Bijoy, congratulations on your new appointment and role! Please share with us the history behind LIXIL's growth globally.
LIXIL has an interesting history. LIXIL started about 2011. It started as a combination of five different building materials leaders in Japan that cam
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00:00 competition is BMW and Apple and Samsung and because why because they a consumer
00:05 spends a lot of their mind space thinking about the next car they want to
00:09 buy a great new TV or a music system or whatever our competition is really to
00:14 fight for a share of that mind space because we are the largest brand in the
00:18 industry so it's not about grabbing share from other competitors it's about
00:23 capturing a share of mind
00:26 basically what I've done now is just stepped into in the interim to also
00:37 manage this region of the MNL so the predecessor here Jonas Brennwald used to
00:43 be my direct report so I just stepped into this to cover for him as well
00:47 during this period. Congratulations you know what's the history behind
00:53 Lixil's growth globally? See Lixil it's got an interesting history the way it
01:00 was set up Lixil started about 2011 it started as a combination of five
01:04 different building materials leaders in Japan they came together to create this
01:08 group and then ever since then they've been looking at expanding globally
01:12 acquired different brands especially in the starting with the bathrooms business
01:17 globally and now Lixil are the single largest bathroom products company in the
01:22 world as a combination of all the different brands that it owns but what's
01:27 really interesting is that Lixil was set up to truly be a purpose-driven
01:32 company you know a lot of companies have purposes and mission statements that sit
01:36 up on a wall that's nice to trot out once in a while but Lixil has a clearly
01:40 defined purpose of making better homes a reality for everyone everywhere and this
01:45 is something the interesting thing and which is by the way you know when Grohe
01:48 got acquired by Lixil I decided to stay on and take over the larger part of
01:53 Lixil's business because of this purpose because it's something that the company
01:57 truly believes in everything we do we're always looking for through the lens of
02:00 is this really making better homes possible for people and we wouldn't do
02:06 just something purely for the business results alone it is based on the purpose
02:11 and we keep saying the profitability and the growth and the revenues we need is
02:15 so we can deliver the purpose and this is something the company lives.
02:20 While researching about your good self you had a statement this company
02:26 should deliver on its purpose of adding value to people's lives through water
02:30 technology can you expand on this statement? Yes see this this is pretty
02:37 broad because when we say adding value to people's lives or making better lives
02:41 possible better homes possible it starts from one two people have access to basic
02:48 facilities you know basic functionality that they need and in this case from
02:52 water technology or bathroom safe because starts from access it starts
02:55 from which by the way to service that in to address that first when we talk about
03:01 access we had set up a whole business separately within the Lixil group we
03:06 call that the the Sato brand which is dedicated to providing sanitation access
03:11 for people who live off-grid who are not connected to sewer systems or water
03:16 systems we started that business and it's run as a self-sustaining nonprofit
03:22 business that's a business which is dedicated to providing access then it
03:26 comes to looking at the people are we providing true enjoyment what do people
03:31 really want from water in their homes you know we say that waste is only when
03:36 you don't enjoy that's the worst kind of waste so are we enabling people to truly
03:41 enjoy water that we do through brands like Roar and then we look at things
03:45 like sustainability in terms of water savings are we truly adding value not
03:49 only to people's lives but to the society and the community and the planet
03:53 at large by saving water so we need to look at all of these things all part of
03:57 delivering purpose access true enjoyment and then sustainability all aspects
04:03 before we jump to the sustainability part I wanted to shift gear to the
04:08 commercial strategy can you shed some light about the commercial strategy
04:12 specifically in the MENA region see our and again the strategy is very
04:18 different for our businesses globally for our different brands each brand and
04:22 that's what I should just backtrack and say that's one of the great things about
04:25 being part of the Lixil group which is a house of brands then every single brand
04:30 has a reason to be and that also because one thing that I believe that the most
04:35 important thing for a brands longevity is really also deciding what it does not
04:40 do that's that relevance is always critical and being part of a house of
04:45 brands allows us that liberty of defining every brand and that's what
04:48 we've done with grow over the last five or six years we have really refined what
04:54 growers position truly is versus other brands in the portfolio and that's made
