Rajeev Jhawar is an industrialist with over three decades of experience in strategic management. He is an alumnus of Ranchi University and London Business School and completed Management Development Course at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been the Managing Director at Usha Martin Limited since May 19, 2008. He is also the Director of Neutral Publishing House Ltd. COVID-19 created significant supply chain disruptions resulting in high cost of logistics. Prices of many of the key raw materials of Usha Martin Limited were also at record highs. Quickly anticipating these challenges posed by the pandemic was the most important step that helped the company remain resilient in the previous financial year, says Managing Director RajeevJhawar UshaMartin.
“We, as an organisation, were quick to anticipate these challenges and undertook several mitigation measures to ensure our businesses remained resilient. We were successful in maintaining our margins and profitability by enriching our product mix to highvalue products, and also by increasing our penetration in newer geographies like Australia and South Africa”, he said. Speaking about the increase in exports of Usha Martin’s products, he explained, “our focus on increasing exports by increasing market penetration in newer geographies bore dividends, as our revenue from exports on consolidated basis grew from Rs.1034.26 Crore in the previous year, to Rs.1366.24 Crore during the year under review, an increase of 32.10%”.
Usha Martin Limited, under the exemplary management of Rajeev Jhawar is all poised for expansion. This includes enhancing their product mix, focusing on building share in international markets and investing in capacity increase. “We are in the process of expanding our capacities for rope production, focusing on high-end ropes, specialised wires and also LRPC. We have capital expenditure planned to the tune of approximately Rs.285 Crore and expect to complete our expansion programme over the next 12–15 months”, Rajeev Jhawar, MD Usha Martin said.