Mapping the startup landscape can be an insightful exercise, one that throws up as many don’t’s as do’s. In hindsight, successful or failed startups would point to many defining factors and one that invariably stands out is the viability of a venture’s marketing strategy. We are living in times when stories are all that matter - narratives that are endorsed in a social media driven eco-system and which get translated into the right optics for your product or service. Controlling this narrative is a matter of investing in marketing resources efficiently.     In a conversation with Forbes magazine, Kipp Bodnar, CMO of  HubSpot, a business growth platform , has an interesting observation to make regarding startups and their marketing approach, “They have one marketer. They essentially have 30-50 hours of labo u r a week. The firm/marketer decides to do the following 1) W eekly email newsletter 2) Social media communicat ion 3) M arketing automation 4) Monthly ...

Yes indeed, these are exciting times. We are inching towards a fully digitalised world, all thanks to the rapid advancement in technology.  But this comes with its own set of challenges that confront every part of the society and business is no exception. Businesses have had to evolve strategies and embrace new technologies to keep pace with this rapid transformation be it the increasing use of AI  and automation for a variety of purposes,  the use of various software, 3 D printing, collaborative consumption etc. What is the issue ? But one issue that continues to remain steadfastly in the current fast moving digital era, is the issue of talent sharing across domains. Even as the employment landscape and norms are changing with the emergence of the gig economy and businesses themselves are resorting to the contractual method of work on an increasing scale it is pertinent to ask how fair is it to restrict the natural flow of talent possessed by profe...

A leader who thinks and brings his thoughts to reality impacting several people to learn, inspire, create with his innovative ideas, while demonstrating change and replicating success, at a larger scale comes under Thought Leadership. Such people bring about a radical shift in innovation [1] , design and vision by affecting industries and also entire ecosystems. They revolutionize their surroundings to such a large extent, simply by what they do, that they automatically enroll more and more people to join in their efforts. Thought Leaders are learned and informed people, sometimes with years of research and knowledge under their belt as well as experts in their domain. Their stories are covered widely, contributing to the success they are today. By de facto standards, one looks-up to successful people. It is but natural for human beings to ‘Follow the Leader’ but more so, as it is ingrained in our psyche through several systems such as education, psychology, business modalities, semi...

Profit being the key driver of any business, all its activities are necessarily aligned to achieving this goal. Employee engagement is one of the means being increasingly employed by businesses worldwide to maximize  their profits. The latest trends in employee engagement indicate that future companies would be driven by compassionate leaders, marked by greater flexibility and much greater influence of big data…all aligned to creating engagement rich organisational cultures.   But regardless of the direction it takes in the future, employee engagement entails both monetary and physical costs. Companies typically spend massive amounts of money on incentives, benefits and reward programs. They must train and develop their employees and also spend on various supporting programs, physical and IT infrastructure. All of this plays a critical role in the success or otherwise of employee engagement.  The problem But despite such massive outlays Gallup’s po...

The Shared Economy Concept, at its core, is based on the most efficient use of money and resources. In the era of start-ups, gathering the resources is the most challenging aspect of any start-up. The broader vision of the founders of a start-up need to be simplified into micro plans so as to achieve the objective initially set. These micro plans focus on the resource requirements of the start –up. By resource requirement we mean all the tangible and intangible forces which are needed to build up the venture. It includes manpower requirements, space requirements and funding to name a few. Since the funds available to a start-up are usually limited, manpower planning plays a crucial role. An essential ingredient to effective leadership is to manage the resources efficiently. As the funds are limited, resource sharing can play an important role in the success of the venture. The technological advancement across all industries today makes resource sharing a very convenient and appropri...

Outsourced CMO is growing up fast! Started as a one-man army and on a simple concept of shared resources, we are now gaining popularity not only amongst SMEs but some well-known and well-established businesses and are close to 10 people strong team. The latest addition to the list is the association of OCMO with Vidal Healthcare, one of India’s top TPA companies offering services to health insurance policy holders. The firm is now expanding its wings in app-only holistic healthcare service provider category. For the launch of this vital app, Vidal’s management wanted nothing but the best in industry. That’s where Outsourced CMO and his team of experienced and strong marketeers were approached to sense the waters and create unique go-to market strategies for the new app launch. Another strong reason that convinced Vidal management that OCMO is the right choice was, within the last 4 years of its existence, Outsourced CMO has been a strong part of more than 11 success stories an...

