of the relevant courses, the learners receive certification from NSE Academy, MCX and NCDEX.

StockEdge, which was launched in 2016 to help traders and retail investors obtain structured data of listed companies along with cutting-edge analytics for decision-making, has now evolved into a full-fledged equity and mutual fund research tool with over 2 million app downloads and over 7 lakh monthly active users. The platform has doubled its userbase over the last 15 months.

60% of users in both the platforms are first time market entrants in the average age group of 24-30. In terms of gender distribution, about 20% of the total users are women. Similarly, the platforms have witnessed a significant uptick in users from Tier 2/3 cities. The company sees these segments as the next big growth drivers.

The company will deploy the funds raised towards the strategies of the future – launching a social investing platform, a marketplace of experts as well as gamification of financial market education. While the company already offers content and other services in 9 vernacular languages, endeavors are underway to increase that further, to enable the participation of people from across India towards the journey of financial independence, entrepreneurship, inclusion and efficient investing.

Commenting on the market opportunity, Co-founder & CEO Vineet Patawari said, “Financial markets are certainly experiencing a dramatic shift – from a traditional commission-driven model to a DIY user-driven platform model. The emergence of direct equity as an asset class has been greatly augmented by the pandemic with over 1.50 crores new investors added in the last 15 months in the Indian market. With retail participation in India at a measly 4% of the population, there is sizeable headroom to grow, and as a full-stack player in a highly fragmented market, we are well poised to capitalize on the post-pandemic opportunity awaiting us.”

Speaking about the future, Co-founder & MD Vivek Bajaj said, “We started as a financial education company and evolved to become an alternate ecosystem for retail investors covering learn, analyze, collaborate and transact as stages of the investor’s journey. With the current round of capital infusion by Kotak Securities and others, we are on track to fulfil our mission to truly empower retail investors in India.”

The company follows a freemium business model across both platforms. In Elearnmarkets.com, consumers get free learning content and progress to transact by buying specialized advanced learning modules like courses or webinars. In StockEdge, they subscribe to advanced paid features such as actionable analytics and premium community access.

About Kredent InfoEdge Pvt. Ltd.:

The company is building an alternate ecosystem for empowering retail investors in India. The company is working with multiple intermediaries and also with direct investors in making the relevant knowledge and right data widely available to everyone. The company is extremely focused on Bharat and want to be one of the catalysts for right financial inclusion in India.

LogiCloud Helps Bestseller Improve Delivery Visibility By Over 20% Across 800 Plus Outlets Of Vero Moda, Only And Other Brands

* LogiCloud platform is connected with multiple logistics partners of Bestseller to get real time data across all shipments. This has helped to improve supply chain performance and reach markets faster

WebXpress, a Global Transportation and Logistics SaaS provider, has recently successfully deployed their offering – LogiCloud, a supply chain visibility platform for Bestseller India. Bestseller is an international, family-owned fashion company. Owing to this implementation, Bestseller India’s 200 Exclusive Brand Outlet (EBOs), 1,500 Store in Store (SIS) outlets, and around 40 franchise will now be able to stay connected through one supply chain visibility platform.

LogiCloud, a supply chain visibility platform helping retailers connect with over 150 Logistics companies. LogiCloud helps retailers and manufacturing companies all aspects of supply chain from inbound, distribution and omnichannel deliveries.

Bestseller India offers premium brands where the product shelf life is only 6-8 weeks, hence speed is essential part of this business. Product availability at different location at the same time while retaining this premium experience is key function of supply chain team which enhances the brand equity.

To achieve this, Bestseller India works with multiple logistics partners to reach customers across India. The challenge is to get information across partners in real time and ensure any delays are known to supply chain team to take action.

