Mukesh Ambani's 20 years at the helm of Reliance show adaptability to the changing times

Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries has seen growth under Mukesh Ambani, chairman for 20 years now. During this period, the company has expanded from its traditional oil and gas business to newer verticals such as renewable energy, telecom and retail.

As one of the most profitable companies in India, Reliance has started several new businesses in the past two decades. The company has been a pioneer in several sectors, including retail which began in 2006. The latest has been this August when it announced a foray into a new fast-moving consumer goods business under its retail wing and the leadership of Isha Ambani, daughter of Mukesh Ambani.

In fact, the company has announced plans to invest Rs 75,000 crore in new energy over the next three years. With this, the company aims to become the world's lowest-cost producer of solar energy and green hydrogen. To achieve this, Reliance plans on setting up five integrated Giga factories in Jamnagar in Gujarat. These factories will produce photovoltaic panels, energy storage, green hydrogen and fuel cell systems.

In addition, they will start 10GW of solar PV cell and module factory by 2024, which they will then scale up to 20GW by 2026.

Since the launch of Reliance Jio in 2016, the cost of cellular data per GB has fallen from Rs 500 to Rs 12. Furthermore, India’s ranking in Broadband data consumption moved from 150 in 2016 to No 1 in 2018. Jio as well, in August, announced its 5G network roll-out plan during its annual general meeting.

"I firmly believe that digital freedom is the birthright of every Indian. Therefore, 5G cannot remain an exclusive service, available only to the privileged few or only to those in our largest cities," Ambani had said during his address to the shareholders.

The Reliance Foundation was set up in 2010 with Nita Ambani at the helm. It has so far touched more than 6.3 crore lives and is India’s biggest Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative by reach and spend.

Speaking in an interview with CNBC-TV18, market expert Prakash Diwan said, “The world looks at Reliance as the benchmark for what a meaningfully large corporate in India could do to make itself at par or probably superior to a lot of global standards. In fact, when you talk to people who look at Reliance from the outside world, they do not recognize a lot of the companies because of size and scale not being optimal. Here is a business that is absolutely aligned with what is long-term investing all about. I mean, any of their businesses comes with a clear timeline, which is 9-10-12 years from now – there is nothing which is going to happen overnight.”