Portfolio Company Visits

VLCC

Tapping into the India for India theme, this skincare and wellness company is driving customer loyalty and differentiation in the fast-growing market by providing premium value and integrated product and service offerings.

A homegrown pioneer in India’s skincare, beauty and wellness industry, VLCC aims to cater to India’s rising middle class and their shifting consumer preferences from low cost and affordable personal care products to more established brands, as their disposable income rises.¹ CEO Vikas Gupta took the team through the company’s growth plans and its focus on digitalization to become an omni-channel brand. This was followed by a visit to a VLCC center in Mumbai to learn more about the company’s personal care products, how it approaches various customized beauty and wellness services, and its focus on delivering a seamless customer experience.

Majority owned by Carlyle, the company operates an extensive network of 310 clinics in 139 cities in India as well as in regions with a significant Indian diaspora, such as the Middle East and Asia.²

Delhivery

Also capitalizing on the India for India theme, the company is reimagining how data and technology can enable next-generation logistics players to compete with global logistics firms in India.

Founded in 2011, Delhivery has invested significantly in technology and automation in its warehouse and sorting facilities, and offers a full range of logistics services from express parcel delivery to freight services.³

Sahil Baura, Co-Founder and CEO of Delhivery, personally led the tour of one of its key logistics centers outside Mumbai to demonstrate how the company has created a data-driven operation that, he said, will “build the operating system for commerce in India.”

Delhivery handles over 582 million express parcel packages, servicing 23,000 active customers and over 18,000 pin codes.⁴ Mr Baura provided an overview of Delhivery’s operations and the lifecycle of a package through its proprietary technology operating system, which collects over 250 million data points on a daily basis on orders, products, locations, road conditions and weather to guide real-time decision making.⁵

Hexaware

Aligned with the India for the World theme, the company seeks to enable digital transformation for global enterprises and organizations.

With the Indian IT services industry increasingly crucial to the operations of global companies, Hexaware has built a solid platform to offer tailored and high-touch digitalization solutions. These include digital product engineering and cloud transformation services for large global enterprises, and growing AI and business automation solutions.

Majority owned by Carlyle, the company has approximately 30,000 employees in 19 countries.⁶ The tour offered a window into the dynamism and dedication of Hexaware’s workforce.

R Srikrishna (Keech for short), CEO of Hexaware, provided an overview of the platform and business, followed by an office tour to meet four teams, each with approximately 200 to 1,200 members that are focused on specific projects and client mandates, covering major global financial services and airline companies.

Mr Srikrishna said Carlyle has been instrumental in shaping the company’s strategy to expand its global scale and earnings potential in three key areas: growing the customer base, partnerships with hyper scalers, and mergers and acquisitions.