As a brand, we understand the inherent strength of Bharat better

The first edition of Pride of India Brands: The Best of Bharat Conference & Awards witnessed a panel of successful entrepreneurs who shared their valuable insights on ‘Secrets of Building Successful Brands for Bharat’.

The panelists comprised Kailash Katkar, MD, QuickHeal Technologies; Namrata Chotrani, CEO, Khadim; Dr Sriram Iyer, CRO, Metropolis Healthcare; Dheeraj Gupta, Founder & MD, Jumboking; and Rahul Tewari, CFO, Games24x7. The session was moderated by Jai Lala, CEO, Zenith Media.

The entrepreneurs kicked off the session with a discussion on how they look at Bharat as a market. Chotrani said, “When we look at Bharat, I think we take a step back and divide India into two segments, the first segment being those who stay in urban markets, have a higher disposable income, and shop from high streets and malls. The second segment is the people who stay in tier 2 and tier 3 markets, in the rural markets. They shop from small exclusive brand outlets, small retail counters, and multi-brand retailers. They have exposure to television and they are also demanding fashion today. We call this market Bharat, which is the future of India. That’s how we have categorised Bharat and India and that’s how we have positioned our business catering to both these markets.”

Sharing his views on the same, Gupta shared, “The Indian business environment especially the Bharat environment, requires a business model where the returns commensurate with the potential of the market. As a brand, we understand the inherent strength of Bharat better.”

Talking about how digital impacts a business and comparing offline media with digital media Gupta further said, “Digital is a reality which we have embraced openly. It opens up a whole new world where business can grow. For us in the food industry, we are very fortunate that we have Swiggy and Zomato who have come up and spent crores of money in creating this entire ecosystem around home delivery and it was an entire segment of business that we used to miss out on and now it is possible because these players are there.”

Katkar explained how tech brands tackle Bharat digitally, compared to other industries. “When it comes to tech brand, digital is the most important aspect of it and with QuickHeal, we actually started our e-commerce as well as communication through digital in year 1998. So at that time, in India, there was not a single payment getaway from any bank. So I had a tie-up with an American company and they were able to give services to Indian customers as well. Gradually ICICI Bank and others came into existence. So when it comes to e-commerce as well as the communication part, the time has started changing. Both digital and offline medium are equally important to us. I believe that at the shop level, digital has gone quite upwards,” he said.

Sharing his thoughts on the importance of e-commerce for Bharat, Tewari said, “Today, the Indian consumer is bombarded with all kinds of global games, making the country one of the hottest gaming markets. So Indians downloaded more games last year than the US and Chinese markets. To be able to penetrate that market, we had to come up with the sachet strategy. You have limited time, limited money to entertain yourself.” He further stated that what Bharat is doing today, the world will do tomorrow as the mass market in Bharat is huge. “It is young and culturally the deepest that one can see in the whole world. So their power to change the narrative for entertainment is very formidable,” he added.