Trustworthy leadership, healthy financial returns, superb work culture and a major thrust on giving back to the society via its corporate social responsibility (CSR) services are the four parameters on which Reliance Industries (RIL) has scored high to continuously occupy its leadership position in BW Businessworld's Most Respected Companies (MRC) list for 2023, a perception-based study.
In the Lead
RIL is India's largest and most profitable private sector company. It is not just India's largest company by market capitalisation (Rs 17,72,456 crore), by revenue (Rs 9,74,864 crore), and by profitability (Rs 74,088 crore). It is also one of the largest contributors vis-à-vis exports (Rs 3,40,048 crore), job creation (2,62,558 new jobs created during the year), and CSR spends (Rs 1,271 crore). It is, therefore, no surprise that RIL has dominated all rankings for the past several years.
Addressing the shareholders in its annual general meeting, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani acknowledged FY23 as a challenging year yet the company clocked robust all-round growth. "Despite the headwinds, Reliance was able to deliver another year of remarkable performance both on operating and financial fronts. Consolidated EBITDA was at Rs 1,53,920 crore which is a robust 24.4 per cent growth as compared to last year. Consolidated net profit also grew 11.3 per cent," Ambani stated.
Impressive Growth
The impressive growth, according to Ambani, was well-rounded and supported by its business segments. Consumer businesses continued their growth trajectory with a rapid expansion of retail store footprint and strong subscriber acquisition in Jio, he added. Oil-to-chemical (O2C) business delivered a record performance amidst a challenging business environment as well while the Oil & Gas segment also registered a strong performance with sustained gas production from KG D6 block. During the year, Jio launched the True 5G services in India. By the end of the financial year, Jio's 5G coverage expanded to 2,300+ cities and towns, demonstrating an impressive pace of network installation. The rollout of FTTH services also gained momentum during the year for the company. Jio retained its preeminent position in the Indian telecom space with 439.3 million subscribers as of March 2023, with a net addition of 29.2 million subscribers during the year.
Caring for India
For Reliance, social commitment is strongly driven with the philosophy of 'We Care'. While addressing the nation's multifaceted development challenges, the central philosophy is the commitment to enhance the quality of life of people from marginalised and vulnerable communities. In FY23, RIL's CSR push touched lives of over 69.5 million people across 595 districts including 54,200 villages and urban locations. The Reliance Foundation Bharat India Jodo (RFBIJ) adopted a comprehensive approach to build resilience of communities against climate change across 998 gram panchayats. In FY 2022-23, the RFBIJ programme worked on 22 value chains across 24 districts by helping farmers achieve higher productivity, better farming practices and technological interventions in more than 16,200 Hectare Area of agricultural land.
Through its rural transformation initiatives on skilling, livelihood and advisories, 5,60,000 women (including farmers, fisherwomen and SHG members) were impacted in FY23.
The Sports for Development programme of Reliance Foundation impacted over 33,000 students across 1,702 educational institutes. "It is our dream to see India take centre-stage in the global sporting arena," said Nita M. Ambani, IOC Member, and Founder-Chairperson, Reliance Foundation.
