Godrej & Boyce’s digital push to boost consumer-focus drive

Mumbai: The privately held Rs 11,500-crore Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company (G&B), which has partnered in India’s space missions, has undertaken a digital transformation initiative across its diverse group companies with an objective of bringing a consumer-centric focus and aiding cross-selling as well.
G&B, which is headed by Jamshyd Godrej, is setting up a centralised digital corporate team, which will work along with individual companies, explore synergies and enable a common platform for consumer insights and data that can be harnessed across the group.Coronavirus-triggered trends, such as the emergence of the omni-channel consumer, has hastened the plan.
G&B executive director Nyrika Holkar, who leads digital strategy for the group, told TOI that from the perspective of the 124-year old group, which has experienced several transformations over the decades, the current change brought about by digital acceleration and changes in consumer behaviour have unearthed several opportunities.
Holkar said G&B wants to continue exploring synergies from a design thinking perspective so that it can provide a superior customer experience across its multiple consumer businesses like appliances, furniture & interiors and security. which directly serve 100 million consumers. These businesses are leveraging digital to enhance reach by complementing their physical retail presence with a strong online presence through owned e-commerce as well as aggregator sites. Holkar believes that digital commerce will be a critical driver for future growth and not just another channel.
“We want to be an insights-driven organisation and for that we need to deeply understand the customer journey and how we can leverage insights across our diverse businesses. We want these data-led insights to guide our business decisions,” said Holkar, a qualified solicitor, who is the fourth-generation member of the Godrej family.At the manufacturing end, Godrej Interio has deployed systems that study seasonality and trends to forecast demand and help production planning. Efficiency has increased significantly across multiple stages of the product journey, and in some cases, reaching up to 50% higher efficiency from what it was before the upgrades to systems and processes. “Even though sales on the Godrej Interio e-commerce portals increased by 40% during the pandemic, we want to set an even bolder revenue target for direct-to-customer. We believe this target can be achieved by curating personalised experiences and offering differentiated services. The furniture business has an ambitious target of growing its digital commerce 5x over the next 3 years,” said Holkar.
Both B2C and B2B businesses, which contribute equally to the group’s turnover, adopted their own paths on how they want to transform digitally. G&B Group chief digital officer Poorav Sheth said: “It is essential to draw synergies to manage customer experiences and their expectations, which is the essence of having a common platform. Take for example, at our storage solutions business, if a customer says they want to build a warehouse, can we not share that lead with our forklift division, because ultimately, these are all in the same industry. A common platform can help you to cross-sell rather than work in silos. Godrej Material Handling business has recently introduced a fleet management system that provides customers with live data and preliminary analysis of operations to efficiently manage their assets, ensure their security and also monitor equipment health. So, you have a common platform that solves multiple challenges for the customer leading to more efficiency.”
In its locks business, given that 30% of the sales come from the carpenter and contractor community, to manage these grassroots-level interactions, more than 20,000 carpenters and contractors across the country are now part of an app that offers them loyalty benefits and accidental covers.
The digital transformation interventions are expected to bring about a behavioral change in people. While the Group would look at bringing in niche, skilled talent for its central digital team, from consulting/technology backgrounds, there is also a goal to create digital champions through upskilling initiatives who will act as change agents for the digital transformation within the Group.