MAM
P&G India announces ₹300 crore ‘P&G Supply Chain Catalyst Fund’
Mumbai: Procter & Gamble India (P&G India), maker of brands like Gillette, Whisper, Vicks, etc, has announced a ₹300 crore ‘P&G Supply Chain Catalyst Fund’ to collaborate with external partners and innovators, in co-creating solutions that accelerate its journey towards supply 3.0 – the modern supply chain ecosystem. This fund will provide an opportunity to start-ups and innovators to collaborate with P&G on business solutions customized to create the next level of supply: a supply chain that provides greater agility, flexibility, scalability, transparency and resilience.
The announcement is in line with the prime minister’s Gati Shakti initiative, which is an endeavour towards multi-modal connectivity in the country that will enhance seamless movement of goods and services through targeted interventions.
P&G India’s strategic investment, as part of ‘P&G Supply Chain Catalyst Fund’ will encompass a diverse array of initiatives, including supply chain optimisation, digitization, capacity enhancement and sustainability, all designed to catalyse the company’s supply chain prowess. This new fund is part of P&G India’s ‘vGROW’ program that focuses on identifying and collaborating with start-ups, small businesses, individuals, and large organisations offering innovative industry-leading business solutions. These solutions will help the company in delivering a superior experience to its consumers and continuing to drive constructive disruption.
With this announcement, the company also launched the sixth edition of ‘P&G vGROW External Business Partner Summit,’ to be held from 28 to 29 September 2023. The Summit offers a platform to existing and new suppliers, in partnership with Incubate Hub, to pitch their solutions to P&G India’s leadership team. Senior leaders from P&G’s global leadership team, including P&G chief purchasing officer Ana Elena Marziano and P&G Sr VP Chandra Vaddadi, purchases also attended the summit.
P&G India subcontinent CEO LV Vaidyanathan said, “We are as committed to the nation’s progress as we are to serving consumers with superior products every day. With the ‘P&G Supply Chain Catalyst’ fund, we are focused on co-creating innovative solutions that enhance the very backbone of our operations – the supply chain. We are confident that focused interventions in the supply chain will have a positive impact on our overall priorities including constructive disruption and productivity.”
He further added, “Six years ago, we launched ‘vGROW’ – with the vision to create a platform to foster collaboration and partnerships with external partners and suppliers, to solve business challenges and provide a breeding ground to emerging startups across the country. With this fund, we have committed spends of more than ₹1800 Crore to date in business solutions through vGROW. We strongly believe that a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo will help us raise the bar on constructive disruption and better serve consumers, customers, and communities.”
vGROW is P&G’s first-of-its-kind platform to identify and collaborate with businesses and individuals offering industry-leading solutions. Through this platform, P&G engages with over 2300 suppliers including start-ups, small businesses, and large organizations from a wide range of industries and services – from creative agencies to technology partners to material suppliers.
In partnership with WEConnect International, P&G India also conducted the next edition of the Women Entrepreneur Development Program (WEDP). About 30 women entrepreneurs, who were selected via an application process, graduated from the two-day program aimed at their capacity development. As part of the program, senior leaders from P&G conducted training and workshops with real-time case studies covering various aspects of building a sustainable business including professional skills like business strategy, finance capital, new customer outreach and more, including strategic inputs for driving business growth.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