Some of the key ways LogiCloud is helping Bestseller are :

Order Management: Integration with SAP ERP and WMS

Partner Allocation: Algorithm based selection of right logistics partner for right lane

Tracking and Prediction: Real time tracking and delay prediction 

Proof of Delivery Management: Get digital POD and audit every shipment for quality of delivery

Reverse Logistics: Store order assignment to pick up and delivery to warehouse

Freight Audit: Audit of logistics invoices based on timeliness and quality of service

Control Tower & Analytics: Real time monitoring with a map-based tool

LogiCloud Platform helps Bestseller simplify entire process from booking to partner allocation to tracking and all the way to audit of freight. This has enabled Bestseller, owner of popular brands like Jack & Jones, Vero Moda, Only, Selected, keep a tight control on entire supply chain and reduce information delays by over 20%.

Commenting on this association, Apurva Mankad, Founder & CEO, WebXpress, said, “We treasure our association with Bestseller greatly. This has been a partnership which allowed us to digitally transform entire supply chain spanning 800 locations. We have shown that even smallest logistics company can be digitally connected to a large company. We are hopeful that LogiCloud platform would help connect all stakeholders in supply chain and lead to greater efficiencies” 

Commenting on this deployment, Ranjan Sharma, CIO and Head of Supply Chain Management, Bestseller India, said, “Involving multiple logistics partners is a must in our business but bringing them all into one system was a challenge. Monitoring them and ensuring seamless supply chain visibility leads to optimization of our processes. We did not just want to bring a partner with technical knowledge, but a partner who could bring in expertise and ground level knowledge. The idea was to learn and evolve through the process together. LogiCloud fits that bill perfectly, with their intricate knowledge of the industry.”

About WebXpress

Webxpress is a Global Transportation and Logistics SaaS provider, headquartered at Mumbai.  It serves over 100 enterprise customers and 10,000 plus users. It is a globally proven solution with deployment across SE Asia, Middle East, and Africa. WebXpress essentially has two lines of offerings – SaaS solution for Transportation and LogiCoud- Supply chain visibility platform. Founders by Apurva Mankad, WebXpress aims to brings digital transformation to all stakeholders in supply chain. Some of their customers are leading names such as Aditya Birla Fashion, Landmark group, FedEx, Thermo Fisher, Future Supply Chains, DTDC, Rhenus among others.

Digital Transformation Solutions Player - UST To Hire Over 10,000 New Employees In 2021

* Company seeks to grow workforce by 40% to meet demand for digital solutions~

UST, a leading digital transformation solutions company, today announced its plans to hire over 10,000 new employees this year across the globe, with a focus on North America (US, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica), South America (Chile, Peru, Argentina, Colombia), Europe (United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), APAC (India, Israel, Malaysia, and Singapore) and Australia. Since the onset of the pandemic, UST has further accelerated the digital transformation of companies and the rise of the digital economy, which has spurred demand for hiring skilled talent. Currently with over 26,000 employees across 25 countries and 35 offices, UST is looking to add more technologists and creative thinkers to its expanding workforce.

The California, US-headquartered global company is hiring over 10,000 tech-savvy, qualified candidates, including 2,000 entry-level engineering positions, with digital proficiencies and key skills in Digital Transformation, Cybersecurity, Cloud Infrastructure, Java, Data Science & Engineering, Application Development and Modernization, AI/ML, Automation (RPA/IPA). These new hires will help UST’s clients transform their businesses with a human-centered approach and the power of technology.

“At UST, we champion inquisitiveness and lifelong learning in an entrepreneurial environment and are proud to provide individuals with opportunities to start or advance their careers. From day one, our new hires will be on the ground innovating with the newest technologies to deliver solutions and build products that matter to clients and their end customers,” said Manu Gopinath, Joint Chief Operating Officer, UST. “These new hires will support the ongoing development of our industry-leading products and platforms that will scale with the considerable growing demand for our solutions. Working with UST means standing up for something while standing out—touching billions of lives as you tackle fresh challenges and co-create meaningful change.”

UST has a track record of investing to build a future-ready workforce, with a focus on upskilling and retraining talent. Entry-level employees who join UST undergo more than 100 hours of accelerated skilling programs. Team members are empowered to run with their own ideas – bringing them to life through hackathons and programs like UST’s in-house incubator, UST Garage Ventures. UST’s employee retention is above the industry average, and it has one of the highest percentage of employees rejoining the company. UST encourages and helps especially women candidates seeking a career comeback, especially those who have taken a job break for family reasons or to raise children.

