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<ul><li>Wakefit reminds consumers that carpenters should be appreciated for their art in our country. </li><li>It captures the struggles of being a retail carpenter in an online world through a character named Babloo Artist, played by Vijay Raaz. </li></ul>After Wakefit’s well-known Sleep Internship campaign established how important a good night's sleep is, its latest campaign uses wit and humor to remind the audience that carpenters are artists, too. Starring Vijay Raaz, the ad walks us through Artist Babloo’s predicament of being a retail carpenter in an online world. He talks about how consumers can be complex and trying to understand their behaviour is quite a task. He says that they want something that 'looks expensive, but is affordable in reality.' They want furniture like Taj Mahal on a limited budget but nobody cares about art, the artist behind it or the effort that goes into making it. <div type="Youtube" id="bU1twBueBRw" title="Wakefit presents Home Furniture! Ft. Vijay Raaz as Artist Babloo | Wakefit" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bU1twBueBRw/mqdefault.jpg"></div> Consumers look up furniture designs online and reach out to Babloo hoping to get an exact replica but are never willing to loosen their purse strings. Babloo was struggling to survive in a volatile market, where no one appreciated his art or paid him enough for his efforts. That’s when he stumbled upon Wakefit.co. He partnered with the brand and brought his fondness for art into every piece of furniture he assembled at consumer's doorstep. Babloo realises that the public starts appreciating his piece of art once he offers them a deal that fits in their budget and meets quality standards. Soon, Wakefit’s Babloo doesn’t even have the time to take a loo break, online orders keep him busy.

Wakefit’s campaign captures the struggles of being a retail carpenter in an online world, where no one appreciates the artist behind the piece of art

<ul><li>Redseer report on Digital Disruptor ranked 75 digital disruptors that currently generate $15 billion in sales online. </li><li>It also classified them into elephants, tigers, rabbits and turtles based on their category dominance and online focus. </li><li>Tigers and rabbits will have to enhance their focus on offline sales, while elephants and turtles will have to approach e-commerce aggressively, the report notes. </li></ul>The world is going digital and all companies – small, big, old and new are adapting to it. Come 2026, a quarter of all sales in the retail world (except grocery) will be online, predicts a Redseer report on Digital Disruptors. The report picked 75 companies in the crowded online space as digital disruptors, who cumulatively currently generate $15 billion in sales online, and ranked them based on the dominance in their category, and online focus. Surprisingly, traditional companies Hindustan Unilever and Aditya Birla Fashion &amp; Retail were ranked as top digital disruptors in grocery &amp; personal care, and fashion &amp; home categories, respectively. In the third category of electronics &amp; appliances, however, digital-first brand boAt was given the numero uno rank. The animal spirits In the jungle that is e-commerce, these 75 companies were also categorised as elephants, tigers, rabbits and turtles. No prizes for guessing who elephants are – typically legacy players who used to dominate their category offline, and have managed to build an online presence. “The sheer scale of elephants and brand pull has enabled them to get significant sales online, but e-commerce still contributes a relatively small share of their revenues,” the report said. Adidas, Zara, Nestle and Marico are some of the other brands listed under elephants. The next are the tigers – early movers in the e-commerce space that have scaled up rapidly. Licious, WakeFit, Mamaearth and Xiaomi are some of the brands in this part of the quadrant that is dominated by digital-first brands. But, Asus and BBK, which are not born digital also made it to this list. “Tigers have built online dominance in their categories. They drive a significant share of sales from e-commerce but have also built a strong offline footprint,” the report said. Rabbits: Yet to win the race The third category is rabbits, which are exclusively digital-first brands that have leveraged e-commerce to scale up but do not have a substantial market share. Most of the brands in this category, like Nothing, Beardo, Sugar Cosmetics, MyGlamm, Minimalist, Country Delight and more – are from the fashion and personal care space. Thanks to high growth in e-commerce sales, these players will benefit but will face challenges from elephants, who have established their presence both online and offline. The last set of companies in the quadrant are the slow-moving turtles – legacy brands that have done well in e-commerce but have a lower market share online relative to others. Fossil, Aachi Masala, Prestige and LG Electronics are some of the brands listed as turtles. The reverse migrants Digital-first brands account for 25% of all the sales in the e-commerce pie. However, now even digital-first brands are going offline, challenging traditional players in the turf erasing