Dipali Goenka: Leading From The Front

She is at the helm of a billion-dollar empire, leading practices that have become growth triggers and differentiators to reckon with. Under her leadership, Welspun embraced sustainability and focused on a circular economy to the extent that its manufacturing plants have stopped using fresh water; its Anjar facility alone recycles around 30 million litres of water in a year. She injected the diversity agenda in the company as early as 2010, when she had just assumed charge, and has already grown the women workforce to 30 per cent from a mere 7 per cent.

Dipali Goenka, the CEO and Joint Managing Director of Welspun India, has many accolades to her credit, and yet she has a simple take on what made Welspun a global leader in home textiles — lead from the front. 

A Five-pronged Strategy
 Welspun’s overall framework can roughly be broken down into five key areas — the first being consumer centricity. Even before taking on the reigns of Welspun India, Goenka who was running the retail brands Spaces and Welhome, lived by this mantra. Much of what followed, especially in product innovations, was borne from this. “Whether you are a business-to-business (B2B) or a business-to-consumer (B2C) company, an outward looking approach is critical. We begin and end with our consumer,” she explains.   

Goenka asserts that innovation “must be relevant to the consumer”. To that extent, the company has invested in BrainTrust, web scraping, Bazaarvoice and focused consumer researches for feedback from home enthusiasts and making data-driven decisions. 

Sustainability can easily be dubbed as the second pillar in the Welspun strategy. From a circular economy focus to gender parity and diversity have been on its agenda long enough to auger significant results today. 

Goenka also calls out branding as another of the company’s key areas. “We work with global retailers and one of our brand promises is ‘Made in India’. In a wide market play, Spaces, Welspun and our other brands are divergent in the consumers they reach out to, more so given the present-day consumer. The right storytelling is paramount,” she comments. 

“As leaders, we have to recognise changes in the environment,” Goenka adds this to point out the company’s focus on ecommerce and hospitality. She explains, “Being omnichannel is imperative for the overall consumer experience. Hospitality is yet another important factor in that aspect.” She quotes the examples of Welhome and the 150-year old brand Christy, which became a part of Welspun by acquisition, as cases in point that strengthened Welspun’s operations in the US and UK markets, with digital playing a significant role. 

For every leader, leveraging its business model more effectively is nearly mission critical. “We don’t think as a manufacturer only but as a retailer and an FMCG player,” asserts Goenka. With this in mind, Welspun followed the ancillary model and set up capacities in Anjar and Vapi for its trims, packaging and yarn. 

Not About Selling Towels & Sheets

Welspun’s forward looking approach also made it operate as a ‘strategic partner’ to its B2B customers. “What is created for one retailer cannot be created for another. We have invested in detailing and analysing data to be able to tell our partners about basket sizes and what would be in it, right down to the colour. We created Welspotted with the purpose to catch trends. These are all in line with our consumer-first approach,” explains Goenka.

Goenka’s faith in data and processes was reaffirmed after the 2016 Welspun India cotton scandal. “It was complete calamity, but it taught us several lessons. It led us to create Wel-Trak™, which is the next level of blockchain. You can put a QR code on a towel and trace it back to the cotton. It not only propelled our efforts towards complete transparency but also reiterated that when you own up a mistake, it will result in solutions,” she says. The company doubled its efforts into establishing its brands such as Spaces as “thoughtful brand”, giving more choice to mass premium consumers, and also simultaneously upgrading consumers still depending on the unorgranised, local brands. HygroCotton and its reversible bedsheets are some results of these initiatives, targeted at different consumer groups. 

Creating Examples

Goenka is a firm believer in ‘always learning’. In 2003, when she began her Welspun journey, she was not armed with an MBA degree, which meant learning harder on the job. While at it, in 2006, she took the road to Harvard. “You can learn on the job when you have the intent and passion. Harvard, hence, was a giant leap for me. But it was in the spirit of constant learning and evolution. Balancing emotional and intellectual quotient is required; you can never learn enough. We live in a world that is disrupted every day,” she advises. 

The road ahead for Goenka will include reskilling and upskilling Welspun’s workforce. “We have to prepare for the digital way of working. Industry 4.0 will become a norm. We take our leadership very seriously and we will continue to focus on talent, technology and sustainability. It is my dream to create a sustainable world, which we can handover to generation next. There is much to be done,” Goenka states.