Welspun India Ltd., one of the world’s biggest home textiles company, is now turning its focus to the domestic market to achieve higher growth.
In an interview, Dipali Goenka, CEO and joint managing director, said the company would be debt-free by 2022, while achieving revenues of $2 billion.
by Lalatendu Mishra for The Hindu
What is the state of the global economy, especially the U.S., your main market?
The U.S. is our biggest customer. There, one sees a GDP growth of around 2% and that is a very refreshing change compared to the previous years. E-commerce is getting an upside. With the GDP growth, customers are coming out to retailers to buy.
Departmental stores are struggling but tier two retailers are doing very well. It means that people are focusing on neighborhood stores and going for value- for-money products. But let’s see by 2020 what will be the scenario. Right now it is all poised for growth, but according to experts, recession is overdue. India being in the prime of cotton growing, we can export more cotton products and we are in a good position to expand our business in the U.S.
If I look at Europe where Brexit is long awaited, U.K. market is in for a struggle. But there is opportunity in the Scandinavian and Nordic countries. East European countries are coming up well. The rest of the markets are doing well.
We are positioned well in all the exports markets. The interesting channel for growth is e-commerce. And it is our main emphasis globally. When we launch a product we take the voice of consumers. We have to be faster to the market than anything else. We are working with analytics and foreseeing the future, demand and trends to be relevant.
Your company received a setback in 2016 [U.S. retailer Target had severed a sourcing arrangement with Welspun following a case of alleged mislabeling of bedsheets], How did you handle the situation?
The next day we went to all the customers and spoke to them Today, customers appreciate us.
We owned up. The thing that came out of that was a world-class traceability solution. We worked on it. We have done blockchain in textile and cotton, something unheard of today. All our customers are with us except for one because of that.