“Now is an ideal time to join UST. With our flexibility and hybrid workplace culture, we embrace solving business-critical problems of our customers and promote entrepreneurship as they are the catalysts of innovation,” added Alexander Varghese, Joint Chief Operating Officer, UST. "We are in an exciting phase of the growth of the company. Together, we collaborate and enhance the way people work, live, and do business across the world.” 

UST is recognized by Great Place to Work™, the world's foremost authority on workplace culture, in India, UK, Mexico and the US. A Glassdoor™ Employees' Choice Award recipient for ‘Top 100 Best Places to Work in 2020’, the company is also certified as a Top Employer in India, USA, UK, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain, Singapore, and the Philippines by the Top Employers Institute™ (TEI). UST has set a benchmark among companies with women-inclusive policies to attract and retain valuable talent. As a result, UST was also in the Top 100 list for Best Companies for Women (BCWI) and Most Inclusive Companies Index (MICI) by Working Mother & Avtar100.

For more information about careers at UST, please visit https://www.ust.com/en/careers.

About UST

For more than 20 years, UST has worked side by side with the world’s best companies to make a real impact through transformation.  Powered by technology, inspired by people, and led by our purpose, we partner with our clients from design to operation. Through our nimble approach, we identify their core challenges and craft disruptive solutions that bring their vision to life. With deep domain expertise and a future-proof philosophy, we embed innovation and agility into our clients’ organizations—delivering measurable value and lasting change across industries and around the world. Together, with over 26,000 employees in 25 countries, we build for boundless impact—touching billions of lives in the process. 

Blue Dart Announces Q1 Financial Results With Sales Clocking In At ₹8,648 Million

Blue Dart Express Limited, South Asia's premier express air and integrated transportation & distribution company, declared its financial results today for the quarter ended June 2021, at its Board Meeting held in Mumbai today. 

The company posted ₹ 294 million profit after tax (previous year corresponding quarter loss of ₹1,279 million) for the quarter ended June 30, 2021; Revenue from operations for the quarter ended June 30, 2021 stood at ₹8,648 million.  

Performance Highlights: Q1 FY2022 vs. Q1 FY2021 STANDALONE 

Revenue from operations of ₹8,648 million, growth of 109% YOY 

EBITDA of ₹892 million compared to ₹ -1160 million in Q1 FY2021  

EBITDA margin at 10.24% compared to -27.86% in Q1 FY2021  

PAT of ₹294 million compared to ₹ -1279 million in Q1 FY2021  

EPS at ₹12.38 as compared to ₹-53.92 in Q1 FY2021 

Performance Highlights: Q1 FY2022 vs. Q1 FY2021 CONSOLIDATED 

Revenue from operations of ₹8,662 million, growth of 108% YOY  

EBITDA of ₹1,657 million compared to ₹-399 million in Q1 FY2021  

EBITDA margin at 18.98% compared to -9.52% in Q1 FY2021  

PAT of ₹313 million compared to ₹-1,258 million in Q1 FY2021  

EPS at ₹13.18 as compared to ₹-53.04 in Q1 FY2021 

Balfour Manuel, Managing Director, Blue Dart says, “I am pleased to announce that the Blue Dart brand continues to stand out and delivered good results during the first quarter of the new financial year. Against the backdrop of the second wave of the pandemic and as we battle several new variants, Blue Dart’s business continues to remain agile and adaptive to the changing external environment. Our results mirror a recovering economy that is increasingly trusting the digitalization process and a sustainable eCommerce boom - we benefit strongly from both.”  

Speaking about the business outlook, he says, “In the last quarter, Blue Dart’s innovation and customer centricity propelled further, as we continued to support the nation in its battle against COVID-19. Blue Dart Med-Express Consortium, will signify a new chapter in the newly digitalized logistics space, using drones to guarantee efficiency, reliability and wider reach. We even continued to leverage our market – differentiating Boeing 757-200 freighters to move oxygen concentrators, vaccines and other critical COVID relief material not only in the Indian terrain but also internationally. Support to our customers during their most challenging times, with our resilient first, middle and last – mile solutions, has ensured that we remain their preferred logistics partners.”  

