The Journey of Mr. Smeer Walia, co-founder of ‘The Smart Cube’, as captured by Monika Sharma(IWSB pg12).

Mr. Sameer Walia, co-founder of ‘The Smart Cube’

This was a great opportunity for all of us to have a face-to-face interaction with a person of such a stature in my journey series. Mr. Sameer Walia co-founded “The Smart Cube” (TSC) in 2003 and has built the organization from a scratch over the last 4 years. He currently takes care of the India operations and is focused on developing a strong capability for the firm.

He started his words with the ultimate secret of success, which we all know ,but we never implement it in our life that is “FAITH”.  Consultancy is a desk based business in which we need computers and proper phone line but while starting this venture there was nothing with him, except his Faith on himself. Before actually starting up with his venture, Mr. Walia and his business partner outsource their business from Evalueserve and became their client.  And one fine day they decided to set up their own venture. He quit his job on sept 23,2003. And after a lot of planning he started up with his own office. He believed “whatever you do, do well”. He gave an example of that, In his office 40% of his investment was gone in a single generator, because he wanted to create an environment which would lead to increase in productivity. And the result was that, the people from city bank, world banks and London business school joined them, there was of course more analytical rigor. Their planning shifted from staring of the first year to its end, at first they planned that it is not necessary that they will succeed in first year, so failure is not a problem, but eventually they made a go for it, make or break situation and they succeeded. One more different key to their success was they didn’t have investors they own all their investment and they never run out of cash

But it was not about success only. They suffered several setbacks too.

First setback for them was, when 18 analysts out of 50-60 in numbers left them to Hyderabad to set up their own ventures. It was a huge loss for them, both emotionally and financially. Second setback was when they kicked out Sky which was an important client for them, having a turnover of $ 2.8 million, whatsoever were the issues behind it he didn’t share with us but again their business suffered. Next set back was Ceiling of their office in which, they invested Rs 2.5 crore and it was a salvage value. They went to Supreme Court for this. Their cash reserves went down to zero but they get the relief for 9 months.

Then he proceed his speech by showing his confidence that now they are strong enough to fight with any kind of problems as they have learnt a lot in this period. Of course they walked two steps forward and one step backward during those unfortunate periods but, this is a part of business, therefore you should take setbacks very calmly, and things will go on. You need challenges in life of success., It’s all about how you take it. This must not be wrong to say “There is a will, there is a Way”.

His opinion on entrepreneurship was:

It’s not about being an entrepreneur, one should be entrepreneurial. Which means being resourceful. sNo, “NO” should be there. He shared his experience with us, that while he was traveling to the Koraput his train was caught in cyclone and they stuck there for many hours. Then they saw a train which was moving in opposite direction. They caught that train and of course they didn’t reach their destination, but at least they moved from there and then took some other way of reaching there. So he always remains resourceful, so he was extremely entrepreneurial. He said even as a student we can be extremely entrepreneurial. We could be resourceful always. If we are lazy, we can’t help our self so we should be hardworking and last thing Entrepreneurship comes with huge personal sacrifices.

He also gave us ingredients of success.

There is no Magic Mantra. It’s all about luck. He also believed, there is nothing like permanent bad luck. Both good and bad luck lasts at sometime. Hard work and perseverance changes your bad luck. He gave examples of Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar and Rajnikant that they didn’t succeeded in one day. Akshay had 17 successive flops, but it was his bad luck, by his 18th film he was back again. It’s not about bad luck but It’s about how you face it.

About taking risk, He said:

In binary situation, it’s easy to say but difficult to live that moment, when u go to minus actually. Taking risk is core thing.

About making Decision and living consequences, he gave his views as:

Decision making is a natural procedure. While he take decisions he know it that  out of 10 ,2 of them are going to be wrong .Once you made a decision good or bad you should live with that. This kind of attitude makes life happier. It is worse to taking back your decision. People shy from a conflicting situation, but they have to take tough decisions.

Then he told about humbleness, as If we treat all as equal. If we are humble we can do many things in life. The more humanity we have, more grounded we are, more grasp we will be having in our business. These are small things which will go a long, long way. We should have ability to connect dots together. Environment should be perceived, economic and social. Analytically it’s called Trend analysis.

