Management Speak – Pavitra Shankar

The year 2022 has been tumultuous on many fronts. One thing is certain; resilience is one of the most important qualities an organisation or person can develop in order to pull through any situation.

The global economic scenario has affected our business in various ways over the last calendar year. Supply chain shortages and the energy crisis in Europe impacted our construction costs and required us to relook at finding more efficient ways to design and construct. On the national front, the increasing interest rates have been closely watched by residential developers as well as our customers. Recession looming in the United States and the layoffs happening in the tech sector will certainly have an impact on the outlook.

Within India, the market for tech talent is still strong, albeit not overheated with anecdotes of multiple offers and the abundance of moonlighting gigs. The evolving approach to work from home or office continues to support the demand for new homes that match peoples’ changing lifestyles. Thus, customer sentiment is still strong on the ground.

In our key markets of Bangalore and Chennai, residential supply is relatively low and therefore appetite for launches by well established players like ourselves see very good response from customers. Hyderabad is a housing market like no other with aggressive new supply in large formats that addresses the unmet demand from the key market of Andhra Pradesh in addition to Telangana.

Our land acquisition approach for residential has also expanded to plotted development, a pandemic trend that shows no signs of slowing down. 2022 saw the launch of three plotted developments within our portfolio, and we are keen to grow this in the coming years in addition to residentialled mixed-use townships and standalone apartment communities. Recognising trends and staying ahead of changes in customer preferences promotes the resilience of our organisation. Having the right product in the right place at the right time with the right price is not a happy coincidence but rather painstaking work of research, planning and acting on feedback from the frontline to the business development team.

The year 2022 also marks the launch of an important internal initiative, Sampoorna Parivartan 2.0 – Katalyze, our digital transformation journey.

“ I am proud of the approach we have taken to address the need for simplified, system driven process changes with the focus on improving customer experience at scale. ”

We have an internally sourced core team which has been a gamechanger in the speed of bringing these changes to the fore – both in terms of the knowledge they bring as well as the ability to convince teams to adopt the new approach. We have begun rolling out some of the revised processes to both internal and external customers, which have already brought about material improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Brigade is one of the most successful stories in Indian real estate, and our Chairman one of the most respected and admired for his vision in bringing new concepts to a developing industry. His reputation and way of conducting business is one of the biggest advantages that both Nirupa and I have as we transition into the next generation of growth at Brigade. He has lived by our core values of Quality and Customer Centricity FIRST and taught us by example to do the same. We are fortunate to have a strong team of well qualified professionals across the organisation who imbibe the same values. With the crucial support of Amar Mysore (Executive Director) and Pradyumna Krishnakumar (Chief Business Development Officer), we are excited for the road ahead and the promise of growth to come.