Visaka Industries Ltd was founded by Dr G Vivekanand in 1981. It is a publicly listed company on NSE and BSE. Visaka is a diversified business group with interests in cement roofs, textiles (wonder yarn), cement fibre boards and integrated solar roofs. It has a pan-India presence with 13 manufacturing units, 13 marketing offices and a countrywide distribution channel with over 7,000 dealer outlets. In FY2020-21, Visaka Industries Ltd declared revenues of Rs 11,465.3 million. Vamsi Krishna Gaddam, Joint Managing Director, Visaka Industries Ltd, shares more….

Strategies to overcome COVID-19 and other challenges in FY2020-21: COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdown have impacted every business. However, we believe COVID-19 has also forced us to think about our lifestyle, health, abysmal sanitation standards, which need a change of mindset, and the way we have degraded the environment. Our presence in sustainable yarn, solar roof and fibre cement boards, which are all completely environment-friendly, hold us in good stead and augur well for the future. The company’s exceptional performance in FY2020-21 can be attributed to volume growth and increased margins in the building products segment with cement roofing sheets commanding a premium in the market, strong rural growth, and the opening of urban and semi-urban markets during the year. Continuous cost rationalisation and digitalisation of market outreach strategies helped the company stay on track and achieve increased profits.

Major contributor to growth in FY2020-21: There were multiple reasons that helped us declare our best results in FY2020-21. Understanding the market and keeping demand for building materials in sight, we ensured our capacity utilisation was at an optimum. This enabled us to make the best use of resources, equipment and space, which enabled us to firm up prices. We ensured profitability by increasing volume and enjoying savings from economies of scale. Another reason was the extensive use of digital channels by our marketing and sales teams, which we capitalised on for our products. The cost-effective use of marketing resources proved extremely beneficial, both in terms of outreach and marketing spends. We looked at our costs and redeployed resources so that they were supporting our most profitable businesses, and we supported our long-term partners who had stood by us for years.

Decision avoided/made that helped maintain topline and bottomline: We continued with our business and ensured optimum capacity utilisation. We also ensured that we look at our business from a long-term perspective rather than a short-term one. This helped us avoid any knee-jerk reactions or decisions related to people, production and efficient use of resources. Essentially, we avoided being overwhelmed by the external situation and remained calm in these trying circumstances. We were sure this was a passing phase, albeit a long one, and that we, like the rest of the economy, would emerge stronger from it.

Plans for growth in FY2021-22 and beyond: As a company, we are trying to make the world a better place by focusing on sustainable technologies, products and services. The pandemic taught us all a lesson that we must start caring more and consciously change our habits and practices that are pushing us towards an unsustainable future. Having recognised this years ago, we have been focusing on sustainable business lines such as cement fibre boards, textiles and solar roofs. By doing so, we are ensuring that we remain relevant in the future, where sustainability and eco-friendly technologies, products and services will be preferred by consumers and favourably looked upon by investors and regulators.

VISAKA INDUSTRIES LTD	TOTAL REVENUE	EBITDA	REPORTED PAT
FY21 (Rs crore)	1,146.54	202.06	110.64
Growth over FY20 (%)	9.15	74.96	124.42