Block chain and Cryptocurrency seem to be synonymous but they are not. While block chain is the underlying technology that helps manage the digital currency, most importantly, it’s decentralized so no one person, government or business controls it.  For a few months of 2018, whole  of Silicon Valley was wrapped up in a fantasy of remaking the world order with Cryptocurrencies and a related technology called the block chain. And just as the public had been given all possible block chain content that could be written, the whole thing collapsed. The bubble popped.  Bitcoin might be the most significant financial bubble the world has ever seen so far. Every  Cryptocurrency user has to do away with knowing about block chain as such which dominates the world of distributed-ledger technology. One factor favoring   the argument of Bitcoin being a bubble is that there is likely a high-volume of inexperienced investors flooding the Cryptocurrency mar...

In today’s world the success of a person is measured through the riches he has accumulated over a period of time. The first step towards riches is an innate desire to succeed. Quoting Napoleon Hill, a famous American journalist: “It is not a wish! It is a keen, pulsating desire, which transcends                                        everything else” . A successful person chooses a definite goal, places all his energy, all his will power, all his effort, everything, back of that goal. Every person who succeeds in any venture must be willing to wreck his ships and cut all sources of withdrawing back. Only by doing so can he be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as burning desire to win, essential for success. When the going gets tough and the future looks terrible, successful people pull up their spirits and fuel their desire further to reach up to the point of succes...

The owning of digital assets is still at its nascent years of evolution. A Crypto currency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses strong cryptography to secure financial transactions. INCX’s platform is a part of the latest digital revolution for Crypto miners and at the same time a secure and compliant Crypto exchange. It is building one of the world’s most secure Crypto exchange platform based on block-chain. The technical know-how and the experience of the marketing team is the backbone of every Crypto project that wants to have a bright, long-term future. There is dearth of marketing professionals in India in this domain. That’s where INCX joined hands with Outsourced CMO to formulate its marketing campaigns and help INCX differentiate its business.   OCMO is now spreading its wings and shifting boundaries outside Bangalore and its popularity   has now extended to Hyderabad. Vineet’s teams of dedicated experts strive towards ...

Our life has transformed as we transition from an analogue to a digital world. We are connected 24*7 through technology. Apart from connected devices, cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), our world seems digitized in more ways than one. Our workplace has transmuted due to the impact of digitization. The business planning cycles have shrunk from years to months and now weeks. The workplace has transformed into spending more time with laptops and gadgets rather than people working in the same office. Business models are being disturbed. Technology like AI, data analytics and cloud computing are changing the way we think and respond to our customers. The response time has drastically reduced and the definition of competition has changed. What is impossible today becomes a reality tomorrow. Our customers and competitors are getting redefined after the revolutionary digitization. The use of Artificial Intelligence was thought of as a marketing technology tha...

  All entrepreneurs start with an idea and a belief that their vision can have a massive impact. The vision is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by the entrepreneur. The impulse, the desire, is given shape, form and action through the vision and mission statement derived from the imaginative faculty of the mind. Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes. Ideas are the product of imagination. Whoever you are, wherever you may live, whatever occupation you may be engaged in, just remember in the future that any vast empire of wealth and influence grew out of a single idea mixed with the ingredient of a vision. If you are one of those who believe that hard work and honesty, alone, will bring riches, forget this thought! It is not true! Riches, when they come in huge quantities are never the result of hard work alone! Riches come in response to definite demands, based upon the application of definite principles, and not by chance or luck. Al...

An entrepreneur is an individual who sets up a business, assuming the risk and rewards of the venture. Now the question arises, are entrepreneurs born with business acumen or an individual can hone his skills to become a successful entrepreneur? It is a matter of nature versus nurture. A couple of decades ago we could have easily accepted the fact that entrepreneurs are born looking at the history of success stories of the likes of Dhirubhai Ambani,Ratan Tata and Seth Shiv Narayan Birla to name a few. Back then there was no lack of ideas or funding-rather there was a dearth of driven, capable and obsessional entrepreneurs. But with the advent of digital revolution, learning and developing certain skill sets is just a click away. Sharp focus on objective and an insatiable desire to succeed can move an entrepreneurial venture to great heights. Truly, a burning desire has devious ways of transmuting itself into its physical equivalent. The entrepreneur of today works backward...