the battle lines. On an average, digital-first brands derive over 75% of their sales online while traditional brands do over 30% of their sales online. “Players in the top quadrants — tigers and rabbits — will have to enhance their focus on offline sales, while the bottom quadrant — elephants and turtles – will have to approach e-commerce aggressively,” says Mohit Rana, partner at Redseer. E-commerce is expected to drive retail growth and is projected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 27% to reach $163 billion by 2026. That’s almost three times the growth in the overall retail market, as per Redseer. “Clearly, traditional companies that are over indexed on offline sales have a short window to enhance their share in e-commerce.They need to focus on building their digital capabilities and adopting an omnichannel approach to succeed in the market,” said Redseer. Large-scale traditional players, even with a low percentage of e-commerce sales, have substantial absolute online sales, the report notes. SEE ALSO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/as-stores-remain-at-heart-of-business-retail-leasing-to-hit-a-4-year-high-in-2023-cbre/articleshow/99085535.cms">As stores remain at ‘heart of business’, retail leasing to hit a 4-year high in 2023: CBRE</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/advertising/brands/news/campa-has-to-go-beyond-invitation-price-to-build-the-brand-distribution-network/articleshow/99025480.cms">Campa has to go beyond invitation price to build the brand &amp; distribution network</a>

Meet the tigers, elephants, rabbits and turtles of the e-commerce jungle

<ul><li>Wakefit.co, a Bengaluru-based startup was founded by <keyword id="650855" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ankit-Garg">Ankit Garg</keyword> and <keyword id="1639108" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Chaitanya-Ramalingegowda">Chaitanya Ramalingegowda</keyword> in 2016.</li><li>In 4 years, the startup is now diversifying from its primary offering of <keyword id="9658763" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="sleep-wellness">sleep wellness</keyword> products to <keyword id="306280" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Home-Solutions">home solutions</keyword>.</li><li>The startup has announced ambitious expansion plans and is also targeting Rs 450 crore revenue in FY2021. Garg and Ramalingegowda walk us through their strategy to achieve it.</li></ul> In a year when most organizations are being frugal, cutting costs and even slashing jobs, Wakefit.co recently announced that its expansion plan. It is going to invest Rs 15 crore towards setting up new facilities, expanding product lines and strengthening technological capabilities. It also aims to target Rs 450 crore in revenue for FY 2021. Moreover, the company also plans to hire close to 200 people in the next couple of months. The year 2020 has been difficult for organizations across the world. However, it is companies that have been able to adapt, stay agile and listen to its consumers and work on its offerings accordingly that have been able to weather the storm effectively. So how has Wakefit, a 4-year-old startup been able to not only grow in these adverse times without cutting any jobs but is now also looking at hiring and investing on expansion? Ankit Garg, CEO and Co-founder, Wakefit.co said, “We recently announced an investment of Rs 15 crore towards setting up of new facilities, expanding product lines and strengthening our focus on research and innovation. We believe that investing in Capex to improve quality, reduce manufacturing costs and thereby pass on the benefit to customers is the ideal way to grow a business, and we will continue to adopt that strategy while fuelling the next level of growth. As a company, our top priority will continue to be the enhancement of customer experience and satisfaction.” “As a fundamentally strong company that works on sound business values, we have always prioritized a solid balance sheet and employee welfare,” added Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, Director and Co-founder, Wakefit.co. “By virtue of these ethos, we have been able to pay full salaries to employees and avoid any layoffs during this time. In fact, being in the home solutions space, we have seen growing demand for our products, which strengthened our resolve to invest in Capex to bolster our back-end capabilities. While we have remained very frugal in marketing efforts and for potentially wasteful expenditure, we have not held back in terms of investments that will benefit the company and our hundreds of employees in the long term,” he shared. What started as an online mattress and sleep solutions startup is now diversifying its offerings too. It is now also looking at entering the home solutions space. However, that is one space that already has a few well-established players, both online and offline. So how is Wakefit.co trying to create differentiation in the segment? “With our foray into the home solutions space, we are now invested in the science and innovation of home wellness. Based on scientific research in home ergonomics, we have designed new products such as study tables, book shelves, bedside tables, coffee tables, TV