You can fire your social media manager, this startup automates online marketing

The digital era descended on India a decade ago. Slowly but steadily, it became a matter of not choice but compulsion for businesses to look beyond print and television for advertising. Yet, lack of awareness and resources ensured that smaller players were held back, while the big names bolted forward with myriad ways facebook in online marketing.

Bhushan Patkar had finished school before all this happened. Born in Badlapur village outside Mumbai, Bhushan loved nothing more than cricket as a kid. He was not too keen to take up the science stream as his parents wished. But once he did a short-term diploma course in computer technology from Mumbai University, he knew what he loved. And quite a handful of small businesses in the country are thankful for that.

Bhushan Patkar, CEO, Dfizz.com

Bhushan went to Oxford Brooks University, UK, to do BSc (Honours) in Computing & Software in 2005. By the time he returned home, IT boom had matured in the country. Son of a national award-winning Corporation Mayor Nandakishore Ram Patkar, Bhushan was keen on e-governance. He foundedTopXS Solutions in 2008 and, among other ventures, carried out a three-year-long project that included mapping of property taxing for Badlapur Municipality.

Digitisation of data was becoming more significant for every industry. Once he figured that he wanted to take it up as a career, Bhushan flew off to San Francisco, USA, for doing an MBA from Hult International Business School, in 2011. When he came back in 2013, India’s online business industry had grown exponentially. Bhushan took a plunge and founded Arkbel Innovations for marketing solutions for real estate business.

Idea for friends

Bhushan’s friend Amit Zunjarrao runs a dhaba in Karjat, Maharashtra. Famous for its scenic beauty, Karjat was a favourite spot for tourists. But despite the marketing Amit did through Facebook, posters and portals like Sulekha.com and websites for travellers, he did not get the traffic he wanted at Aaji Cha Dhaba. In early 2015, Bhushan offered a solution to him – a template that will update the dhaba’s Facebook page with its website. If someone searches for ‘Aaji Cha Dhaba,’ Amit will get a notification on mobile and email, and can connect with them directly. “For the first year, we had little business except on weekends. But since we started marketing online, there has been 65-percent rise in the number of customers,” Amit says.

Dfizz development team

Instead of going to the metros – where clientele for online marketing is easier to get – Bhushan wanted to look at the sellers outside metros.

“I wanted to make digital marketing easy and accessible for startups and MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises] who do not have the exposure, knowledge or funds for it. It’s not just about money; I really wished to help them,” says Bhushan.

According to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, there are 36 million small units that employ over 80 million Indians. Most MSMEs cannot afford hiring people by paying Rs.30,000-40,000 per month for online marketing. But with the rising Internet penetration, consumers in Tier II and III cities are also coming online. These consumers can access only the big companies that use technology strategically, whereas MSMEs are practically non-existent online – except a few manufacturers who sell on marketplaces.

According to a 2014 report, absence of exclusive marketing platforms is one of the challenges faced by the SMEs and the startup industry in India. More than 60 percent of both small and mid-market enterprises quote lack of awareness as an inhibitor to adoption of technology to aid marketing initiatives.

For the technologically-challenged

Newspaper ads do give a lot of leads to SMEs, but there is seldom follow-up. Dfizz’s integrated customer relationship management (CRM) software reports on which products get responses and sends bulk SMSes, emails etc., to customers for follow up. Their ‘virtual social media manager’ updates any addition on the original website on social media too, along with extra information on Internet. In fact, the likes of RedBus have used the strategy of engaging their customer with posts on travel rather than bore them with just ads.

Bhushan says: “Many MSME owners have iPhone6, but do not know how to leverage the benefits of online marketing. Our software makes them independent.” A major advantage is that the business owner can change the website on mobile.

Future prospects

The online marketing sector in India is fragmented, but competitive at the same time. There is hardly any entry barrier; digital ad agencies, traditional media, and even PR agencies are now doing this. Salar Mohamed Bijili, Founder and CEO of CueContent Marketing Services, says that the sector will grow with e-commerce. “A lot of online marketing is driven by price discovery platforms. More consumers coming online will only increase the demand,” he adds.

According to Salar, not many products are sold in this sector in India. “Product adaption is very low in this sector. Evangelising the products as a sector as tool to grow is the future,” he says.

Online marketing is the only way to sell products in an international market. With the promise of a ‘Digital India’, entrepreneurs are hoping for government support in terms of tech innovations.

Bhushan is in talks with Union Minister for MSMEs Kalraj Mishra and Maharashtra MSME Minister Subhash Desai in this regard. The six-month old startup-for-startups is now a 12-member team and has 30 MSME clients.

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/dfizz/

Punam Flutes – The story of how a master artist became a master craftsman

When a hobby turns into a profession, a professional expects to be able to find the superior tools of the trade, and if they are not up to the mark, he could complain, despair or look for more expensive, difficult-to-find alternatives. Yet, Subhash Thakur, a flautist by profession, did not succumb to any of those measures.

When he could not get the type of high-quality flute he needed, he did what few others would have, which is to make his own. What started off as a solution to a personal need slowly metamorphosed into the saga of Punam Flutes. Today, Thakur’s flutes are used by several artists, including the legendary Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia, in India and abroad.

Thakur, who has an illustrious career playing a baansuri (Hindustani for flute), began learning under the tutelage of Ustad Fahimullah Khan in 1988 and then completed a master’s degree in music. After that, he began playing professionally, which earned him the status of a graded artist at Akashvani, Patna. “I then moved to Delhi and started a government job as a flute player with a monthly salary of Rs. 7,000,” he recounts, adding, “It was during this time that I realized good flutes were hard to come by. They were either very expensive or had to be imported. That is what prompted me to attempt making my own flute.”

