Godrej Enterprises Group (GEG), which includes the unlisted Godrej & Boyce and its affiliates as well as a large land bank in Mumbai, has rebranded and repositioned itself along three lines — consumer, nation and future-first — marking a significant step forward in its illustrious 127-year-old history. The refreshed Godrej logo, to be used by GEG across its 14 businesses, was unveiled on Thursday. GEG also indicated that it was aiming for a revenue of Rs 20,000 crore by 2032 from the current Rs 16,000 crore. Executive director Nyrika Holkar, a fourth-generation Godrej family member who will lead GEG as part of the succession plan unveiled earlier this year by the Jamshyd Godrej and Adi Godrej factions, spells out her priorities in an interview with Viveat Susan Pinto. Excerpts:
How will the rebranding connect with the broader restructuring?
From the perspective of GEG, we wanted to create an identity that is cohesive and consistent with our various businesses, something which is dynamic and reflects a more premium offering from the point of view of our consumer-first units. For the nation-first cluster, we are shifting to a higher-order or advanced engineering at a global scale. From a future-first perspective, we are investing in newer areas such as green hydrogen and energy battery storage, which we believe are emerging areas for the future.
Where do you see GEG five years from now?
The brand refresh has kicked off the first part of the group’s transformation as we gear up for the future. The three clusters — consumer, nation and future-first — will allow us to keep our attention where it matters, building on our core strengths. The second part of the transformation will see us focus on harnessing our synergies within the group in a better way. We are also looking to double down on design-led innovation in both our industrial and consumer businesses.
While the Godrej brand is synonmous with quality and trust, we need to raise the bar for aesthetics or the “look, feel and fit” of our products. As we go ahead, our focus and investment will be on giving consumers better-designed products and improving overall customer experience for them.
We also intend to keep our focus going on sustainability, which is an important aspect of our business operations. We hope to see about 50% of our revenue coming from green products by 2032.
How are you addressing cross-holdings as far as the properties business is concerned? The two Godrej factions have this business in common. What is the status here with regard to untangling cross-holdings?
We have complete ownership of the land bank in the Vikhroli area (near Mumbai) and will continue to develop it after the split. These properties will be sold and marketed by Godrej Properties for a 10% commission, as per the existing agreement. There is no change in this agreement at all.
Almost 60% of GEG’s Rs 16,000-crore revenue comes from the consumer cluster and around 35-40% from the engineering and industrial vertical. Will this skew change further in favour of consumer businesses, given the premiumisation wave visible in India?
India is a big market for us from a furniture and appliances perspective. But we have no plans to take our focus away from the engineering vertical. It will continue to be an important cluster for us.
Having said that, the domestic market does offer a large consumer opportunity for us, given that people are increasingly getting aspirational, want tech-led and design-driven products that can make a real difference to their lives. The idea with our consumer-first businesses is to move the world forward for our users, with durable, aspirational and quality products.
Exports from your engineering business contribute just around 10% to the group’s revenue. Will this number improve going forward as you bring a global focus to operations within the cluster?
We certainly see the demand increasing for our process equipment and aerospace businesses in export markets. As things stand now, almost 70% of our process equipment business and around 30% of our aerospace business is exported. The export focus of these businesses, notably, aerospace, as well as units such as lock security and architectural hardware and intra-logistics can get stronger. We are working on it.
You highlighted sustainability being critical to your business operations. How will this play out?
In our furniture business, we are looking at green certification, in terms of ensuring that whatever wood we are sourcing is sustainable. From an appliance perspective, we are producing more energy-efficient products. The investments we are making in startups as part of our future-first cluster is aimed at accelerating the shift to renewable sources of energy from fossil fuels.