He gave his views on ability to with stand adversity.

He said he didn’t think success requires high IQ, It’s about high EQ, and Emotional Quotient should be high. If it is not increasing, 5-10 yrs from now, we will less likely to succeed.

He spoke about personal sacrifices also.

Personal sacrifices, includes health but biggest scarifies is time. Even we have to sacrifices time for our family too. We have to sleep less and less sleep will lead to certain consequences.  Our body is unchangeable, so we should take care of it properly, it’s very important. He said, we should be very detail focused. God lies in details, a lot people do yoyo, Up and down. Consistency matters a lot and it brings in people’s trust.

Dark side of Entrepreneur.

Speaking in his language, first of all it’s not about Money. Money is a driver, the joy and satisfaction that lead to drive. Money part is not as glamorous as it looks from outside.  There are lots of heartburns, tears. It sounds glamorous from outside. It takes away your comfort, it’s very lonely ride as an entrepreneur. It’s stressful, no back outs. It can make you a tough person. You have to take hard decisions, even if you don’t want to, as business demands it. Your antenna should always up, you can’t trust anyone. Your life will be completely changed.

This interesting session was concluded with a query session in which Mr. Walia cleared all the doubts and curiosity of the students, by enriching them with various insights of professional as well as personal life.

(The article is part of  ‘My Journey Series’  at IWSB)

‘National Training Workshop on Personality Development’ at IWSB.

Indus World School of Business (IWSB), Greater Noida conducted a Two-Day National Training Workshop on Personality Development from 20-21^st October 2010. Peoples from all works of life like students, Library professionals, and academician attended the workshop. Around 75 people attended the workshop. In the Inaugural Session Chief guest Dr. Janardhan Jha kicked off the workshop by lightning the lamp along with Satya Narayanan R who is the founder and chairman of IWSB, Executive Director Arindam Lahiri IWSB and Dr. Rajesh Kumar. Janardan Jha, who is presently Director, Amity center for innovation and New Concept, Amity University Noida Uttar Pradesh also shared some words of wisdom. Dr. Rajesh Kumar, Organizing Secretary gave the introductory remarks. The first Speaker on the first day was Dr. Rakesh Kumar Bhatt. Dr. R.K Bhatt who is presently serving as Associate Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi touched on the key points of the Personality such as Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills, Basic Etiquettes, Body Language, Time Management, Stress Management etc. After that Sreenivasan Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder IWSB and Career Launcher took the session. This was mostly an interactive session, where he used many tools to help the participants understand more about their personality. Like how ambitious one is? How much growth oriented one is? and many more such traits about one’s personality. Overall the main motive was to get a clear picture of one’s personality and where all is the scope of improvement lies. Prof. Arindam Lahiri took the next session. His topic was the Locus of control. This session also used loco inventory tools to give a clear picture of one’s locus of control. The second day started with Dr. C.V Ramanan’s session. Dr. Ramanan is the Director at National Academy for Training and Development, ISTD. He shared with the participants the unique concept of Total Quality Person (TQP) and how one can be a Total Quality Person. The session was full of very interesting and fabulous stories. It was really a very enlightening session and the end of which Dr. Ramanan also shared how one can achieve what one want to in his life. Dr. Jaideep Sharma who is Associate Professor Social Sciences, IGNOU, conducted the last session. He concentrated on the topic of competency mapping of professionals. He mentioned about three key attributes knowledge, skills and attitude. These three play a key role in an individual’s efficiency and his competency mapping. The two-day workshop ended by Prof. Arindam Lahiri’s Valedictory remarks. Dr. Rajesh Kumar delivered a vote of thanks. Overall the workshop was a grand success.

