Fresh trails: The firm’s wall-care putty, a by-product of white cement, became a new category .

Birla White, a division of Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech Cement Ltd, has not only emerged as India’s leading white cement brand in the 30 years of its existence but also substantially enhanced the consumption of white cement in the country besides creating several new categories in the building construction industry through innovation, a top official said.

“There was a period wherein white cement demand was not increasing and we had excess capacity,” Anurag Angrish, joint executive president (marketing), Birla White, said in an interview.

“That led us to think something different...out-of- the-box,” he added.

“We thought of transforming Birla White and inventing different products and applications wherein white cement can be used.

This was to increase the overall demand of white cement in India and for our company,” he said.

That was the tipping point in the pre-2000 period, when the actual transformation of Birla White started.

The company, which began a unit in 1988 in Rajasthan, came out with wall-care putty, a byproduct of white cement and thus created a new category, he said.

The wall-care putty had grown into a ₹3,000 crore market with more than 2,000 players, including paint companies, vying for market share.

“It was in 2000 we thought of innovating and that actually brought the genesis of wall-care putty and we gave this product to India. This not only transformed Birla White, it also transformed the paints industry,” Mr. Angrish said. “It also transformed the painting process from liquid acrylic putty [made] by paints companies to dry white cement-made wall-care putty. It also transformed many businesses. Today, there are 2,000 putty manufacturers in India. In fact, one innovation, one transformation which Birla White did brought lot of changes and transformed so many lives,” he added.

The company, with a turnover of ₹2,000 crore, believes in picking up ideas from consumer’s thought process and come out with new products such as textura for creating texture on walls, Levelplast for smooth and gloss finish and GRC, a mouldable finishing material used for decorative elevations and applications.

In two years, it is planning to unveil four new products for which R&D is underway.

“The new products will again induce demand for white cement usage,” Mr. Angrish said.

The company is also focusing on exports.

“Currently, the volume is just about 3% of our total volumes but over the next three to five years, we are targeting 10% of the total volume,” he said.

With almost at 100% capacity utilisation now, the company is mulling capacity expansion.

However, Mr. Angrish refused to comment.

“Birla White believes in innovations, developing an ecosystem wherein the influencers, the company, the channel partners and the end consumers will get the relevant share.

“We look to develop and nurture such kind of ecosystem,” he said.

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Printable version | Oct 22, 2022 5:56:07 pm | https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/birla-white-mulls-boosting-exports/article24361633.ece