'Only the right team can drive tech to yield the right outcome'

At the Pitch Brand Talk 2023 Conference, brand leaders delved into cutting-edge technology and how it is revolutionizing different categories of business

by e4m Staff
Published: Nov 24, 2023 9:10 AM | 4 min read

Technology has made massive progress in the last decade in India, with AI now becoming an everyday topic for brands. At the Pitch Brand Talk Conference held on Wednesday, a session was held to discuss the ways in which brands have been leveraging technology to grow their businesses.

The panel titled ‘Revolutionizing Brands With Cutting-Edge Technology’ was chaired by Kanika Mittal, Country Head, Taboola, and comprised Gaurav Mehta, Chief Marketing Officer, Noise; Kishan Panpalia, Founding Team, PepperContent; Madhur Acharya, Vice President-E-commerce, Lenskart; Manav Sethi, Head of Martech & Growth, Hero Vida Electric Scooter; Puneet Arora, Vice President - Marketing, Cashify and Sachin Vashishtha, Chief Marketing Officer, Paisabazaar.

The panel discussion revolved around AI, its use in business growth, different applications of tech in brand growth and the need for the right people to drive technology in business.

Sachin Vashishtha of Paisabazaar draws on the need for lending companies to have a technology-forward approach. “When it comes to technology, we are a digital-first company. Our genesis was how we can use technology to simplify the distribution of lending products and make the lives of our consumers easier because loans and financial products can be a bit tricky and confusing. So that was the core of the organization. When it comes to marketing, I believe, if we break branding or marketing, the initial part is communication and the second half is experience. For communication, how can we reach out to the right person at the right place with the right message? We are using technology in all three.”

Speaking on the marketing angle for the company, Puneet Arora of Cashify says, " In terms of marketing, we have processes in place where we take care of data security and safety. In terms of making tools for marketing, we develop a lot of things in-house because we have a huge tech team. So we leverage that. And we also look at what is going to cost us more. If we can integrate third-party tools at a lower cost, we might do that otherwise we'll develop it in-house."

Gaurav Mehta of Noise also spoke about data as a big focus nowadays. "One of the first things that I noticed, having had more digital services background, was that there's a lot of data that the company is generating and sitting on. So how do you make that work? Like that's the big change management that needed to happen and has started to happen."

Kishan Panpalia of Pepper content threw light upon the fact that when it comes to SAAS businesses in India, enterprise adoption is lagging behind and instead has a different primary business altogether. New-age startups are however better in the adoption of SAAS as a primary business. "We're still say five years, seven years behind in 100% adoption."

Madhur Acharya of Lenskart highlights the potential of automation and technology in delivering high-quality answers and solutions quickly with minimal human intervention. “we have come up with the world's largest factory right now. And it's been completely automated to deliver the best quality of lenses, the fast approach business. It is tech that has given us this build-up."

Manav Sethi of Hero Vida highlighted the importance of experimentation and failure in achieving scale and sustainable competitive advantage in tech stacks.

Speaking about the need for technologically able employees to actually grow the tech side of the business, Manav says, “I think in this entire debate about tech impacting business as a whole, one of the key things we haven’t spoken about is the people. No matter what Martech stack you have made, no matter if you work with Salesforce or Adobe or anything else, so long as you don't have the right set of people part of the team driving it, none of the tech will yield the efficacious outcome that they each need to do.”

Published On: Nov 24, 2023 9:10 AM

Tags Lenskart Paisabazaar Salesforce Pitch BrandTalk 2023