Brands
ITC driving efforts to build purpose-led brands: Sanjiv Puri
Mumbai: ITC believes that brands must serve a larger societal purpose and leverage the substantial market interventions to positively influence social change. This belief drives our efforts to build purpose-led brands. Several of ITC’s brands lead purposeful initiatives in areas that can make a meaningful difference. The ‘Mangaldeep’ brand is empanelling visually impaired persons as fragrance testers, fostering a life of dignity and hope. ‘Fiama’ espouses the cause of addressing mental health issues. ‘Vivel’ champions women’s empowerment. The ‘Savlon Swasth India’ programme which orchestrates hygiene behaviour, has covered over 8,000 schools reaching out to over 2 million students. ‘Classmate All Rounder’ programme aims at holistic skill development, covering over 3,00,000 school students. ‘YiPPee!’s Terra programme upcycles post-consumer plastic wrapper waste into attractive laptop sleeves, tote bags and so on.
ITC combines agile competitiveness with environmental sustainability and livelihood generation
Corporates have both an economic and a social purpose. Hence, the path to future progress necessitates business strategies that not only address such uncertainties but also the underlying fault-lines of social inequity and environmental threats. This realisation led ITC to embrace a paradigm of responsible competitiveness, that combines agile competitiveness with environmental sustainability and livelihood generation.
ITC continues its stellar contribution to environmental and social capital as we complete 20 years of sustainability reporting. You will draw immense pride that 12 of your company’s hotels and the data centre “ITC Sankhya” became the first in the world to be certified LEED Zero Carbon, with two hotels also receiving the LEED Zero Water distinction. ITC’s businesses and value chains today support over six million livelihoods. The footprint of your company’s CSR projects spans over 300 districts in 27 States/Union Territories and reaches out to over 7.5 million people of which nearly 5 million are women. Several more milestones in sustainability performance have been crossed, which I will detail in a subsequent section.
ITC’s two-horizon approach – strengthening current livelihoods and building capabilities for better tomorrow
Over the years, ITC has implemented an impactful Social Investments Programme to catalyse gainful livelihood opportunities for rural communities through a two-horizon approach. Horizon-1 focuses on strengthening current livelihoods of communities, primarily in agriculture and allied sectors whilst Horizon-2 builds capabilities for a better tomorrow. Interventions in areas such as primary education, vocational training, women empowerment, healthcare and others have been progressively scaled up over the years with a transformative impact on the ground. Pursuing our diversity and inclusion goals, it is heartening that many of our state-of-the-art ICMLs employ a majority of women, ranging between 50-75 per cent of the total workforce.
ITC sustained its ‘AA’ rating by MSCI-ESG for the fifth consecutive year reinforcing its leadership amongst peers. It is a matter of pride that our innovative initiatives have enabled ITC to be the only company of its size to achieve the global environmental distinction of being carbon, water and solid waste recycling positive for over 18, 21 and 16 years respectively.
In today’s context it is evident that any strategy, which is devoid of addressing the growing societal challenges will be outdated, irrelevant and bound to be short-lived. It is for this reason that ITC has made sustainable and inclusive growth the bedrock of its corporate strategy, crafting innovative business models that work towards building economic, environmental and social capital as a unified approach.
Brands
Microsoft faces worst quarter since 2008 financial crisis
Cloud giant battles soaring AI costs and fierce competition from nimble startups.
MUMBAI: When the tech titan starts looking a little wobbly, even the Magnificent Seven can feel the tremors because Microsoft is currently starring in its own sequel, “Clouds and Doubts.” Microsoft is on track for its worst quarterly performance since the 2008 global financial crisis, according to Bloomberg, as investors grow increasingly uneasy about rising capital expenditure and intensifying competition from nimble AI firms. The company has been pouring money into AI infrastructure, yet markets are questioning when these hefty investments will finally deliver stronger revenue growth.
At the same time, investors are shifting away from traditional software stocks amid fears that AI startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI are developing autonomous agents capable of replacing established products, including those from Microsoft. Jonathan Cofsky, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, noted growing concern that customers may bypass Microsoft and deal directly with AI vendors, potentially disrupting its core business and putting pressure on pricing and margins.
Microsoft’s stock has tumbled 25 per cent in the first quarter, putting it on course for its largest drop since a 27 per cent fall in the fourth quarter of 2008. It has also emerged as the weakest performer among the so-called Magnificent Seven technology stocks, while a broader index tracking the group has fallen 14 per cent over the same period. The shares slipped a further 1.7 per cent after markets opened on Friday, marking a potential fourth consecutive session of declines.
Cofsky pointed out that Microsoft has become more capital intensive and that improved investor confidence will hinge on assurances that software growth will not slow materially. Despite the sell-off, the stock is now trading at less than 20 times projected earnings over the next 12 months, its lowest valuation level since June 2016. Its valuation remains slightly above that of the S&P 500 Index, although it has recently traded at a discount to the broader benchmark for the first time since 2015.
Bloomberg data shows Microsoft’s capital expenditure, including leases, is expected to surge to $146 billion in fiscal 2026, up around 66 per cent from $88 billion in fiscal 2025. Spending is projected to climb further to $170 billion in fiscal 2027 and $191 billion in fiscal 2028, based on average estimates. Investors are growing cautious about such levels of spending without clearer signs of stronger growth.
Microsoft’s Azure cloud division has reported a slight slowdown in growth compared with the previous quarter, while its Copilot AI product has seen limited user traction, prompting internal changes aimed at improving performance. Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Melius Research, warned in a March note that Microsoft’s upside in Azure could be constrained as the company works to address challenges related to its AI models and Copilot offering, adding that these issues are unlikely to be resolved in the short term.
Of the 67 analysts covering Microsoft, 63 maintain buy ratings, three hold ratings and one a sell rating. The average 12-month price target of $592 implies a potential upside of more than 64 per cent, the highest on record based on data going back to 2009. The stock is also trading below its 200-day moving average by the widest margin since 2009.
Reitzes suggested the dominance of buy ratings may indicate complacency among analysts, while highlighting risks in Microsoft’s productivity and business processes segment as well as its More Personal Computing division. In contrast, Tal Liani of Bank of America reinstated coverage with a buy rating, citing durable multi-year growth prospects across cloud and AI. Jake Seltz, portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, maintained that Microsoft retains strong long-term value and that its AI strategy is likely to be validated over time, viewing near-term concerns as a potential opportunity for longer-term investors.
The report highlights a growing divergence in market sentiment, with optimism around long-term AI potential weighed against immediate execution risks and investor uncertainty. In the world of big tech, even the mightiest clouds can have silver linings but right now, Microsoft’s investors are scanning the horizon for clearer skies.
