Nitco Ltd, a leading tile manufacturing and surface design company, is in the process of re-inventing itself. The company, primarily known for making a wide range of tiles, as also mosaic and marbles, has come up with a completely new strategy, where it has significantly brought down its manufacturing exposure and is focussing on sales and marketing, by leveraging its brand image. In other words, the company is transforming itself, from a manufacturing entity to an asset-light model, where it is now projecting itself as a comprehensive wall-and-surface solution provider, with focus on design and innovation aspects, as against sheer products. The company was facing a financial crisis few years ago and had gone through two failed CDR (Corporate Debt Restructuring) schemes. Then, in 2018, JM Financial Asset Reconstruction Co pitched in and acquired a 30 per cent stake in the tiles major, as a part of the company’s debt restructuring process. Now, Nitco is ramping up its sales (distribution) and marketing capabilities in a significant manner, even as it is bringing down its resource allocation to manufacturing, and sourcing most of its product portfolio from third parties. However, in the high-value segment of marble and mosaic, the company continues to maintain its manufacturing efforts. Also, it has ramped up its capability, by adopting a greater degree of automation and innovation. “We are heading towards a major transformation,” says Vivek Talwar, Managing Director, Nitco. “We now follow a new strategy, where we are all set to leverage our brand image by converging most of our resources to ramp up our sales and marketing capabilities in a big way. Besides, we are following an asset light model, where we will outsource tiles making, which is our main portfolio. In the high-margin mosaic and marble business, we will continue to retain our manufacturing base, with much better efficiency and innovation”. This model has already started showing positive results in the last few quarters, as the company has not only improved its sales in the B2C front, but also built up an impressive presence across the B2C space. It has bagged orders for prestigious projects, such as Jio’s BKC Centre, Mumbai (the largest ever Convention Centre in Asia); Iskcon’s Temple of the Vedic Planetarium; Gautam Buddha International Airport, Nepal; Royal Oman Police Academy, Oman; and Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant Project, Bangladesh. So much so that Nitco is now emerging as an important surface designer after completing several prestigious projects. Apart from Jio Centre at BKC, it has undertaken to equip Antalia (the residence of Mukesh Ambani) too. The tile maker has also partnered with architects and developers across the world for surface designing projects. Some of the projects it has been involved include GVK Mumbai Airport (largest inlay in India); Villa in Pokhra, Nepal; and IKEA store in Hyderabad. The company has been involved in several commercial and residential projects of reputed developers and is undertaking a few projects of the Prestige group in Bengaluru. Besides, it has worked in a few office projects of Google and Amazon.
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Projects like Iskcon's Temple of the Vedic Planetarium show Nitco's design capability