“My Journey” – Sridhar Iyengar

Sridhar Iyengar is former chairman and CEO of KPMG India. He has been with KPMG for 34 years as a partner in the UK, US and India.  Currently, Sridhar is an independent mentor capitalist to early-stage companies. He sits on the boards ofAmerican India Foundation, Infosys, ICICI Bank, Rediff, OnMobile, among others. He has also served as president of TIE and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Sridhar Iyengar is also on the board of governors of Indus World School of Business (IWSB), that promotes entrepreneurial leadership among youth through hands-on learning experiences integral to the business programmes. Last week, Sridhar was on the campus to interact with the faculty and students. The interactions were amazing and threw a lot of questions that Sridhar went on to address. At the end of the visit, Sridhar spoke about how we need to reassess all our Basics.  Thanks Sridhar for sharing your invaluable thoughts.

Latika Khaneja, Director, Collage Sports Management at IWSB Campus in “My Journey” series.

Latika Khaneja, Director, Collage Sports Management, was at the IWSB campus with the young entrepreneur leaders who have big dreams in their eyes and were all ears to Latika when she came to share her journey with the youngsters. She visited the campus to discuss a case on “Collage Sports Management.”

Latika has been considered to be one of the powerful women in the Indian corporate sector and is quoted to say that her strength is “marketing and PR skills and the ability to close a deal”. She has been the sole manager of cricketing sensation Sehwag ever since he made his debut twelve years ago. Together they are still blazing in the endorsement space.

Initial remarks

Just as she entered, Latika said “Course in entrepreneurship should take care of the uncertainty. I am really glad to see so many girls here. At IIM we were only 10 out of 200, though it had its own dynamics. I hope to see more and more girls heading into business..”

“In sports management, you need to have interest. It is a personalized business, and mostly at a very private level. A marked coming down from working for a multinational. One way, a job always helps in minimizing costs in learning.”

How did Latika enter into Sports management business?

Husband is a sports fanatic. In order to practice cricket he started a cricket team. So he decided to collect some professional boys to play with. It became the collage team. It was a decade ago. As it turned out the boys were too professional with the game. So we turned into managing them. We had in that team youngsters like Asish Nehra, Nikhil chopra, Virendra Sehwag and many more who were working hard to get noticed. My husband was so kicked about Virendra Sehwag, that he wanted to see him do well..

In early days of Sehwag, when Sehwag was about to make his debut in test cricket, some one offered to get endorsement for his bat sticker for Rs. 2 Lakhs. But Sehwag got out cheaply and the guy who offered the deal vanished from the scene. Sehwag was feeling sad, that he could have made some money had he signed the deal..

To be secure, most of the cricketers join some PSU like Air India, SAIL etc where you do not have to go and work. You can continue playing but you are paid salaries. Companies pay Rs. 12Lakhs or so as salary, but they will take all endorsement monies, if the player hits rich..

My husband and I sat with Sehwag as we believed in his talent and suggested that let us try getting endorsers. In those days Sachin was signed at 100Crore…

I was working for DCM then. I contacted many companies for endorsements for Sehwag. The companies in turn asked for the proof that I was really authorized to represent Sehwag! So we need contracts in India only to represent the player !!

Viru did well in the mean time. Then Dinesh Mongia happened. Still remember the date of 16 june 2001. Ashis Nehra, Sanjay Bangar, Bindra, Rathore, Gambhir…. a few more happened meanwhile.

Ravinder Jadeja and Ishant made it reasonably big while equally promising Cheteswar pujara, Iqbal abdulla, Mayank are invisible. Then a whole lot of people ..sangwan, ,….

A lot of things happened since those days of 2005-06. My contract with many of the players is getting over in 2012..

New players have different expectations. With IPL coming, dynamics of the business completely changed. That is where I am in now.

Where you lucky enough to pick the most successful ones?

It is not fair to say I picked up. We go and pitch….. There are so many players playing well. So you tend to follow. Though I pitched to many in shooting, only Abhinav Bhindra came along, Anjali Bhagwat did not, so was athlete Anju Bobby George.

Challenges –

a. A lot of companies slam cases in the court for some reason or other
b. Most of the times it is risky, you put a lot of effort but the person may not succeed in his sport…
c. When they succeed, most of the times the expectations are so high, you will not make any money..

When you go and pitch for a domestic player. How do you really go about it? How do you decide?

There are 3 or 4 aspects…

It is the time of investment. We do a lot of press and PR. In PR, when you go after the press, the less they come to you. But when you do not want them, they will chase you..