Commenting about the sustainability initiatives at Blue Dart, he says, “Under our credo, Connecting People, Improving Lives, the organization has set in motion a number of technological initiatives that will drive green logistics and ESG which is an integral part of Strategy 2025. Leveraging its digital footprint, the organization has reduced its dependence on paper and has also been consistently planting 1,00,000+ trees each year. The organization has set precedent well within its first quarter of the financial year 2021-22 by continuing to be a Provider of Choice, Employer of Choice and Investment of Choice for all its stakeholders.” 

Elaborating further, Balfour Manuel says, “The outlook for the year remains cautiously optimistic, amid impending third wave predictions that could impact the economy. Accelerating the use of future-ready sustainable tech-based solutions, as part of the DPDHL Group; the organisation is committed towards achieving two important goals: Mission 2050 – Zero Emissions and Strategy 2025 – Delivering Excellence in a Digital World.” 

Q1 FY 2022 performance was impacted by the second wave of the COVID-19. Localised lockdowns during the second wave kept economic activity from stalling to levels similar to those during 2020 which impacted movement of goods. 10 states that have been hit the hardest by the second wave, collectively accounted for more than 60% of the pre-pandemic level of India's GDP. Manufacturing PMI and GST collections were also low during the quarter. 

Blue Dart was better prepared to mitigate the pandemic impact on the business and operated every single day. As a result, the Company could achieve robust Revenue from Operations of ₹8,648 million during the quarter under review, a resilient financial performance despite very challenging market conditions. The company was able to successfully implement GPI with its customers. 

The company, known for its reliable, responsive and resilient customer service team, continued to deliver superior customer experience through its service quality despite restrictions and lockdown measures which was highly appreciated by the customers. The Company carried 51.22 million shipments (last year 15.54 million shipments) weighing 1,84,431 tons (last year 90,188 tons) during the quarter. 

The Company achieved EBITDA of ₹892 million with EBITDA margins of 10.24%. Due to the second wave of the pandemic and restrictions in movement, EBITDA margins was impacted on sequential basis primarily due to lower utilization levels and increase in employee costs due to merit increase. Volatility in foreign exchange rates specifically in Euro during the quarter also had impact on profitability due to ROU liability being M to M under IND AS 116. Profit after Tax stood at ₹294 million with a margin of 3.37%.  

The organisations commitments of being a ‘Great Company to Work for’ All and a ‘Highly Trusted Company’ with a keen focus on Diversity & Inclusivity remains unfaltering. Blue Dart has always believed in providing equal employment opportunities to all those who are willing to contribute towards the brand’s success. The express logistics provider is keen to leverage the strengths of a diverse workforce and recognise, reward and include exceptional thought diversity. In order to safeguard employee interests, especially that of frontliners Blue Dart conducted an Internal Vaccination Drive that ensured 100% of teams are vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19.   

About Blue Dart: 

Blue Dart Express Ltd., South Asia's premier express air and integrated transportation & distribution company, offers secure and reliable delivery of consignments to over 35,000 locations in India. As part of Deutsche Post DHL Group’s DHL eCommerce Solutions division, Blue Dart accesses the largest and most comprehensive express and logistics network worldwide, covering over 220 countries & territories, and offers an entire spectrum of distribution services including air express, freight forwarding, supply chain solutions, customs clearance etc. 

The Blue Dart team drives market leadership through its motivated people, dedicated air and ground capacity, cutting-edge technology, a wide range of innovative, vertical-specific products and value-added services to deliver unmatched standards of service quality to its customers. Blue Dart's market leadership is further validated by its position as the nation’s most innovative and awarded express logistics company for exhibiting reliability, superior brand experience and sustainability which include recognition as one of ‘India's Best Companies to Work For’ by The Great Place to Work® Institute, India, ranked amongst ‘Best Multinational Workplaces in Asia’ by The Great Place to Work® Institute, Asia, voted a ‘Superbrand’ and ‘Reader’s Digest Most Trusted Brand’, listed as one of Fortune 500’s ‘India's Largest Corporations’ and Forbes ‘India's Super 50 Companies’ to name a few. 