units, sofas, shoe racks, and dining tables that offer superior value to customers at an affordable price. Given that we are a full stack company and own the manufacturing and back-end operations end-to-end, it is conducive to keep innovating on the products and keep the prices reasonable, yet be profitable,” explained Ramalingegowda. “Our direct-to-consumer DNA, powered by strong manufacturing capabilities, is definitely a big advantage. Currently, we have six world-class manufacturing facilities – spread across Bengaluru, Jodhpur and Delhi – to cater to the growing consumer demand,” he added. The lockdown experience The first two months when operations came to a sudden halt, there was a lot of uncertainty and confusions about the future. Supply chain had been completely disrupted. However, that halt also led to a lot of pent up demand. Moreover, with people staying more at home, they started paying more attention to wellness and sleep. “As the lockdown eased, we registered an increase in customer queries about our products. There has been a perceptible shift in customer preferences, possibly, due to prolonged stay at home as well as crucial conversations about health and well-being,” shared Garg. As working from home became the norm, Wakefit.com also witnessed an upsurge in the demand for better home solutions. “We understand that customers are creating their own efficient and ergonomic work spaces within their homes, while also filling the gaps in their home furniture needs now that they are spending more hours indoors. This has contributed to steady growth in demand over the last two months. We surpassed pre-Covid demand in June and are on track to do the same in July as well,” he added. Wakefit.co’s marketing plans for FY2021 Wakefit.co has had an interesting marketing journey so far. Last year, a campaign it did, inviting entries for its sleep internship went viral, for all the right reasons. It was a smart campaign, and appealed to a huge consumer base that was intrigued at the prospect of getting paid to sleep. More recently, another campaign the startup did featuring actors Sumit Vyas and Rasika Dugal was also widely shared, for voicing what a lot ofus had been experiencing during the first few weeks of the lockdown. So what comes next in their marketing journey? “Our goal is to build brand awareness and the best way to do it, in our opinion, is to take the stance of educating customers and to focus on innovative ideas and content that will resonate with our target audience. For instance, intelligent campaigns – such as our sleep internship campaign or the open letter campaign which went live during the lockdown period – give us opportunities to engage with our customers in meaningful ways,” said Ramalingegowda. Recently, the brand also launched the ‘Wakefit Rewards’ initiative to provide value-added benefits to its customers. It also partnered with brands like Gaana, Cleartrip, Bombay Shaving Company, Ajio, 1MG and Parentlane among others to offer value-added offers on the purchase of Wakefit.co products. The collaboration was purely on goodwill, without any commercial considerations. This allowed the partner brands to attract traffic from Wakefit.co’s users without incurring any marketing costs while Wakefit.co’s customers derived value too. On what kind of marketing budgets they are looking at allocating this year, Ramalingegowda said, “Our marketing budget allocations have always been made keeping consumer sentiment and situational awareness in mind. We do not believe in spending large marketing budgets for the sake of it or because other brands are doing it. We always think about the benefit it will add to the customer’s life and then create initiatives accordingly.” Going deeper into Bharat While the brand is expanding its offering by diversifying, its next phase of growth will also come from going deeper into the country. Already close to 30% of its demand comes from Tier II and Tier III markets. “When it comes to going deeper into the country, strategic collaborations will be the key. We work with multiple logistic partners, who have unique strengths in diverse geographies, to ensure that Wakefit.co has a robust distribution and delivery system in every corner of India. We have capabilities to deliver across 19,000+ pincodes in the country and around 30% of our demand comes from Tier 2 and 3 markets. As we grow steadily, we aim to target Tier 2 and 3 cities aggressively and target 50% demand from these markets,” shared Garg. Wakefit.co of the future Both Garg and Ramalingegowda are confident that the startup is on the right path. It will continue to keep the consumer at the heart of everything that it does. On what he thinks the Wakefit.co of the future will look like, Garg said, “The vision is to strengthen the brand and ramp up production capabilities as well as distribution network across Indian markets. Our focus is on providing cutting-edge home solutions to Indian consumers at a highly affordable price point. The idea is to create a pioneering company powered by constant innovation based on consumer data and feedback. At Wakefit.co, we are working towards inspiring healthy conversations that create greater awareness about the importance of sleep and home wellness.”