When magazines want to interview a big star like Sehwag, and if he is busy, we suggest an upcoming player like Ishant sharma, saying that he is talented and you are going to see a lot of him in the near future. As luck would have it, then he goes to Australia and takes Ricky Ponting’s wicket twice… then he hits big. Now everyone wants Ishant !!

Some sign young players upfront for three years – Adidas, Nike, Puma. If a couple of them hit big, it is a lottery. They sponsor shoes, bats, racket, kit…… small investment and advertisement can influence huge sale. The initial deals may be in the range of 5-10 lakhs !!

With advent of IPL many things have changed. The players get huge opportunities. Why should somebody sign on the dotted line for five lakhs and ten?

Scalability?

It is a big conundrum. We also look at arts. We tried to build Amjad Ali Khan, other sports like shooting – Bindra, Rathore…

In cricket or a popular sport, only four or five are sought after by the advertiser. He is looking at the connect on the street. How many people offer such a possibility? Amjad ali khans, inspite of being talented and looking good, they were able to attract only endorsement deals for Sherwanis etc..

In the initial years of marketing Abhinav Bindra, his papers were thrown into dustbin the moment I left the room. The day he wins gold at Olympics, everybody wants him…

The other challenges for scalability –

Cost of servicing: When you give Sehwag or Gautam, they are interested, a couple of duds, they will never look back..

Burn out factor: How long will you keep running after the guys for the same individual or for a new one..

IPL:

Now IPL came – In 2007, I was the most important person in Sehwag’s life as he was getting 10 times more than what he was making from playing for India…

With IPL everything changed. Very few renewed the contract when expired. Let us look at Ashish Nehra. He was not comfortable in endorsing, as he had to appear in front of the camera. But he got so much money in IPL, that he did not even want to endorse as it comes with so many obligations… With such a lot of money why should he? Really.

Industry: Agency and structure…and its dynamics..

Most agencies are boutique. In the early days, there were four companies and each managed one of the big four : Sachin (Marc…), Sehwag (Collage…), Rahul (21st century) and Ganguly (percept). Only way then was to get hold of one big star from cricket and everything went around them.. Percept was the only big company

Deals signed were in Favour of the big company offering lower percentage to the player. Who will stay? Ganguly wanted to move out..

Globo sport happened with Sania hitting big. Yuvraj singh got some one out of Percept… to manage him. “Why should I pay 10-20%, if I can manage at five or less…” Now Dhoni…

So if you hire an MBA, probably there is a chance that he will start his own management company for celeb?!! So better have an ex-cricketer as in-between to take care of the current cricketers. They gel each other, and he also does not have high capability to branch out!

What is your next move.. since the IPL has started?

The boutique agencies will have problem with geographical dispersion as IPL is spread far and wide. I pitched for four cities Delhi, Jaipur, Mohali, Kolkata..

IPL was completely packaged…. It was close and shut affair… no transparency. All the stakeholders were completely involved… All teams cannot be auction for around the same 350 crores? Can they? You could see openness in player auction, not in the team auction….there was nothing

Same thing was about Common Wealth games… 2-5% is the margin, we were told..

I was told, “We wanted to hire the company in Melbourne… SWAM (now they pay to them at 23%)… so many are obviously involved… Met Kalmadi. He offered Pune youth games’ Who will come to endorse at 40 Crore? When they can get reasonable mileage in 2-3 crore?

If I want a cricketer to endorse, I want Sachin and Dhoni. IPL is a highly viewed tournament. Manish Pandey, Ravinder Jadeja…All have seen them playing a couple of big innings. In IPL they are getting good salaries and they do not want to get 5-10 lakhs that will bring so much of liabilities… appearing for endorsements..

I thought I will work with an IPL team. KKR happened. But SRK said he will meet only at night… these meetings used to go on, but not much emerged. It was like a job. Jai Mehta told me, “Why are you wasting time, SRK wants people around him to listen to him. Nothing more.” I moved out.

