The story of ITC's rural ventures is not just a successful corporate case study but a powerful, effective and practical demonstration of how big corporate firms can participate meaningfully in the social reform process and yet, remain profitable. While most FMCG companies are struggling with sluggish top-line growths, competitive pricing and pressure on margins, ITC seems to be flourishing. The company has been making decent growth and expanding into new businesses like never before.

The most significant part of this growth story, in the last few years, is that along with its own growth, the company is also enabling the growth of another important constituentthe farmer. The company now has four important pillars of growth fast moving consumer goods(FMCG), hotel, agribusiness, and paperboards, paper and packaging. The FMCG segment includes its core cigarettes business and branded foods. But, the star in the ITC stable is the agribusiness, which has won worldwide acclaim for the e-choupal venture. Now, the company has added one more feather to the agribusiness division the rural retail market. The fact that there is no organized marketing and distribution in nearly 87% of India's villages, which are home to about 50% of the rural population, augurs well for this project. The objective is to make available assorted commodities closer to the rural customer and not vice-versa.

The company owes its success to two factors. It identified potential risks associated with continuing in a single business for a long time and executed timely diversification strategies by leveraging the already established strengths, and strengthening the existing line of businesses through new technologies. At the same time, it was able to understand the business environment and adapt to the challenges accordingly.

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