The year that is about to end has been the year of e-commerce and start-ups, disruption as well as consolidation in the media domain. Post the general elections last year that brought Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power, it has also been the year of #Make in India, with Modi setting out to improve the business environment, and attract top companies to manufacture in India. Parallelly, the year saw huge money come into the Indian economy by way of PE funds for start-ups in the e-commerce domain. Meanwhile, media, especially Television, witnessed a new high with digitization and a more robust measurement system, gladdening the hearts of media planners. Achieving scale and profitability became the buzzwords.
It is natural, therefore, to see Amitabh Kant, Secretary, Industrial Policy and Promotion, Govt. of India, (leader of the #MakeInIndia initiative), Arnab Goswami, President- News & Editor-in-Chief, Times Now and ET Now, Ashish Bhasin, ?Chairman & CEO South Asia of Dentsu Aegis Network, CVL Srinivas, CEO of GroupM South Asia, Kunal Bahl co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, Nikesh Arora President & CEO of SoftBank Corp, Rana Kapoor, co-founder, MD & CEO of Yes Bank and Vijay Shekhar Sharma founder & CEO of Paytm as the nominees for the IMPACT Person of the Year 2015.
Here are arguments on behalf of each of the stalwarts and why we think they deserve to win.
Amitabh Kant
Secretary, Industrial Policy and Promotion, Govt. of India
Following PM Modi’s win in the elections last year, the country has been looking forward to his #MakeinIndia campaign. Leading this powerful initiative is the quiet, unassuming Amitabh Kant, the driving force behind #MakeinIndia. Kant who has been called India’s can-do man and the problem-solver by many is secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), the nodal agency aimed at improving the ease of doing business in India. With the work that DIPP has been doing, India has already jumped up 12 positions in the World Bank ranking of ease of doing business. Kant is hopeful that the work being done will help the country jump up 30-40 places by next year. DIPP has also embarked on the mammoth task of eliminating red-tapism within the government, and trying to achieve a level of self governance to ensure 97% of foreign direct investment (FDI) comes to the country. With start-ups performing exceptionally well in 2015, Kant has also been stressing on the need to get rid of age-old rules and regulations in businesses to encourage more new players to start their enterprises and to help boost manufacturing. The aim is to get more and more people onto the manufacturing bandwagon. Kant is the man responsible for giving us much-loved earlier campaigns like God’s Own Country, Atithi Devo Bhaba and Incredible India that have helped in showcasing the country as an attractive tourist destination globally. Kant is also the Chairman of the ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC) which promises to take India to new heights by developing new industrial cities as ‘Smart Cities’.
Arnab Goswami
President-News & Editor-in-Chief, Times Now and ET Now
He has changed the paradigm of how TV news is consumed and the aura of Brand Arnab Goswami almost overwhelms that of the brand he steers. In June this year, he was elevated to President - News & Editor-in-Chief, Times Now and ET Now. Under him, ET Now has gained leadership position in the business news genre, with high convergence between digital and television across the revamped Times Network. Confident about taking the channels to new heights, Goswami had said, “In my new role we will make ET Now and Times Now a formidable combination of dominance and leadership in the English news and business genre. With both the teams of ET Now and Times Now, I have no doubts we will achieve this.” Talking about the achievements of the channels since he took on the role, Goswami said that 2015 had been the finest year for Times Now as The News Hour had crossed 90% channel-share several times this year. “We have been at the Number 1 spot for more than seven years now and we have believed in innovating our strategies every year and not taking our leadership for granted,” he has been quoted as saying. “Credibility and only credibility matters on critical news events like elections. The fact that all other channels have been rejected and Times Now has got viewership record proves that there is only one choice for news broadcasting that is head and shoulders over everyone else," Goswami said after the Bihar elections.