Wakefit.co is targeting Rs 450 crore revenue in FY2021. The founders tell us how they plan to reach there

<ul><li>As pandemic craze settles down, several startups in the consumer tech space like <keyword id="2900267" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="byju" source="Orion">Byju</keyword>’s, <keyword id="6630114" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="unacademy" source="Orion">Unacademy</keyword>, <keyword id="2016957" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="vedantu" source="Orion">Vedantu</keyword>, <keyword id="864887" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pepperfry" source="Orion">Pepperfry</keyword>, <keyword id="255703" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="bluestone" source="Orion">BlueStone</keyword> and CaratLane are rushing to open offline.</li><li>Brand creation, expansion and a huge offline market are some of the reasons behind growing offline models.</li><li>Also, the fact that India online is still 10-12% of the total commerce and 85-90% is still offline, which is a much larger pie for grabs.</li></ul>India has been registering almost 80 <keyword id="138263" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="startup" source="Orion">startup</keyword>s every day and the count has grown in the last couple of years. Pandemic saw every other startup investing and marketing their strong online presence thinking it will last forever. Now that the pandemic boom has faded, edtech startups like Byju’s, Unacademy, Vedantu or furniture retailers like Pepperfry, Wakefit are working to expand their offline presence – into brick and mortar stores, or in some cases, launching their own stores. Experts believe that brand creation, expansion and a huge offline market is why consumer startups should open offline stores as well. “According to multiple industry reports, the Indian online market is still just around 10% of the total retail market of which about 90% is still offline, which is a much larger pie. Online businesses are therefore coming offline for multiple reasons -- brand creation, expansion. The market is much larger offline so they would want to have a share of the pie,” Amit Nawka, partner – deals and India startup leader at PwC India told Business Insider India. The emerging hybrid model After the pandemic consumers are looking for a personal touch and visiting stores, which is proving a challenge for such consumer startups. Most cash rich online companies are acquiring companies to help them build an offline presence, quickly. It’s already visible in the edtech space as students have developed screen fatigue during two years of the pandemic. Experts say that Byju’s Akash acquisition was to make its mark offline. And Unacademy and others would have to follow suit. In an emerging digital era, even offline stores are still a priority for many, online and offline models are supposed to work seamlessly with one another -- store for people to walk in and experience the brand and then also purchase online. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; table-layout: fixed; width: 468pt;" class="redcator-table-advance"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Startups opening experience centres to expand offline </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Byju’s acquired tutoring chain Aakash Educational Services to expand physical branches </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Vedantu experimenting a hybrid model, opens offline centres that will like a learning centre </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Unacademy will have 15 offline centres in nine cities by mid-July </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">IPO bound Pepperfry has opened studios in Odisha, Bangalore </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Wakefit announced launch of 10 retail stories across India this year </td></tr></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody></table> Offline play is now being called an ‘omni-channel approach’. FirstCry and Ratan Tata-backed retail jewelry companies like BlueStone and CaratLane which were predominantly online players have started going offline. The costs, cannibalization - the Nykaa case study Nykaa, which is more of an e-commerce company for beauty, wellness and fashion products, has been opening stores to let consumers recognize their brand in person. Since 2014, Nykaa has turned omnichannel and opened physical retail stores to get closer to customers. Its retail store count has come up to 95 across 47 cities in the country and has declared plans to triple the store count to 300 across 100 cities. “On the surface, this seems like a distraction from the digital-first, tech enabled positioning that the company continues to portray. However, it is important to understand the strategic reasons for the company to aggressively pursue store expansion,” said a report by JM Financial. While it