Working style between marketers and players…

There is no transparency in IPL. Nothing is open. Sehwag was a Pepsi player.. COKE paid Delhi Daredevils. Coke pasted him all over the country… Sehwag cannot move from DD, Pepsi dropped him…

In golf, the manager will plan the entire calendar. In cricket BCCI does it. Only the free time is taken care of by us….

Advent of Indian Economy, brand management…

More brands, more opportunities of branding. Do we really sit and watch advertisements on television. The ad just happens and you are glued…

Bollywood creates glamour and others are glued, hence bollywood sells

How do we really grab attention is the key.. Today, Sania Nehwal by her performance may be salable, the affiliation with fashion may help a person like Rohit Baal (linen club), Atul Kasbekar (outlander) to sell…

Initial Challenges

Depending more on the success of the people we have signed. Firm has revenue, positive cash flow. Has certain success to talk about. It is a risky business. It entirely depends on their success…

If you are not a Ranji player you cannot be a commentator.

Before you could sell one, he may fail… how do you handle the uncertainities?

If anything happens to a player, physically, the contract is over…

In any area some of them get an aura. Shah Rukh in movies, Similarly in Cricket, star is made over a period of time. Sehwag – fast and exciting, grounded and easy to talk to. So are Sachin and Dhoni. That is the minimum. Only by performance you become star. You need to build on your performance…

Situation in India Vs Abroad

A sports manager manages everything, training, travel, tournament playing, legal contract. Say they have 10 golfers. The regulatory, travel etc is taken care of due to scale. All earnings from all the stars are counted as earnings of the company..

In India, it is individual relationship oriented….. It is an iffy model. It is difficult go beyond a point….

Only barrier to entry is knowing a big star. You are fine until you have the backing of the star all the way. Number of agents is not a barrier..

Many stars want exclusivity. That is the reason most want personalized…

Did you have to go through breach or betrayal? How do you build the brand.?

Many…many…

When you work for the stars, and they excel, then your brand may gain reputation due to the services you provide. You may not really work on creating a brand for yourself…. Over the time it may or may not create a brand.

KKR… SRK was the only value driver… All cost are fixed.

Retaining a player?

We need to bind the player into lasting contracts… cricketers are reluctant to sign. They do not want to go to the court, unlike a shooter who may have all the time and money !

How do you value a player?

It is not a sensex. It is a negotiation.

Guarantee?

If it is the value, you give it.. ..If someone plays for three years without injury and without being dropped, then you will get value… a six month of not being there, renewing may not happen..

Value?

Say if a player is signed for 210 crores, over 3 years..

70 crores a year, So 14 companies at 5 crores each….
You have to get 15 at 5 or 12 at 6 to make your margins
It also depends on the bouquet of people you have signed, as costs can be easily spread..
My commission was say 20%… If I do not gain 210 crores, say I get only 200 crores, I will shell out 10Crores from my 20% margin to build the relationship..

In developed economy an agency handles many sports….

Other sports and endorsers?

When you think of Hero Honda, Pepsi, Coke etc.. all of them have built a brand around cricket… they are closely connected..

Hockey – castrol put so much but did not renew it. KPS Gill did not even call Castrol guys inside his office when they came visiting… Castrol pulled out. Imagine you are investing and people do not see the value you bring in. Where is the money in other sport? If we have money, there will be people…

Challenges as a women entrepreneur
Family support needs to be good, if you feel it is worthwhile to do what you want to do. For women, being a mother is the most wonderful thing and major thing. If you have support system for bringing up the children, great! Or create it and jump into realizing your dream.

How relevant is education to entrepreneurship
Education is the greatest investment. IIM did help. I have instant connect with so many in the corporate world, as most of them have similar backgrounds. A few of them are even my friends. Education gives ability to present, understand, how to reach out. It provides thinking, analytical and presentation skills..

Do we have a possibility to work with you?
Very little! We are a very lean company. It is not a volume business. It is only that many deals who will sign….

It is all about creating imagination… We work on him or her to find the right opportunities.. It is about striking when iron is hot.. You have to be sure that whatever you are committing, will happen… It is a very personalized thing..

Why have you not signed golfers?