Ashish Bhasin
Chairman & CEO, South Asia, Dentsu Aegis Network
Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO, South Asia of the Dentsu Aegis Network, has proved to be the turnaround man for the organization. When Bhasin took over at Aegis Media in 2008, the organization was in a dismal state. It was losing large clients, facing challenges in holding on to leadership teams and functioning with a staff strength of under 50 people. From there, Dentsu Aegis Network has entered a new chapter. While the 2012 merger with Japan’s Dentsu created the fifth biggest player in the market with £3.8bn in revenues and more than £600m in profits, the man behind this miraculous resurrection remains Bhasin. The year 2015 has been especially good for him, with the agency adding big names like Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Mondelez, Airtel, Honda Motorcycles, Toyota, Canon, Nikon, TVS, Aditya Birla Group, General Motors, Philips, and Panasonic to its client portfolio. As per media reports, DAN was the fifth-biggest agency in the world by revenue in 2015 and is likely to soon overtake IPG that is at No.4. Today, the agency boasts of over 1,700 staffers. It has acquired multiple creative and digital hotshops, won major clients and is and looks very promising just now. With billings for DAN touching around Rs 3500 crore in 2015, the organization has its heart set on becoming the 2nd largest agency in the country by the end of 2017. Bhasin’s personal journey too has been tremendously successful, with recognition and awards coming his way this year.
CVL Srinivas
CEO of GroupM, South Asia
The year has been one of several highs for GroupM. Under CVL Srinivas’s leadership, GroupM India has dominated industry awards with over 400 metals and won over 100 new businesses over the last one year. Under his guidance, GroupM has expanded from 7 offices in India to 11. Srini is the mastermind behind GroupM’s New ME, that has helped launch several initiatives in digital, content, experiential marketing and analytics, laying the foundation of the agency of the future. As per RECMA ratings, GroupM agencies have over 43% market-share in India- an all-time high for the conglomerate. GroupM also has a dominating position in the RECMA qualitative ratings as well with a 45% share. The agency was able to bag digital mandates for Snapdeal, media mandate for PayU, Saavn, Practo, Housing.com, NewsHunt, Novi Digital Entertainment. Meanwhile, Srini has taken a leadership position to work with agencies, brands and broadcasters to find viable solutions to challenges facing the industry such as TV measurement ratings and ad cap regulations. He has also taken over the role of Chairman of the Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI) for a period of two years. Commenting on this development, I Venkat, Chairman of Media Research Users Council (MRUC) said, “Srini brings over two decades of rich and varied experience in media planning and buying, having worked in some of the best known agencies. I am confident that Srini will help us bring out an improved IRS 2016 with a 3,30,000 sample - the largest such study anywhere in the world.”
Kunal Bahl
Kunal Bahl, Co-founder and CEO, Snapdeal
Scale, solidity, quality, maturity and ability to deliver are some of the sterling qualities that have enabled Wharton-graduate Kunal Bahl to build Snapdeal into one of India's top three e-tailers. In the ‘year of e-commerce’, most of the e-commerce giants including Snapdeal, saw phenomenal growth. Snapdeal’s position in the market improved significantly this year, prompting Bahl to say in an interview that he was confident that the start-up would surpass Flipkart to become the country’s top e-commerce company by March 2016. Bahl expects the start-up to become profitable in the next three years. Currently, the company is investing heavily on building infrastructure. Jasper, the company that runs Snapdeal, with Bahl’s expert steering, is now a 300-member strong organization with operations in 30 cities and five countries, and leads the way in building consumer services centred around couponing in a culture obsessed with deals. Recently, Snapdeal announced the launch of image search on its platform that will allow consumers to click a picture of something they like, upload it on the website and then browse through similar products available on the platform. Bahl, a man on a mission, wants to create an e-commerce ecosystem that will also include services like utility bill payments and mobile recharges. Apart from roping in the best talent from the industry, the company has also recently succeeded in raising money at a valuation of $5.5 billion (about Rs 35,000 crore) from top global investors. Currently, Snapdeal owns 32% market-share. It has also attracted huge funding and partnered with several global marquee investors to deliver products across the country to 5000+ cities and towns in India.