04:58 us focus a lot more on true enjoyment of water which is really the pura fruta
05:03 vasa is the brand promise of grower is making sure that people can truly enjoy
05:07 the experience that they have with water so we have stayed true to that purpose
05:12 first the brand purpose itself which is very critical and then in terms of the
05:17 commercial strategy what we defined a couple of years ago was to truly add
05:21 value we need to start looking at a very end-user driven strategy which is
05:26 consumers who buy our products directly have a very different expectation from
05:31 professionals like installers and contractors who buy have a different
05:34 expectation and then designers and architects who design some of the big
05:38 like hotels they have a different expectation so our commercial strategy
05:42 is really right now about differentiating based on the end users
05:46 now that leads us to saying okay there are certain we need different types of
05:50 services for different types of end users products themselves also are
05:55 different based on the type of end users and the type of innovative business
06:03 models that we bring in are also different based on end users so this in
06:07 a nutshell really is what we're focused on very end user based strategy that
06:11 differentiates versus earlier where it was pretty much a one-size-fits-all
06:15 right when you try to please everyone you actually please no one so that's
06:20 what we're trying to spot on so speaking of differentiation how is the GCC
06:25 different from other markets like from a product perspective if I could expand
06:32 that a little further means that right now when we think of this region we
06:35 think of it as GCC and also Saudi and we see there's a lot of you know
06:40 commonalities and synergies emerging even the decision makers and in this
06:44 places but what we have seen for many years one good thing is we have we have
06:50 a very strong brand presence in this region the grower brand has been
06:55 respected you know I remember the year I joined grow I remember the story
07:02 which I heard of many things I came here I came to Dubai to kind of and I just
07:08 joined I wanted to get a sense for different markets that travel around to
07:10 different markets around the world to get a sense of it one of the stories I
07:14 heard which had happened that month was in the same month we had an order for
07:19 our top-of-the-line luxury range called on this to one of the royal palaces in I
07:26 don't want to mention the exact place but in the Gulf and the same month we
07:30 had also one of the largest orders ever for the labor camp in Saudi Arabia we
07:36 said this is what the brand is capable of doing for satisfying the palace needs
07:41 and also making sure we're truly adding value to a labor camp and this was the
07:45 spread and the extent of the reach of the grower brand in this market which
07:50 truly defines our strength and our position here so that's that's really
07:55 what I think we want to make sure we build on but but increasingly what we
07:59 are interested in now is that and this is especially true of Dubai but
08:03 increasingly more so about the BIC buildings here construction here you
08:07 know hospitality hotels they're setting the standard for what the rest of the
08:13 world is really going to be so that's very interesting for us that you know
08:18 being here is not only a question of servicing the market is also really
08:22 forcing us to raise our standards in terms of meeting expectations so that's
08:26 I think the single biggest contribution of the GCC market to our business and
08:30 that's where it kind of fits in it's probably a bit of a pioneer in that way.
08:37 Two topics sustainability and competition you know sometimes they go
08:43 hand-in-hand and sometimes they're seen as you know competing in a way in terms
08:48 of competition how do you see it and sustainability what's your story behind
08:52 sustainability it's a buzzword today everyone is using it how do how do you
08:57 see it? You know the answer when I've had this question in the past about
09:03 competition and nobody likes my answer but I'm gonna give it to you anyway what
09:07 I used to say earlier and it's changed now I used to say earlier that the
09:10 competition you know our competition is BMW and Apple and Samsung and because
09:15 why because they a consumer spends a lot of their mind space thinking about the
09:20 next car they want to buy a great new TV or a music system or whatever our
09:24 competition is really to fight for a share of that mind space because we are
09:29 the largest brand in the industry so it's not about grabbing share from other
09:33 competitors it's about capturing a share of mind so if we can inspire consumers
09:39 to think of the bathrooms and the water experience as much as they do of a great
09:42 drive or that's our company and that truly is really a lot of focus of what
09:48 we're trying to do but it's changing now to a certain extent that still remains
09:52 true and this is where the sustainability piece comes in. In some way
09:56 we'd say our competition or what we're fighting against is the waste. It's waste
10:02 of anything, it's waste of water, it's waste of energy, it's waste of like
10:07 I said if you're if you're not truly enjoying every aspect of your experience
10:11 that's a waste as well so there is this big fight against waste I would say
