Entrepreneur’s delight in June
Entrepreneur News:
June was the most delightful month for entrepreneurs. Especially because many events took place that brought Indian entrepreneurship great delight. The most important was the prestigious award received by the Indian giant conglomerate ITC Limited at the Rio+20 United Nations Summit at Rio de Janeiro
Indian multi-business conglomerate, ITC Limited, was presented the 2012 World Business and Development Award for its transformational rural initiatives in social and farm forestry programmes in India. The only Indian company to receive this honor at the ongoing historic Rio+20 Summit, this award has been instituted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),the International Chamber of Commerce and the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) in partnership with the Netherlands Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the UN Global Compact. ITC was among 5 large global companies to win this honour.
How ITC transformed:
The company registered as the Imperial Tobacco Company of India on August 24, 1910, with an authorized capital of Rs 1,000 in ten shares of Rs 100 each. Today ITC, has a market capitalization of nearly Rs 1,14,000 Cr.
However, the ITC saga started four years earlier, two English men Jellicoe and Page, travelled from London to Calcutta, looking for an agent for Scissors and other W.D & H.O Wills’ cigarette brands in India. They combed the business district of Kolkata, but it was hard to find anybody interested in cigarette at a time when the cult of blends, pipes, pouches with Turkish and Virginia cigarettes was in vogue.
Finally, a minor agent with little money, Buksh Ellahie, stepped in with borrowed money from a courtesan whom he married later. Fundamentally, Ellahie, as the first agent of Wills, started the journey of ITC. A lot has changed since then. Britishers ran the company until well after the country’s Independence in 1947. ITC got its first Indian manager in 1934 in Abdur Sardar Hussain, while its first Indian Chairman was Ajit Narain Haskar in 1969.
Today, ITC has interests in hotels, apparel, rural retailing, finance, packaged food, personal care, stationery, paperboard, packaging and printing, safety matches and even information technology.
Way2World wishes Mr. Y C Deveshwar, Chairman, ITC abundant successful wishes for scaling more peaks that are phenomenal, in his pursuit for entrepreneurial excellence.