They are international brands…they travel widely. Who will sign a golfer? Only those who sell that sort of equipment that he is used to all over the world, say callaway.. He is better off signing with an international talent management like IMG to market across the world for such a brand

It is all about the universe I can address.. fewer followers… fewer players…

Motor sport… JK Tyre and Maruti follow.. and they can tell more than we know…I cannot market Karthikayan better than JK Tyre doing directly with him..

Batsmen and Bowler… endorsements?
Bowlers are injured easily, they lose tempo… compared to batsman.
Every bollywood star lives for an advertisement… huge sum for very little work…

Tiger wood fiasco and Accenture? Can there be contracts binding the players to payback on such mis-conducts?

When they are rising and shining, you make money. So when they fall why will they pay.

Vishwanathan Anand has been an enigma, endorsement wise. He endorses only one brand though for more than a decade he has been a world champion?

In the endorsement business it has nothing to do with world champion or respectable human being. It is all about showbiz. If you have connect with the common man on the street and he can relate to you. You have endorsements and money.. Tiger woods was highly salable in British open even after all the hungama..

Girish Batra; (Chairman and Managing Director, NetAmbit) in Discussion with Entrepreneurial Leaders at IWSB Campus.

Girish Batra, Founder; Chairman and Managing Director, NetAmbit ;
Girish, an IIMA grad started NetAmbit in 2002. Now it is a 4000 People Company. Girish was at IWSB campus as part of “My Journey” series to share lessons and learning from his entrepreneurial journey so far. The interactive session with aspiring entrepreneurial leaders was full of questions, questions and more questions from the youngsters. They got a message, “Be eager to welcome new situations, challenges and experiences, to learn and discover what more you can be”

Distribution companies in any vertical are usually larger than the manufacturers, like Wal-Mart is bigger than Unilever. Worldwide there are a few large companies that follow similar business model even in financial space, eg. Brown and Brown (UK).

Indian financial market is of the size of thirty thousand crore. The market is growing at the rate of 30% annually. While penetration levels are just 4%, still the market is 30 thousand crore market. The potential and opportunities are huge. There have been many ‘manufacturers’ of financial instruments, hawked through a few distribution systems (agents, banks). But consumers needed independent credible and trustworthy consultants and advisors who can compare multiple products available and advise them. That is where NetAmbit moved in.

NetAmbit sees itself as equivalent of a food bazaar of financial markets – sells life insurance, general insurance, mutual funds, corporate FDs, Loans, Credit Cards etc. Eighty percent of market in India lives in smaller towns – tier 3 and 4. Seventy six percent of NetAmbit sales come tier 2 and 3 cities. Now NetAmbit has offices with over 6000 workstations and 4000 field agents.

FORBES June 18, story named NetAmbit as the king of ‘non-affinity’ market for their rigorous process driven approach to customer acquisition.

Where did the Journey begin?

Girish wanted to be an entrepreneur, because he wanted to be secure and successful. Only after going to IIMA, he realized entrepreneurship gives opportunity to contribute to the society. He wanted to build a business that will sustain on its own. “Make yourself such a way that you are redundant…,” which charged Girish.

Girish went on to work for Escorts and Godrej for six years, with a yearning to be an entrepreneur. He was in Bangalore, when parents suggested him to take the next step in his life, getting married. Since, Girish harboured ambition to be an entrepreneur, he always thought of marrying a girl who will be working in a govt or PSU, as she can provide the stability whenever he jumps into his entrepreneurial journey. He did jump in, by moving to Delhi from Bangalore. To the surprise of many a family member, he quit his job twenty days before his wedding!! His family and wife have been very supportive. “Family support is the most important to be successful as an entrepreneur,” Girish avers.

Girish, started with one Lakh as his only investment. “Dotcom was crazy in those days. Unfortunately, the valuation was all about clicks and page views, without the existence of brick and mortar, or revenues to back up.” Girish thought of it as a great opportunity, “We thought of providing offline model to hook on to the online models…” So NetAmbit was seen as Offline services for Online businesses!! NetAmbit is all that surrounds the Net!!

“Since I did start with 1 lakh, only way was to earn our bread and butter… the journey began.”

Dotcom economy busted, we had to reorient… We moved into telecom, started looking for distributing telephone connections to SMEs. This business was short-lived, before NetAmbit oriented towards financial markets.

