ITC looking to reset with disruptive biz models: Sanjiv Puri
NEW DELHI: ITC has extensively reset its strategy and will explore opportunities to craft disruptive business models to set up structural drivers helmed by digital and sustainability for its next horizon of growth and make the company future-ready, chairman Sanjiv Puri said on Wednesday.
The company is pursuing an accelerated journey to build a dynamic ‘Futuretech’ enterprise by investing in cutting-edge digital technologies to shape a new paradigm of competitiveness, create innovative business models and tap newer opportunities, he said while addressing shareholders at ITC’S virtual annual general meeting.
As part of the next horizon vision, the company is “proactively exploring inorganic opportunities” even as it has shrunk “business segments that were incongruent to our growth aspirations, such as the Lifestyle Retailing Business” while the existing growth platforms comprising megabrands will be scaled up and fortified. Puri, who led the gathering to a minute’s silence to pay homage to those who lost lives to the pandemic said,”the Black Swan event accentuated the undercurrents of digital and sustainability as predominant megatrends.”
“The recovery over the last couple of months is encouraging, though the possibility of subsequent waves creates nearterm uncertainties,” he said adding ITC will constantly monitor and proactively address these dynamic changes with agility. About ITC Next, Puri said each of the company’s businesses has pivoted to create new frontiers for the future, with enhanced competitiveness as well as focus on cost management to strengthen leadership or rapidly attain the top positions in the case of newer segments. As a core element of the ITC Next strategy, your company will continue to explore opportunities to craft disruptive business models anchored at the intersection of Digital and Sustainability, the two defining trends in the ‘new normal’, leveraging its institutional strengths,” he said.
“Your company’s digital transformation is being built on a foundation of an agile ‘Digital First’ culture. New frontiers are being explored across the entire value-chain ecosystem to add significant impetus to digital marketing, digital commerce, digital products and digital operations,” said Puri.
About the FMCG business, Puri said it is focusing to build a formidable business at scale and several of its brands have already achieved leadership positions.
“These purposeful brands anchor large categories and have immense headroom to grow given the relatively lower household penetration currently, and particularly with per capita incomes rising in the future. Sustained investments to drive innovation and accessibility will continue to fuel growth and enhance market standing,” he said.
SAN FRANCISCO: Hackers perpetrated what is likely the biggest theft ever in the world of decentralized finance, stealing about $600 million in cryptocurrency from a protocol known as Polynetwork that lets users swap tokens across multiple blockchains.
Tens of thousands of people are affected by the hack, Polynetwork said in a letter posted on Twitter. About $33 million of the stablecoin Tether that was a part of the theft has been frozen by Tether’s issuer, making it unavailable to the attacker.
It isn’t clear from the Polynetwork website who runs the protocol, which governs transactions that run on the application. Defi, or decentralized finance has surged in popularity in the past few years in the wake of a boom in the development of applications that let people trade, borrow and lend funds to each other without intermediaries.
Security researcher Slowmist said it has found the attacker’s email, IP address and device fingerprints, the team reported on Twitter. It added that “this is likely to be a long-planned, organized and prepared attack.” Crypto exchanges including Binance are involved in helping Polynetwork, Binance chief executive officer Changeng Zhao said on Twitter.
“The hacker has begun to use decentralized exchanges to convert the stolen assets into other assets, including stablecoins,” Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, said in an email. “Tokens such as stablecoins can in theory be seized by their issuers, which could lead to them being returned to their rightful owners. However this isn’t possible for the stolen Ether, although it may be possible to seize these funds if they are sent to a centralized exchange to be cashed-out.”
With Defi apps attracting billions in investor funds, they’ve also become frequent targets of attacks. This year, Defi-related hacks made up more than 60% of the total hack and theft volume of crypto attacks, up from 20% in 2020, according to crypto security company Ciphertrace.
At $156 million, the amount netted from Defi-related hacks in the first five months of 2021 already surpasses the $129 million stolen in Defi-related hacks throughout all of 2020, Ciphertrace said.