New Delhi, Dec. 11 -- "Faster, more flexible and more focused." That's what Nestle India chairman and managing director (MD) Manish Tiwary wants the packaged foods company to become. Less than a year at the company, the former Amazon India country manager and Unilever executive plans to achieve these goals by making the company more tech-ready across operations, improving its reach in the urban and rural markets, and using micro-markets to step up innovation and premium launches. Tiwary wants to leverage technology to improve efficiency end-to-end, not just in factories, supply chain or sales, and to invest savings in its brands. "There are three focus areas there-strengthening our core brands- legacy is good, but we need to keep on further building on it. Second is the premiumization part of it. Third is, how do we build up Purina (pet food), Nespresso, and the Nestle Professional business? These are very new businesses which we are building. We need money for that and that's where that whole digitization piece comes in," Tiwary said in his first interview after assuming the role. Nestle Professional is the company's business-to-business arm tha provides branded food and beverage solutions. Tiwary joined Nestle India on 1 February 2025 as managing director-designate. He assumed the role of chairman and MD effective 1 August 2025, taking over from Suresh Narayanan, who was brought in during the peak of the company's Maggi crisis in 2015. Tiwary is the first outsider to lead the India business of the Swiss firm. Tiwary wants to use technology to not only sell more but to also monitor the market better through social listening, search data and real-time feedback. "Technology is something which will help us do better. I'm just trying to make sure the payback periods are so efficient that it works well. I also want to enhance execution using technology," he said. Nestle operates nine factories in India and is digitizing most of their production lines. "We have to figure out how to make a short production run cost-effective because. the consumer will not pay for an inefficiency on our side. We are digitizing most of our production lines; we are putting in technology. If I can reduce wastage from one in a million packs to one in 2 million, that's not cost cutting, that's cost optimization," he said. The plan is to remove inefficiencies. "I want to pass it on to the consumer, because ultimately, if you have to address the rural population-the (low) price point packs become very important. To get it to that with the margin expectations of my shareholders you have to cut," Tiwary said. For Tiwary, the rule is simple: sharp marketers along with awesome feet on the streets-all backed by technology. Nestle sells chocolates, milk, ketchup, cooking aids, nutrition products for infants, cereals, curd, noodles, coffee and pet food in India. Maggi is the largest packaged noodle brand in India. The country is the second-largest market for its Kit-Kat chocolate. India is also one of the very fast-growing coffee (Nescafe) markets for the company. In 2023, the packaged foods maker said it would invest Rs.4,200 crore by 2025 to expand the manufacturing capacity of its noodles, coffee and chocolates portfolio. This includes roughly Rs.900 crore in an upcoming factory (its 10th) in Odisha to make prepared dishes and cooking aids. Nestle India set up its first manufacturing facility at Moga in Punjab in 1961. It competes with ITC Ltd and Britannia Industries Ltd in India. "For the last two financial years we have been putting capex of close to Rs.2,000 crore annually. There's a lot of capacity expansion happening in Sanand (plant) for noodles and confectionery; we will need more lines," he said....