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01 Aug 2018 CW Team

Tata Steel has been in the steel business for over 110 years. In India, the company has its manufacturing facilities at Jamshedpur and Kalinganagar, with a total current production capacity of 13 million tonne per year. Peeyush Gupta, Vice President, Steel (Marketing & Sales), Tata Steel, shares more...

Highlight one major challenge faced in FY2017-18?
In FY2017-18, one of the key challenges has been to handle the state of business environment.

This could be due to rising expectations of the stakeholders and communities or due to the growing protectionism by the countries to safeguard their home production thereby restricting the free flow of trade.

Tata Steel has addressed these issues proactively by engaging with the communities around its operating areas and doing focused interventions in several areas.

Specifically, in FY2017-18, the company strengthened the governance structure for addressing the environmental, social and people-related material issues and mitigating the related risks. The company has been working collaboratively with its customers in the domestic market to drive localisation.

What decision do you consider the biggest contributor to the company's growth in FY2017-18?
Our single point agenda has been to keep pace with the growing needs of our customers and thus stay relevant to them as a credible steel supplier.

This necessitated that we invest in greenfield assets and make products hitherto unavailable for discerning market segments. The decision to invest and then ramp up Kalinganagar operations, both in terms of quality and quantity, has held Tata Steel in good stead to achieve a growth of 17 per cent in FY2017-18 over the previous fiscal against an industry growth of 6-7 per cent.

Particulars	Net sales	EBITDA	Reported PAT
FY2018 (Rs billion)	605.19	158	41.7
Growth over FY 2017 (in%)	13.63	32.28	21.05

(Standalone figures – India Operations)

In addition, Tata Steel took definitive steps in creating the new and exciting world of services and solutions especially for the construction segment. Introduction of the Wire rod mesh under the brand name Sm@rtfab, cut and bend rebar as ready to use links under the brand name TISCON Readybuild has enabled faster and cleaner construction practices. Last but not the least, in the retail and commercial space, Tata Pravesh doors have been introduced to experience the elegant look of wood coupled with the strength of steel.

What are your plans for the company's growth in FY18-19?
We have a three-pronged action plan for the immediate future. Firstly, the Kalinganagar Steel plant can be scaled up to its potential by expanding the operations. This will be a mix of production capacity expansion and development of capabilities with facilities that can make products for India of tomorrow. Secondly, the resolution exercise undertaken on NPAs has afforded a unique opportunity to step up our capacity's almost immediately. Our endeavour will be to propel the Bhushan Steel operations to its true potential.

Lastly, we have commenced work in India to be recognised as among the few leading technology companies in the space of alternate or new materials.