That attempt was just the beginning of Punam Flutes. Many disciples of his current guru, Pt. Amarnathji, wanted him to make flutes for them too. In just a few months, Thakur realised it was more lucrative to make flutes as his income as a flute-maker began exceeding what he earned as an artist.

Thakur takes great pride in how he customises each creation, which is what distinguishes his work from mass-produced instruments. “I don’t just make any flute and ask people to buy it. For professionals and discerning artists, I study their style and make an instrument according to the range they desire.”

The Initial Days of Struggle

Thakur explains, “Flute-making is as serious and thorough of a process as is making any other musical instrument. First of all, you need to procure good quality bamboo, which is available only in North East India. Then it has to be seasoned for about three months. Following this, it has to be carefully crafted, because the position and the diameter of the holes is very important for proper tuning.”

Subhash Thakur with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia

In the early days, he struggled at each stage of the production process. Tools for making the holes were not easy to come by. He had to search for them far and wide, and in the days before the Internet, that was a difficult task. He then had to import them from the U.S. and other countries, after paying a huge sum of money. He also needed a tuner to help him craft the flute properly.

Only in the last few years has technology been easily accessible, which has allowed him to buy good quality tools and also craft his own tools to make flutes.

Going online was the next logical step

Once you have a great product, the next step is to publicise and sell it. When it seemed like the whole world was shifting to the web to accelerate sales, it was Pt. Amarnathji’s son, who advised him to expand his business online. He helped Thakur register a domain name and create a website back in 2004. Another friend, also a professional flautist, helped design the site and now maintains it.

“If you are a manufacturing company, going online is the logical thing to do to increase the reach of your business. A .com domain name is the obvious solution if you want to extend your reach internationally,” says Thakur.

Punam Flutes has a good presence on social media too. His wife Punam, after whom the business is named, takes care of that aspect. The social media page and the website also feature messages to and from artists who use his flutes, including the likes of Prem Joshua and Naveen Kumar, who are noted for their ad jingles and the haunting theme from the movie Bombay.

“About 50 percent of our sales come from people who know me personally, artists and students, as well as those who have heard of my reputation. The remaining comes from purely online sales, of which nearly 25 percent is from foreign countries,” he explains, adding that he gets quite a few people from the U.S. and the U.K. who approach him for customized flutes.

Deeply focused on making high quality flutes available to passionate artists, Thakur never thought selling online would help the business the way it has. He finds the change in the Indian mindset quite remarkable: “Indians have taken to this ecommerce thing quite well. Of late, a lot of my sales are due to my website and being on platforms like Amazon andFlipkart.”

Thakur’s advice to anyone who wants to start a business and take it online is to focus on the fundamentals: “You need to understand everything about your line of work in depth, and you should be aware of every aspect of production and sales. Only then will your company prosper.”

Reference:http://yourstory.com/2016/03/punam-flutes/

Why change is the only thing constant for your business

We have come to an age where organizations catch up to each other within a few months. The only way to keep your competition at bay is to innovate and change. Change your product offering, its price, service quality, etc but do not change the core identity. In business, it is vital to realize that when you are a market leader, you have to be at least 6 months ahead of your competition and when a market follower, you should aim at catching up with the market leader within 3 months.

The business landscape in today’s world is characterized by changing trends and events which keep happening every now and then. This at times, takes several business leaders by surprise. Technology giants have been burned to the ground simply because they did not change with time. The greatest example being of Kodak, which at one point of time was the market leader of the Camera and peripherals industry. They did not adapt towards digitization and felt the emergence of digital imaging was just a momentary phase. Soon came the wave of Digital Cameras and emergence of companies like Cannon and Nikon, which took the industry by storm. Eastman Kodak’s failure is because of its leaders who refused to adapt to the change in technology. It truly was an entrepreneurial failure.

Another aspect one must consider, is to realize the need to upgrade it. Several businesses in the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) space adapt by means of change of packaging, seasonal discounts, charm pricing and so on. Why do you think several app developers often offer updates to their consumers? They are not always bug fixes but at times are major changes that keep them glued to the app. The famous “Ping Ping” brand Blackberry is one such brand that did not change and did not offer its patrons a more user friendly, open-source version of the operating software like Android. Within no time, major players like Samsung emerged and entered from the backdoor and dethroned the once considered Smartphone giant. Samsung not only became the market leader but also left Blackberry so far behind that they are still figuring out how to change for the better.

The future belongs to those who are quick on their feet and embrace change. They are innovators like Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page who are constantly innovating and changing what they offer without deviating from their USP. Facebook still continues to be a Social Media platform but with a twist of offering several new features every now and then. Likewise, Google continues to be a search engine which has gone on to change the way we market our products now. As a business owner, you can either choose to embrace change or perish like the ones we have mentioned above.

Just like Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”

If you too have entrepreneurial dreams, you need to have faith in your Chatur Idea. You will always wonder who will fund this idea and from where will you find investors. In that case, you can participate in the #BeAChatur Contest and not only be mentored, but also stand a chance to win a whopping Rs.10 Lac funding for your dream startup idea.

Reference:https://www.chaturideas.com/our_blogs/Why_change_is_the_only_thing_constant_for_your_business#sthash.rJGsKJNg.dpuf