SECTOR: Cement Products Visaka Industries Visaka Industries Ltd was founded by Dr G Vivekanand in 1981. A publicly listed company, it is a diversified business group with interests in cement roofs, textiles, 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.114.65 million. Vamsi Krishna Gaddam, Joint Managing Director, Visaka Industries Ltd, shares more…. Strategies to overcome COVID-19 and other challenges in FY2020-21: The company’s exceptional performance in FY2020-21can 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: 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 top-line and bottom-line: 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.