could be a long-term strategy, in the medium term however brokerages feel that going offline could be a stress on the balance sheets of companies – especially those which are on their path to profitability. “Besides providing some brands (and within that only some SKUs) the route to market in the physical world in addition to the online realm, we do not see any rationale in entering this business. There will be significant overlap with other providers such as Jio and Udaan, not to mention its own distribution in some cases,” said an IIFL report on Nykaa. The report also says that physical stores might result in cannibalization of business for beauty and personal care products in Nykaa. It gets a lot of business from small towns which do not have retail presence and this business can be eaten away from its own physical business, according to IIFL. Will buy online but want to ‘see’ offline J M Financial however believes otherwise. In urban and rural areas both, a majority of the population still feels comfortable transacting on digital platforms when they can connect it to a physical presence as well. “The retail footprint provides peace of mind to the customers and, hence, becomes a strong brand building factor as well,” said the J M Financial report. Tech innovations such as virtual try-ons work to some extent for certain products but having the opportunity to access a store can be a game-changer. Purple too went for the Faces Canada acquisition, which was predominantly offline. Quick commerce adding warehouses or dark store Retail businesses are in need of brick and mortar presence, the most. Quick delivery platforms -- Zomato, Dunzo, Bigbasket -- are also expanding their warehouses as they promise to deliver groceries in 10-15 minutes. A dark store is generally a large warehouse that can either be used to facilitate a ‘click-and-collect’ service, where a customer collects an item they have ordered online, or as an order fulfillment platform for online sales. These quick commerce platforms rely on these dark stores for quick deliveries. During the pandemic, online businesses have expanded and thrived but as they tried to ‘take over’ from physical businesses, they saw something they never probably saw earlier – how close they can get to their customers and how many more they can reach physically. This is the starting point of the trend reversal in startups and new-age digital businesses. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; table-layout: fixed; width: 468pt;" class="redcator-table-advance"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Dunzo operates 120 dark stores across the eight cities and is looking to expand </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Zomato’s new acquisition Blinkit has about 400 such stores and may expand further </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Bigbasket aims to expand its dark store network to 300 stores </td></tr></tbody><tbody></tbody><tbody></tbody></table> SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/india/news/uddhav-thackeray-the-accidental-chief-minister/articleshow/92559485.cms">Uddhav Thackeray: The accidental chief minister</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/indian-credit-card-users-spend-40x-more-than-debit-card-users-online/articleshow/92543305.cms">Indian credit card users spend 40x more than debit card users online</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/credit-card-spends-hit-a-record-high-and-most-of-it-is-online-and-not-at-stores/articleshow/92535200.cms">Credit card spends hit a record high and most of it is online and not at stores</a>

Startups go physical from digital as pandemic boom ends

<ul><li><keyword id="3900173" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="logicserve-digital" source="Orion">Logicserve Digital</keyword> recently announced that it clocked 55% CAGR over the last 6 years and witnessed accelerated growth across verticals, Creative (70%+), Data &amp; Insights and Technology (90%+) in CY 2021 compared to CY 2020.</li><li>We speak to <keyword id="3900175" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Prasad-Shejale" source="Orion">Prasad Shejale</keyword>, Founder &amp; CEO, Logicserve Digital about the agency’s journey so far and what lies ahead.