Nikesh Arora
President & CEO, SoftBank Corp
The charismatic 47-year-old SoftBank Corp CEO, Nikesh Arora has fast become one of the most sought-after investors across Indian start-ups. He has plans of putting in $100 million to $1 billion in five to 10 investments in start-ups every year. Under his leadership, Softbank, that owns one-third of China's Alibaba.com, has invested over $1 billion in a number of Indian start-ups including Snapdeal, OYO Rooms, Ola Cabs and Housing.com. Talking about his support for start-ups, Arora was quoted by the Economic Times as saying, “Many of my older friends who run large established businesses keep telling me how crazy we are for investing in these start-ups which have never made a single dollar of profit. However, from my perspective, if you go forward 10 years and look back, there is bound to be five or 10 great companies that are going to emerge.”Arora had been instrumental in opening up new advertising markets at Google, where he worked earlier, and has made big inroads into display ads. He had also made the headlines earlier this year after he announced an investment of 60 billion yen (Rs 3,150 crore) in SoftBank. He had said, “This is a large transaction for me, and involves taking an enormous risk in my life once again. However, I am extremely confident about the future of the SoftBank group and the long-term objectives that we have set out. I intend to work to make the vision a reality.”
Rana Kapoor
MD & CEO, YES Bank
YES Bank this year approved the reappointment of its founder Rana Kapoor as its managing director and chief executive officer for a period of three years. Under the able leadership of Kapoor, the bank has grown exponentially within a decade and has become the fifth biggest private sector bank in India. When he established the bank with his partner, the late Ashok Kapur in 2004, their objective was to set up a financial institution to meet global standards in the Indian milieu. This year, Yes Bank’s July-September quarter earnings beat analysts' expectations with profits increasing 26.4% year-on-year to Rs 610.4 crore. With the aim of improving the profile of the bank, Kapoor had announced earlier in the year that the bank was planning to raise $1billion from American Depository Receipts (ADRs) for the first time in its history. Encouraged by its current growth rate, the bank is also aiming at becoming the finest large bank in India by 2020. Talking about its growth strategy, Kapoor was quoted by the Times of India as saying, “The strategy will include consolidating the bank's presence in existing strongholds like corporate and SME banking, while significantly pushing the bank's presence in retail and augmenting the overseas foray with a measured approach.”
Kapoor, who is also the president of ASSOCHAM, likes to call himself ‘a professional entrepreneur’ and has been a high achiever throughout his career. He has been felicitated with various national and international awards. Besides, he is highly involved in many socially responsible initiatives.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Founder & CEO, Paytm
Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s Paytm has been in the news this year, thanks to its big ticket investments in start-ups. He says his game plan is to invest in start-ups rather than acquiring them, to build an ecosystem of partners around Paytm. Shekhar also came under the spotlight after he was selected as one of the two individuals, besides nine other entities to be given a payments bank licence by the Reserve Bank of India. Under the payment bank model, Paytm would try to provide its customers with a three-step life cycle consisting of paying, buying and saving. Founded by Sharma in 2012, Paytm has come a long way, from a Mobile and DTH re-charging site to becoming one of the biggest e-commerce players in the country, earning a huge loyal base of millions of customers. Barely a year after having launched the Paytm Wallet, it has become the country’s largest mobile payment service platform becoming the preferred mode of payment for popular consumer internet companies including Uber, BookMyShow, and MakeMyTrip. In September, Paytm garnered fresh investments of about $680 million from Alibaba. It is being speculated that this will help Sharma to go on a fast track with his expansion plans, which include investing around $200 million in start-ups and adding more subscribers to Paytm apart from the payment bank. Additionally, Paytm is also planning to flood the market with Alibaba's product catalogue and take its competition head-on in the e-commerce arena.
