When Suva Ghosh and Amogh Kuthiala embarked on a consultancy project with digital marketing firm Brandmovers, they had no idea that they would go on to found the company's India business.
Manchester Business School MBA consultancy projects are set up as part of the MBA programme to link the school's pool of talented and experienced international professionals with companies that need external consultants.
The projects in turn can give students exposure to a new industry, allow them to put some of the newly acquired MBA thinking into practice and occasionally, as in Suva and Amogh’s case, lead to them becoming Directors of the company’s new business in India!
Suva is the Executive Director at Brandmovers India. He has over eight years of technology consulting experience having worked for companies in media, gaming, retail and travel. Some of the companies he has worked for include MTV Networks, Virgin Holidays, Harrahs, Cognizant, IBM and Infosys.
Amogh is also a director at Brandmovers in India. Before joining Brandmovers, he worked across various industries including manufacturing, consulting, media, travel and tourism.
The completed their MBA in 2011. In this interview, we talk to Suva about their whirlwind project and their future plans for the digital engagement company, which specialises in building meaningful connections between brands and their customers.
How did you get involved with Brandmovers India?
Our connection with Brandmovers started from Manchester when we worked on an MBA consultancy project for them. During the project they had looked at different options, new strategies and new markets and one of the outcomes was the decision to enter India. We had worked in India for six to seven years and understood the market. At the end of our MBA, we raised the necessary funding and started running the company.
How do you think digital marketing is changing in India?
Digital spending is growing, especially in the mobile sphere. There are about 800 million mobile devices that people can access the internet with, compared with 120 million personal computers in India. This means that there is a big channel for marketers to exploit and you can see global companies entering the market either on their own or through acquisitions. Some of the big players coming into India are WPP and JWT.
Was going into marketing something you had in mind when you went for your MBA?
I was working in the UK when I joined Manchester and was doing things like building enterprise systems. I had no idea about marketing but it was some of the activities I got involved in at business school that really spiked my interest.
You ran the Media, Entertainment and Sports Society while on the MBA, did that tie into your involvement with Brandmovers?
The MESS is still running. At the time we started it, there was no forum or platform in place for those sectors. We organized the Digital Media Summit in 2010 and it was the largest student-run conference in the UK around digital media. We had speakers who were executives in top companies and representatives from all kinds of exciting companies in the digital media sphere.
The CEO of Gibson guitars flew in from Nashville for the event. Now, these kinds of events are happening all the time but at that time it was important for us to start building a platform for the digital economy.
How do you find your clients in India?
We’ve built this business from the scratch and of course we have to adapt to the trends specific to the region. Our core strength is promotions so we look for companies who need our full digital marketing services and engage them in the right ways. Some of the clients in India are Diesel, Superdry, Lenovo, BIBA, Wild Stone, Nerolac, Dabur, Aircel and more. We’re helped Diesel with this exciting campaign and we're also helping to launch SuperDry in India with a very interactive campaign.
Did you have any particular challenges in starting the company?
The most challenging thing has been finding talent.
How are you planning to grow in the future?
We are growing by territory and industry. We opened an office in Delhi and we are looking at projects in Singapore, and Dubai. We want to open an office in Bangalore next year.
You can read more stories on students, alumni and programmes at Manchester Business School here
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