</li></ul>After the outbreak of coronavirus, <keyword id="618493" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="digital-marketing" source="Orion">digital marketing</keyword> accelerated at an unbelievable speed, exceeding all predictions and expectations. Brands were quick to adapt, pivoting aggressively from traditional mediums to invest in digital. Logicserve Digital is also winning new businesses at a time when the market isn’t particularly performing well. In the last few months, it has bagged marquee brands such as Canara HSBC, Domino’s, Ebro India, Fresh To Home, Future Generali, Haier, to mention a few. It recently announced that the agency witnessed 55% CAGR over the last six years and Prasad Shejale, Founder &amp; CEO, Logicserve Digital told Advertising and Media Insider that the agency is now eyeing to achieve 100% growth. He further told us about the biggest challenges that lie ahead for the agency and digital marketing ecosystem, how the agency is preparing for the third wave and boosting its employees' morale and his vision for 2022. Q. Prasad, how was 2021 for Logicserve Digital and for the digital advertising industry? It’s an exciting time of change we’re living in. We’ve come a long way in these past years, and more so since 2020. In 2021, we won 61 new accounts across Media, Creative, Data &amp; Insights and Technology and 20 new accounts for our eMarket service. We successfully added multiple new categories of brands to our portfolio including E-commerce, Fintech, BFSI, FMCG, Gaming, Consumer Durables, F &amp; B, Health &amp; Pharma, B2B, IT, Media, &amp; Entertainment. Additionally, we partnered with some well-known names in the industry, including Canara HSBC, Domino’s, Ebro India, Fresh To Home, Future Generali, Haier, iMocha, Jubilant FoodWorks, Reynolds, Wakefit, resulting in 150+ total India clients. Overall, it has been a phenomenal 2021! From the industry perspective, many changes have happened in the past year. We have seen a huge growth in this industry, something that was only expected to happen in the next 5-10 years. More and more users have adopted the digital ways of doing things. Brands too are embracing the digital industry, including the ones who weren’t very active or totally inactive on digital earlier. The industry has definitely seen positive growth and helped businesses defy the odds and continue their success journey while allowing them to provide delightful experiences to their customers. In my opinion, some of the key trends that dominated 2021 include Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), Digital Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Customer-centric vision, Contactless solutions, digital payments, etc. Q. What will be the biggest challenges and opportunities for the advertising industry in 2022? How are you preparing yourself to face it? During the latter half of 2021, people went outside to meet their friends and family and celebrated the festivities after a long wait. As we move into the grips of the highly infectious Omicron variant, once again, digital continues to ensure people's safety, life continuity, and is a necessary support system. Sometimes, it might be challenging for marketers to embrace emerging technologies disrupting the digital medium, skill-up, and keep pace with the rapidly evolving digital ecosystem. Furthermore, how people of different age groups interact with technology will transform incredibly over the next five to ten years. The ability of some brands to keep pace with this accelerated pace of transformation will define if they will lead the game or just be bystanders. Hence, bridging the gaps with technology, newer trends, and the correct identification of relevant tools might challenge the industry. In terms of opportunities, I think 5G has been making good progress, and I am sure we will soon see it become mainstream this year. It offers a wide range of benefits right from the increased capacity for delivery of new content and services. It will lead brands to deliver unique experiences in unthinkable ways, that too at incredible speed. The major trends that we have been talking about in the past few years, like AR, VR, etc., will finally prevail in consumers' lives with high-speed internet availability. Foraying into regional is another great opportunity for brands this year. As per reports by Google India, only 20% of the Indian population can speak English and 45% of the local language users prefer accessing content exclusively in regional languages. So, it's a no-brainer that we have seen an upward trend in the last few years where brands are making original content in respective regional languages for maximum impact and reach. At Logicserve Digital, we have always focused on a solutions-led approach for our business. The restructuring of our verticals revived and synchronized the energies of our team members. So, in 2020, amid the pandemic, we could quickly pivot our model to ensure customer experience was not compromised at any level. We also follow our Logicserve Digital Transformation Framework (LDTF) that combines our capabilities across Media, Creative, Data &amp; Insights and Technology and helps us curate apt and result-oriented solutions for our clients’ specific needs. This agility in our business focus, digital expertise, and cultural transformation allows us to adjust our strategy according to the latest market changes. We embrace changing consumer behavior, shifting buyer choices, increased inclination towards quality products, etc., to deliver more creative and personalized experiences that ultimately ensure