10:15 which is what we focus on which is what where it comes to sustainability and if
10:21 I want to talk about sustainability I've got to talk about it at two different
10:24 levels one is as a Lixil as a company overall what we're committed to do and
10:28 where the grower brand might play. So for Lixil there are really three different
10:36 areas that I would say are a big focus of our sustainability strategy. One is of
10:39 course about carbon neutrality and that's everything about embedded carbon
10:43 within what we do within our processes our factories are manufacturing, high
10:47 energy consumption so that's a big commitment we've made where we've
10:52 committed to making sure we reduce 50% of our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by
10:56 2030 and going net zero by 2050 so that's a commitment like many other
11:01 companies have made which we have done. The second aspect is actually reducing
11:06 usage and this could be carbon usage or water usage through our products and
11:12 that is that is addressed in two different ways one is energy usage
11:18 through our water products the energy that they consume in terms of heating
11:23 but also to you know we have a very big windows business in Japan that's been a
11:28 big focus of ours in terms of how can we use how can we make sure that we are
11:33 really promoting energy efficient windows so there's energy usage and
11:38 water usage and the third part is end of life or circularity. Circularity is a big
11:42 topic of how do we make sure what are our commitments in terms of reusability
11:47 of products or end of life recycling so these three areas of the carbon
11:52 neutrality the usage of energy and water and circularity are the three big
11:55 pillars of what we're focused on for Big Sur. And that's global. This is global and
12:01 we've got some very interesting initiatives in each one of them if you're
12:05 interested I can share. Like I said the first piece the carbon
12:12 neutrality piece is pretty much common to what a lot of companies do. We have
12:15 already, while our commitments are for 2030, we've already moved most of our all
12:20 of our fittings manufacturing facilities which covers all of the grower brand
12:24 products to be net zero already. We did that we completed that process three
12:31 years ago so that's already done and as of last year we also converted our
12:36 entire logistics for the grower brand to net zero as well. So that we
12:42 have done but that's just the beginning like we said we want to make sure that
12:47 across the board all of our Big Sur operations globally we can reduce 50% by
12:52 2030. So that part is ongoing. The interesting pieces on usage areas like I
13:00 said energy and water and this is a big commitment there's a big need
13:04 because you know some of the data we have seen like that over the last 50
13:10 years or so or is it 60 years I forget water consumption globally has gone up
13:14 600%. How do the people realize that and what are sources haven't gone up 600%
13:21 but what usage has and we see that this is still something which is not a very
13:26 high engagement area for a lot of people. There are pockets of interest and
13:32 engagement in the area of water savings but it's still a very very under
13:37 developed area. There's a lot more you know engagement on energy savings but
13:43 not yet on water savings. Of course because water is not priced at the level
13:48 it should be. So we think we're constantly looking at how do we make
13:51 sure we can drive water savings even in an environment where it's not priced. So
13:55 there's no serious economic benefit but we still need to create
13:59 enough of a pull for that and we're doing a number of things that we have
14:04 tried some successful some still you know in play. You know for example we
14:12 have been running a pilot in the US on water sensing devices that we embed into
14:18 homes and then based on that data these are IOT enabled devices. We do it under a
14:24 business called Hydrific and we use that to understand water consumption
14:29 patterns and then give feedback to consumers on how they can change habits
14:34 and behaviors in the bathroom to help affect savings. So we see some great
14:38 technical results but in terms of how much of this can really be driven to
14:43 actually help consumers change behavior and will they change. That's a pilot that
14:47 we're doing but then down to you know basic products like one of the products
14:53 that we've been promoting in the grower brand is what we call the cold start
14:56 technology which is really simple as saying a faucet typically in most
15:01 markets you when you open the faucet it's open at the middle position which
15:06 is already mixed with hot water and you may not even want the hot water but
15:12 unknowingly you're already opening it in a partially hot water consuming position
15:16 which is putting a lot of which is really wasting a lot of energy. So we
15:21 have changed some of that to make sure it always opens in a cold position but
15:25 people are not always aware so we're saying we need to we need to almost make
15:29 it passive the way you say water because people are not yet concerned enough to
15:34 do it actively so we need to make it more passive. Those are simple things but
15:40 the bigger elements that we're working on this is something we're excited about.