Today, Bessemer’s best performing investment is NetAmbit. Best capital efficiency in their Indian portfolio…

Q. Were you not fearful about failures when you started…

Failures… Lots of them!

One may fear going to the town if it is raining like today, as you may fear traffic jam… what they hell, get out and experience… why fear?

Every morning I have a long list of issues… but I enjoy trying to solve them…I will talk more about failures later.

Students sharing their day with Girish

Q. How does a Consumer behave?

– Consumer wants more at one place, with a lot of advice and help thrown in. So a bazaar type of operations is a better placed one.
– Net-based? 6.5 crore people use internet in India, only buying rail tickets has gained acceptance, everything else is low; that is where the future is, that is at least 15 years away. HDFC does only 10L on the net out of 300 Crore sales of insurance product in a month
– In any industry, various methods of doing business co-exists, but models would differ in cost efficiency, interaction with customer. India is a land of opportunities. 6000 cities of this country is ready for products. If Tata sky/Dish tv is sold today, tomorrow insurance, loans etc will definitely be. Look at SKS micro finance / Grameen bank how they have moved into explore successfully new models at the bottom of the pyramid.

Most of personal loans are sold, not bought – very few walk into a bank and ask for it…

Net Ambit goes to mass market. We do not go to High Networth Individuals (HNI). We need to evolve a model that will have vast potential. We are exploring. Any model that is scalable and cost efficient will make a killing in the future. Opportunities are immense, growth possibilities and challenges are internal to any corporate. If at all there has been a failure, it is because of internal issues – growing faster, not being open, less adaptable, mostly related to the person(s) who are heralding the business… there are immense examples of these in the recent past.

Q. Who were your competitors and what was the market like when you started?
When we started, only competitor was BAJAJ FINANCE…

Q. What is the critical factor in early days of operations?
Cost consciousness is the most important… Need to be very careful in the early days of any business. In fact, it is important at any given point of time. I have known an international bank that prided itself in their early days in India of giving Cappuccino to every guest who visited their branches. Unfortunately, they had to close down their entire operations for reasons of viability!!

Girish interacting with students

Q. How did you manage to get early customers and retain them?
You need to look out for the next customer. There is no formula. Look for the needs of people and figure out.

FORBES article on NETAMBIT… called the kings of non-affinity – June 18, 2010 article. Mckinsey was impressed by our success on this front.

Q. Affinity and Non-affinity marketing?
Affinity – Selling to those who have affinity towards you. Once a customer is acquired, you will move to affinity team that takes care of the customer. It is a relationship building. Once you create the bond and trust, affinity increases. He will keep coming back and also bring a few more of his friends.

Non-affinity is to bring more and more first timers…We have been very successful in this space with our constant follow ups. We are highly systems driven. Every interaction is captured. Data handling and mining is very strong. This is the secret of success of any company. How well you follow through every enquiry. To what extent you go to satisfy the queries and facilitate the customer make the informed decision.

Q. How does your Non-Affinity marketing work?
Visit our office to see how we do. Seek time and visit us. We will be glad to get you guys spend a day at our office(s)

Q. As you scale up, what are the challenges you faced in building people and organization?

Name of the game is keeping people together…

When you build teams, it is very important to hire the right people. Take time in hiring. Reduce the probability of hiring a person who is not a proper fit, culturally.

1. We look for entrepreneurial, high on energy, ethical, humble, risk takers…at higher level. Humility is a keenly sought after value.
2. Trust once your hire, for their abilities and support their decision-making. Back up their failures or rough patch.
3. Look for people with high ‘Internal locus of control’ at any level

Q. Challenges around scaling up – Which cities, where and when, how do you decide ?

1. We look for Market size of the city,
2. If we decide, we do a Hub and spoke model..
3. Decentralize the decision-making and operations, yet keep a close watch to mentor

Q. Initial selection of products and diversification; future plans and challenges

Initially life insurance was just opening up

Future is very promising….market doubling every three years, growing @ 30%
We foresee 7000 people in 2011, going public in 2012, 1000Cr in next 4-5 years… 250crores in 2011.