our clients remain category leaders. Furthermore, our brand values, mission, and vision prepare us for any uncertainty that might come ahead. Q. How will you ensure that you keep the momentum going this year? As you can see, our constant evolution has helped us yield phenomenal results with incredible new growth records in 2021. Banking on our team's capabilities, knowledge, and skills, we have overachieved customer expectations by leaps and bounds. Our workforce is the engine behind our growth, and we are in a better position than we were in the pre-pandemic era. I am delighted that we have successfully restored our clients' trust; as a result, they trust us on our expertise to lead their digital functions. We have aligned our priorities properly - People, Purpose, Partnership, and then Performance to lead the brand to glory as we move ahead in 2022. Our teams will deal with the first 3Ps with compassion and determination, and hence we are sure 'Performance' would follow. Q. What is the one thing digital/advertising agencies need to change and keep in mind this year? Technology and capabilities always come with lots of responsibilities too. We have to build socially acceptable rules and follow those as we embrace trends like in the virtual world too. Rest everything, I am sure, will fall into place when the basics are adhered to by the agencies. For instance, as technology gets cheaper and with the advent of quantum computing, innovative experiences will be delivered much faster in the metaverse. In that respect, expensive occasions like travel to exotic places, which probably was possible for those who are economically well off, is now also possible for those who are not economically well off. And thus, a new virtual world will be for everyone and not just people from big cities. Hence, agencies need to be responsible for keeping the virtual world's space healthy and positive. The social construct that has built us, as a human race, needs to be followed in the virtual world too. Q. How is the agency making life better for its employees considering we're heading into another wave? We have a positive outlook for 2022. Employee safety has been and will be a focal point for all our decisions while ensuring business continuity. We hope that the Omicron wave can be controlled in Q1 of 2022 with proper guidelines and a vaccination drive and our efforts will be concentrated towards this very goal of the industry and government. We are delicately working on a plan to consider Flexi working once again along with Flexi timing with a greater focus on results rather than efforts. We have already installed thermal scanners and contactless hand sanitizers in the office premises along with a system to ensure that the number of employees in the office is always at the lowest optimum. Apart from a well-conceptualized hybrid work policy, our Emergency Response Team (ERT) ensures employees get the necessary aid. Furthermore, our HR teams are well equipped to help teammates in real-time with initiatives like regular health check-ups. Q. How has the pandemic impacted the relationship between agencies and clients? The uncertainty has brought the agencies and clients closer with seamless collaboration. Particularly for us at Logicserve Digital, we have been following our Logicserve Digital Transformation Framework (LDTF) that has helped us focus on building digital businesses for our clients in a holistic way. Our workforce is an engine behind our exponential growth and has left no stone unturned in delivering 100% satisfaction to our clients. Our teams quickly adopted a hybrid set-up to make sure that the customer's transition towards 100% digital is smooth and seamless. It gives me pride to say that our employees are our brand custodians and work as an extended team of our clients with a ‘WE’ spirit. Furthermore, our growth verticals, customized approaches per changing buying personas, and ability to harp on the latest trends prepare our teams to provide excellent support to clients 24x7. And the fact that our clients know that we are more of their partners in their journey gives us an edge. Q. Consumer behavior has also changed drastically. We are all anxious again and there is still uncertainty looming around. The kind of communications a brand comes up with during a crisis can either help win consumer trust or work completely the other way around. So when you work on any campaigns for your clients, how will you ensure that you are treading that line to really make sure that you get it right? Brands have increased interest in breaking clutter and building awareness about their products/ services in digital media. Once they have achieved their awareness goals, they are looking at enhancing it further and driving quality leads. With the uncertainty peaking again, digital ad spending is bound to succeed as users are more open to making purchases online from the comfort and safety of their homes. Brands