Approach
Arvind Poddar, Chairman and Managing Director of BKT, upholds the same traditional values as his father, our founder Mahabirprasad Poddar.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Arvind champions a sustainable approach to business: his intrinsic care for our communities is further manifested by care for the environment around us.
Rajiv Poddar is our Joint Managing Director, and marks the third generation of BKT. As a young global leader, Rajiv is tuned in to modern issues and aims to use his role to inspire positive change in the world. Rajiv is a passionate advocate for sustainable practices and pioneers BKT’s green, ‘glocal’ approach.
“BKT keeps faith in fundamental values such as sharing, generosity, and strength that permeate our business activities worldwide. We have taken initiatives to foster Community Wellbeing because we are aware that solidarity and social responsibility are of profound importance. Generous compassion is one of the values, on which BKT has been founded, and that helps us look towards the future without fear.
BKT is always prepared for the ever-changing market demands. We accept new challenges as soon as they come up, making the best out of them. Because challenges do not mean difficulties, but challenges are opportunities to grow.
Always Growing Together”.
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, BKT has continued thriving across 2021 and 2022. Through adversity, we have kept growing together - turning over USD 1,079 million. We are also pleased to have continued our long-standing relationship with customers, maintaining 100% customer retention and no product recalls.
As ever, BKT is at the forefront of innovation: we have set up our own Carbon Black plant, produced harmless REACH compliant products, while taking rapid leaps into the digital world.
Our founding purpose was manufacturing niche products to meet specific customer needs, while caring for our employees. This is why we later adopted a game changing stance to our mission; we rose higher and embarked on newer challenges in our product development, and the way we served our markets and global communities.
At BKT, we look beyond current horizons, therefore our ultimate vision is infinite: we always aim to surpass our set goals through continuous innovation in products, technology and processes – with an intrinsic focus on humanity.
This boundless vision has led to us being global leaders in the Off-Highway Tire market.
Our mission is to continue to diligently serve this niche market in the years to come, while also implementing our motto “Growing Together” across our valued communities. At BKT, we are determined to raise the bar and reach the goal of inclusive and responsible growth, through our Sustainable Approach to business.
With great power comes great responsibility. As a global leader in our industry, it is our duty to ensure that we act as responsibly as possible, across all areas.
Firstly, we have a responsibility as a tire manufacturer to constantly evaluate our in-house processes, putting our workers’ safety and wellbeing first before any production or productivity needs. This has led to our exceptionally high level of employee retention – which we are very proud of. We also have a history of 100% employee compliance; each member of the BKT family has a clean record without violations, sanctions or breaches of any kind.
Our responsibility also extends beyond our company – to the bigger picture: our planet. BKT’s sustainable initiatives include our global plantations, use of green energy and resource conservation. We are constantly looking for innovative ways to make our processes and products more sustainable, as we shoulder our shared responsibility to fight the climate crisis.
We determine material topics for the year ahead in regular brainstorming sessions between Senior BKT management and stakeholders: the dream team!
This partnership between any business and its stakeholders forms a two-dimensional assessment process; the outcome is a set of topics spreading across economic, social and environmental categories. The year FY 2021-22 indicated the need to consider the same set of topics identified in the year before with some slight revisions.
The previous material topics have been expanded to the following: Product & Technology, Ethics & Compliance, Health & Safety, Employee Wellbeing, Materials Management, Energy & Emissions, Water Management and Waste Management.
Each material topic includes a set of material goals that we will pursue with conscious approach, strategy, monitoring mechanisms and performance evaluation.
Stakeholders are an integral part of all our actions at BKT. These key members of the BKT family include our customers, employees, vendors, shareholders and investors, government bodies, civil society, media - and all our global communities. So, it goes without saying that we’re a big, happy family!
BKT thrives on an open communication culture, and our engagement with stakeholders is no exception. Families should always listen to each other - and at BKT, we deeply care about what you think. Our motto “Growing Together” speaks of mutual growth: we share information and intellectual resources, as well as achievements, progress and knowledge with our stakeholders. And this communication goes both ways; we welcome feedback from our stakeholders, which we acquire through channels such as surveys, meetings, video calls and reviews.