Challenges are all internal. It is all about how you keep the culture intact and value systems. How do you bind diversity with one single culture. Appreciating the value system and facilitating them to buy in and relate. It is people driven, how you keep them motivated. How fast you hire, efficiently and train them. Whom to hire and when to hire… It may go to 40000 people, I will not be surprised. We need to constantly train on new products and innovation… train and retain is the challenge…. As market leaders, poaching is always lurking around..

How do you handle the hierarchy formation is the key. Ours is almost flat and a very open organization. We need to make sure that bureaucratic thinking does not come seep in.

Girish sharing at IWSB

Q Speaking about Selling

In India, most of the times we fail in how we sell; Sales experience at the front level is very important.

FMCG companies have mastered it. They send every new recruit as a junior sales officer. I got Rs 150 bugs a day – stayed in Rs.50/- a day hotel, though I could have afforded an expensive one. They make sure you understand the market. Even now, I go and meet two customers every month. That is part of our way of doing things..

In sales, people monitor output only unfortunately.. Very few are bothered about input – how much of effort has gone in the acquisition. That is very important. Document each interaction. Break it down and monitor – Number of calls, responses,

We look for a HR person, who has business understanding. He or she needs to understand sales and marketing front end, to identify the people who will do well in our culture and organization.

Q. How do you approach a client? Since you were the first to enter this market, you might have had to invest in educating the customer..

First we understand a client. If he is not well-informed about the market, we start with only one product

Our non-affinity is all about direct marketing. We reach out to over 80 Lakh new customers every month. FORBES called us king of non-affinity. Our processes are very strong therefore our conversions are very high. It is the process culture.

Q. Name of the game in India is distribution. It is the king. Own these channels…
Owning distribution channels is the key to success. Manufacturer’s distribution will always have great cost inefficiency. Neutral distribution channels with customer friendly services will always be cost efficient and can do many things that will hook the customer. You can see what happens in a Food Bazar…

Q. Strategy Vs Execution –

Started inside out – first Delhi then Meerut. But also look at outside in. So it is both ways. You design on paper and start executing. Then you realize how the assumptions have been not to the mark. Make corrections and keep exploring and learning.

Q. How do you cope with failure? How do you continue to be excited?

Do not hesitate to fail. Never be scared of failures, experiment. Take it as a learning opportunity, and do not make the same mistake. Critically analyze failures. Do not lose by operational inefficiency. Do not worry about experimenting new ideas. Challenges are everywhere…

If you are doing new things, you will fail. You should welcome this exploration. If you have stopped failing, what does it mean? It simply means that you are not doing anything new.

Remaining positive is the biggest thing in life. Dhoni is a good example of this orientation. Tendulkar and Kambli, difference between the two has been all about ‘learning from failures.

Q. How often your decisions were data driven and how much was intuition?
When it is futuristic, many a times it is intuition. You have not had experiences or precedence.. Operational decisions are data driven.. People and futuristic is usually intuition. Yes intuition plays a very important role.

We need to add in such a pace that we should be able to service the customer. Their genuine claims are serviced promptly. We will grow as much as we can serve the customers very efficiently. No pointing in growing faster than what we can service.

Q. Building trust among investors?
They trust your business. They look for history, plan, model… Yet, PEOPLE is the most important. They bet on it.

Q. How do you build NetAmbit as a brand?
How does the small town person believe in NetAmbit? They are buying big brands now from NetAmbit, so that is where we are. As Net Ambit becomes stronger, people will start trusting NetAMbit. That is the way the world market has been growing.. Experiences will help one build the brand…

Lot of creating awareness, educating the buyers..

Q. You have not ventured into Equity distribution, why?
Since the market has not been large, small markets do not go for it… we will move very soon..

Q. What is success?
Successful! When a person is happy about self and your peer group starts respecting you, then you can tell to yourself that it is comfortable..

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For the eager bunch of learners at IWSB it was a great experience, they surely have gained immensely from the Interaction. IWSB humbly convey’s its gratitude to Girish for the insightful visit to the campus. IWSB also looks forward to more visits from Girish and wish to learn more and more in the process.