Under the DHL Group motto of “Connecting People, Improving Lives”, we focus our corporate responsibility under three pillars - GoTeach (Championing education), GoGreen (Protecting the environment) and GoHelp (Structures engagement with communities & Disaster management response).  

Mutual Success Planning - From Account Based B2B Marketing To Structured Engagement

By Biswajit Das, Co-Founder, Brandintelle

* The author is a founder of Mumbai-based Brandintelle Services - a central marketing platform for Marketing Departments which claims to bring analytics closer to workflow automation. 

Ask any B2B company & they will tell you that they handle each  customer individually. A B2B company’s engagement with its client starts with marketing - this is generally referred to as Account Based Marketing (ABM).

But most B2B companies realise that engaging with their clients cannot stop with marketing but must include sales & service to create an end-to-end experience for the client. This is called Account Based Engagement (ABE).

Account Based Engagement (ABE)

The objective of ABE is to engage customer accounts across Marketing, Sales & Service. Therefore it must synchronise the efforts of Marketing with Sales & Service. If ABE is led by Marketing, then its success rate & adoption is typically low because of weak support from Sales & Service teams.

For ABE to integrate the customer’s pre-sales and post-sales experience, the organisation’s focus must extend from generating marketing leads to closing sales and further to jointly  ensure time-bound consummation of each sale by defining the first ‘goal’ followed by others. 

Here are some examples of what a first ‘goal’ event could be:

The first Campaign  (between Agency of Record & Client.)

Launch of the first Analytics exercise  (between Consultant & Client.)

‘Go Live’ of the first ERP module (between Software Vendor & Client.)

To implement the above, the client must cooperate with the B2B vendor to successfully manage the complex ecosystem & challenges of any B2B business.

Marketing Lead Generation Platforms

Marketing platforms play an important role in automating lead generation by capturing, nurturing & prioritizing data to provide qualified leads for sales. As B2B buyers embraced the internet to evaluate vendors, research & buy online, B2B marketers naturally engaged their clients through email, messaging, social media, display advertising & web pages. (This created its own set of opportunities & problems for B2B marketers - including the need to manage the explosion of data, use it to understand customer engagement/indicators of buying intent & personalize customer journeys.)

But things are not as rosy as they seem. Even today, 50% of marketing leads are never contacted. Most companies find it a challenge to generate consistent customer responses. And only 20% of visitors to a website are likely to ever become customers. Clearly, traditional demand generation, which primarily focuses on one-to-many marketing with generalized messaging and individual lead nurturing is not enough for B2B.

Clearly, there’s a huge need for B2B companies to engage with their buyers more effectively. They need to address buyers’ specific needs better by personalizing their engagement with them, navigating the complex ecosystems of their client’s decision makers &  influencers which define the collective buying behavior of a large organization. 

To achieve the above, there must be a mutually accepted template to navigate the multiple challenges & opportunities of the complex B2B ecosystem.

Mutual Success Plan (MSP)

Converting a lead into a sale is just the first challenge. For B2B companies, the real challenge is a process which ensures successful implementation,  which begins after closing the sale!

Ideally, a Mutual Success Plan should come in just after the client agrees to sign up (& a few steps before the client’s P.O.)  This helps both buyer & seller to define the long path to the client’s own goals, with the P.O. being just one of the many steps.

The Mutual Success Plan gives a form to Account Based Engagement (ABE) as it helps engage multiple stakeholders from both the buyer’s as well as seller’s side. The MSP ensures that sellers focus on engaging with the client in a structured manner, with multiple stakeholders from the buyer’s side engaged with marketing, sales & services teams from the seller’s side.

A Mutual Success Plan begins by defining the date of the first ‘goal’ of the buyer. Working backwards from the first ‘goal’, the MSP defines all the stages with individual stakeholders & responsibilities defined. Minimum time is estimated for each stage to arrive at the expected date of the ‘buyer’ to issue the P.O. This makes it abundantly clear whether it’s possible  to achieve the date of first ‘goal’ or whether it needs to be adjusted. 