15:43 We announced a new product called the Grohe Everstream. This is really
15:50 simply put an infinity shower loop where you can you can reuse the water during
15:57 your shower for each single person of course you don't want to use the water
16:01 that someone else has used but during your shower you can put your shower on
16:04 an infinite loop so all of the water that is used is recycled back and you're
16:09 using the same so you can spend a long time as long as you want in a shower
16:12 without the guilt of that you're wasting water but this you know we put a lot of
16:17 study into this in terms of when would people like to use this at what position
16:21 how would they want to interact so they can choose you don't want to always do
16:24 it but say today I want to spend 10 minutes just you know accumulating under
16:29 the shower you should be able to do it at that point by pressing the infinity
16:32 loop say so the ever stream is going to be a great new technology and a great
16:37 new product that we launch next year so from simple passive elements like the
16:43 cold start to infinity loop showers systems that are looking at using
16:48 recycled water for flushing so we've got a system that under development so then
16:53 number of areas where we can save water and energy these are all things we
17:00 committed to lastly I should I would like to say on the circularity piece so
17:04 that's the third bit this is extremely interesting because I'm not sure
17:09 personally to what extent this is really going to develop because we started off
17:14 by saying first let's make sure we bring more recyclable components and products
17:19 into the market so at least they can because our industry this has been one
17:22 of the issues most bathroom products are not recyclable so the end of life it is
17:27 going to go into a landfill that's just the function of the materials and the
17:31 products and the process we have so we launched a few ranges we call them the
17:36 cradle to cradle range of faucets and showers which can be a hundred percent
17:40 recycled they were the first ranges in the market in this industry we did that
17:47 but we are seeing now increasingly there is there is a demand for true
17:52 circularity where there are customers there are projects were saying we want
17:56 you to commit to one extending the life of these products as long as possible so
18:03 we don't have to replace them and two at the end of life we should come in to
18:07 take it back to plan a way to refurbish and give it back and there are consumers
18:14 who really are keen on that and this is very different for you know in the past
18:20 you'd say people would look at how do I increase the renovation cycle how do I
18:23 push more products into you know what do they call planned obsolescence right but
18:29 here we are saying no this is really going to be or how do we extend the life
18:31 of products and we do a couple of very interesting pilots one in Japan with
18:36 toilets where we are actually taking back toilets refurbishing them
18:42 completely making them look as good as new and sending them back so it's not
18:46 going into a landfill and we have just signed up with one major project in
18:52 Denmark where the commitment is that the entire facility that the entire
18:58 community is committed to circularity so we have committed to the products that
19:03 we sell there will be repaired continuously to extend the life and at
19:08 the end of it we will take it back use every component back and send it back to
19:13 the project this is something that we've already started doing this is a whole
19:18 different game circularity and we are pretty much engaged in it now. Amazing I
19:24 guess with COP 28 happening in Abu Dhabi you mentioned water scarcity and this is
19:32 something we don't think about like you highlighted we think of energy yeah in
19:37 terms of sustainability but we rarely think about water as a sustainability so
19:42 it was very refreshing to hear how you are actually working on addressing this
19:48 topic is there anything that you would like to highlight with COP 28 happening
19:53 here in Abu Dhabi? I think COP 28 is a good forum a background for us to
20:02 use that whole sense of awareness that's created around that to talk more about
20:07 these kind of topic and I think we need to because like you said while energy is
20:11 top of mind water usage water savings is not top of mind we even saw some surveys
20:16 that I think Gita and team did where talked about you know people said 74% of
20:21 people including people in the UAE right they said that they would definitely
20:25 shift to water saving products if they felt their water supplies were not
20:30 secure so the question is we're saying actually water supplies are not secure
20:35 but you know it's not a question of if so that seemed to be something that is
20:39 lacking we saw that another 30% of people said they're not aware that there
20:43 are ways to save water and there are products and devices that can so I think
20:46 there's a big opportunity for us to communicate this first the need so
20:51 people are aware and then the fact that it's easy it's not that difficult you
20:55 don't need to change your lifestyle and go three days without a shower to save
20:59 water there are solutions so I think that is something that we need to do on
21:03 communication I think making sure that communication is done around the COP 28
21:08 will amplify those messages so I think it's a good opportunity for us to
21:12 leverage. Awesome, one last question somewhat personal share with us the fact
21:18 that very few people know about you. Well the fact that is relevant to the fact
21:25 that we're sitting here in Dubai is the fact that I was born in Abu Dhabi and I
21:29 grew up I did all my schooling in Abu Dhabi so I have a long history with this
21:34 place I haven't worked here I haven't you know after school I didn't come back
21:39 here for a long time but over the last 10 years I've been here every year on a
21:42 personal visiting friends and relatives and just passing through so I've got a
21:48 long history with this place and just I feel the next 10 years for the
21:53 construction industry this really is going to be the center of the world not
21:57 just in terms of all it's like I said setting standards so I'm excited to be
22:01 able to come full circle to be a part of it. Thank you very much for a very
22:08 insightful session all the best. Thank you.
22:13 you
22:15 (upbeat music)
22:17 you