and agency partners are well aware about how the consumer behaviour changed during the pandemic. This has happened before too but now the shock value has gone down. Even with regards to the pandemic, we have witnessed two waves already and hence have a better understanding about how the consumer has evolved. We need to be relevant as well as sensitive when we connect with them while maintaining a fine balance that allows effective communication without overdoing it. This is where I feel agency partners play a significant role, in terms of guiding brands to communicate with audiences in an ethical and compassionate manner. When we work with brands, we are always mindful about the situations, are sensitive towards consumer sentiments and communicate with empathy. We shall continue to follow this approach. We never focus on overselling and rather emphasize on keeping the communication going and maintaining the relationship with consumers in a sensitive way. This way they are aware about the brand and their offerings, have a good recall and will come back to them when the need arises. Customers do understand when a brand knows how to maintain the fine balance of communicating without overdoing it and when you portray this in your communication, they are bound to notice it. Also, the empathy cap has to be there always. Always communicate with empathy and the people will surely get the message. Q. What would your focus areas for this year be? An integral part of our success has been the company's people-first approach i.e. ability to convert employees into brand ambassadors through community building and elevating customer advocacy with an unparalleled support system. As we move ahead ‘people’ will be our priority both from an internal and external standpoint i.e. employees and customers. We also intend to enhance new areas under LDTF for better client experience. We have added new products under our initiative of Data Solutions that will help our clients build better efficiencies for their digital business. We love to work with great brands and that shall continue for all our verticals, whether it is media, creative, data &amp; insights or technology. We want to move closer to our goal of being a truly integrated digital marketing &amp; transformation company. Our Leadership team focuses on 3Ts – Trends, Talent &amp; Texture. That shall continue for us to define new areas as they come and to build our talent pool for all the new changes that we make to help our clients grow their digital business and communication. From an expansion perspective, growing inorganically is on cards for this year. Q. What kind of growth have you seen over the years and what's your target for this fiscal? We saw Y-O-Y revenue increase as client confidence restored and the brand's spending levels became more resilient and predictable in 2021 compared to 2020. In addition, we were well-positioned to capitalize on the growing need from clients across domains for expertise around transforming customer experiences through the core capabilities across Media, Creative, Data &amp; Insights, and Technology, as well as the new eMarket initiative. Logicserve Digital clocked 55% CAGR over the last six years, our media managed grew by 186% in Calendar year (CY) 2021 compared to CY 2020, and we witnessed accelerated growth across verticals, Creative (70%+), Data &amp; Insights and Technology (90%+) in CY 2021 compared to CY 2020. For 2022, even at a large base of ours, we are aiming at a 100% growth rate. Q. What are your plans for 2022, in terms of expansion, new business targets, talent acquisition, and technology development? In 2021, we grew phenomenally across all areas of our business. Our headcount increased by 27%. This year, we are looking at growing by 100% and with that we will be looking for new talent required to support this growth. Our talent requirements are across the hierarchy. There is a huge focus to get the best of talent available in the country, but apart from that, we are also putting in a lot of effort into hiring and grooming new talent by training freshers. Inorganic growth will also add to our talent pool as the year proceeds. Our products through our data solutions vertical are ready to help enhance our offerings thereby benefiting our clients in their expansion journey as well. Q. Lastly, the pandemic has brought with it a lot of learnings. What are your major learnings from this experience so far? The past year has taught us a lot and pushed us, in a way, to go back to the basics and follow an empathetic and humane approach in everything we do. It taught us the importance of perseverance and resilience. It urged us to let go of old ways of doing things, figure out alternatives and quickly adapt to the changes to be able to stand strong in the market. Hence, the Corporate Empathy Relationship (CER) will be central to our action plan

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