With a Mutual Success Plan, all stakeholders become explicitly aware of their individual roles, responsibilities & deadlines in a compelling manner,  with critical dependencies highlighted. To begin with, the MSP ensures stakeholder buy-ins at sellers & buyers ends, & sharing deadlines in a transparent manner. 

Advantage Seller, Benefit Buyer!

But being the key driver, the seller can go ‘out of the way’ to ensure that individual information & documents are available to different stakeholders at the buyer’s side in advance. This is in addition to generating reminders to the stakeholders when a critical deadline is threatened. Thus, the seller can not only help ensure timely execution of the MSP, but also intimate of any delay in achieving the goal - well in advance.

All this results in a more personalized interaction based on a deeper understanding of the customer’s pain points & business needs, which in turn builds deep, successful & long-lasting relationships. 

Castrol India Announces 2Q (April - June) And 1H (Jan - June) 2021

* Maintains strong financial delivery in the first half of 2021

* Continued investment in brands yielding good returns 

Castrol India Limited reported a solid financial performance and resilient business delivery in 2Q 2021 maintaining the momentum built over the previous few quarters. We delivered a strong set of numbers with both topline and bottom line seeing good growth versus the same period of last year, which was subdued on account of a national lockdown brought about by the first wave of the pandemic.

2Q revenue from operations @ INR 890 crores (81% higher) and 2Q Profit Before Tax @ INR 190 crores (115% higher) 

1H 2021 revenue from operations @ INR 2028 crores (72% higher) and 1H 2021 Profit Before Tax @ INR 523 crores (103% higher)

Sandeep Sangwan, Managing director, Castrol India Limited: Owing to the Covid second wave, the quarter saw challenges in the form of localized lockdowns, muted demand, as well as a sharp rise in input costs. Our timely pricing interventions, along with agility and responsiveness helped us navigate this dynamic market situation. We continued to invest in our brands with increased marketing and advertising spends to support value delivery to customers and reinforce brand salience. 

In our endeavor to deliver quick and reliable service brand experience to consumers in collaboration with Jio-bp at their retail sites, we recently launched a new concept of Castrol Express Oil change outlets which offer quick oil change service for consumers on-the-go.  We also leveraged digital platforms to continue building engagement with the biker community with our high performance synthetics range of Castrol POWER1 ULTIMATE two-wheeler engine oils through performance-imagery led impact properties including Bollywood movie launch Toofaan.

Safety of our people and community support continue to be our strategic priorities along with protecting the financial health of the business during these difficult times. We have conducted vaccination camps for our plant staff who continue to operate our manufacturing plants safely, while implementing Covid-19 safety processes and guidelines as laid out by the government, and also for our employees who continue to work from home.

During this period, we celebrated a key milestone of our manufacturing plant at Silvassa completing 25 years of safe and successful operations. The plant has evolved into an epitome of trust and reliability over the years for our customers including key OEMs, and is considered as one of the most modern lubricant plants in the region.

Our work with the trucker and mechanic communities was recently acknowledged when our flagship CSR programmes were recognized with ‘Excellence in CSR” award by British Business Group Delhi (BBG). The award to Castrol Eklavya for upskilling of mechanics and Castrol Sarathi Mitra programme for holistic development of truck drivers, is a recognition of our endeavours towards sustained livelihoods with pride for these communities, along with recent interventions such as student scholarships, family connect programmes focused on health and wellbeing along with Covid awareness, and community vaccination drives that have helped us forge an even stronger bond with them during the pandemic. 

The Board of Directors of the Company has at its meeting held on 2 August 2021 recommended an interim dividend of INR 2.50 per share (2020: Interim dividend INR 2.50 per share; Final dividend INR 3.00 per share). The record date for the purpose of said interim dividend, which would be paid on or before 1 September 2021, is 12 August 2021.

We remain confident of our strong business fundamentals and longer term profitable business growth as the situation returns to a normal state.