The bet is still on India because we are a very large consuming market: Prasanth Kumar

GroupM South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar spoke to exchange4media Group Director Nawal Ahuja at the e4m Confluence: The Media investments Summit 2022. Below are the edited excerpts from the one-on-one interaction.

Excerpts:

How are agencies, in their current form, equipped to get into MarTech and help clients?

In the last two to three years, the focus on AdTech and MarTech has accelerated. We have dynamic changes happening on a daily basis because the business models have changed. A lot of technological intelligence into doing business has accelerated. As far as our learnings go, it stems from understanding what is the client's business model, how the business is done, the category in which they operate, and who are their consumers. A lot of it is to find out about the consumers and the business. These days, and if we compare it with two decades back, a lot of information, insights, and data are available in real time, and technology is helping us to do that. This essentially means multiple efforts which allow us to learn and get insights. We also have to invest in tools, data understanding, and finding the right talent besides upgrading our existing talent. Most organisations are stitching up the MarTech and AdTech potential and capabilities. We also have a partner ecosystem that is evolving very fast and sometimes I feel that the partner ecosystem is evolving at a faster pace than others. That's because they have the hunger and the urge to leverage technology and put that into understanding consumers which can be used for business growth. This is a very exciting time and every organisation needs to think deeply about how to invest in and proactively work for the future.

What can media service companies do to attract top-notch talent, particularly from the technology space?
I think we are all in the learning process and nobody has the perfect answer to that. To attract talent, it is important to have a culture and ambiance at the workplace. The opportunity to do some fantastic work is definitely a very aspirational aspect for many of the new talent. The industry has gone through a great change. We have seen how the start-up ecosystem has created that momentum. Because of that, it is important to keep an open mind. One is to accept that a lot of newness will come and hit us and therefore, learning and sharing are mutual aspects. That kind of attitude and openness will open the door for great talent to come in. Today, I am sure 30-35% of the people in our industry are new. They will encourage many more people to come into the industry. Today, a lot of versatile talent is coming into the industry. There are lots of incentives for new talent to come into the industry. One is of course the culture and also doing some great work. We should create the space to do mistakes and that's how newness and innovation will come into the industry.

Digital is a dynamic medium that is spinning newer models every year. How will the emergence of new businesses impact the agency business in the years to come?
There is mushrooming happening in every single space. There is an evolving product or a service or an opportunity coming up. We need to keep an eye on the emerging trends and then proactively try some of the aspects which will give us the best solutions for the entire task itself, and by the task, I mean the client's business. Learning about newer trends like influencer marketing, CTV or different technology-related products will add to the advantage of coming up with solutions for that business. Digital space has gotten more exciting, and if you compare the media plan today versus a few years back, you will have seven to eight slides more about solutions that we would have never thought about previously. That trend will only get accelerated because solutions will become much more innovative. We should continue to experiment so as to develop expertise in each of these aspects.

How will the inflation and global economic slowdown impact Indian AdEx growth?
There is inflationary pressure on the economy and some categories are spending while some categories have changed their strategy. All these challenges also give you an opportunity to think much harder about how you can find solutions to this. My bets are still on India and I think we have a fantastic opportunity. We have adapted to newer ways of looking at things. The entire marketing aspect and looking at solutions for businesses took off. A lot of patience and resilience is required to understand each of the momentums. Maybe there are impacts of different seasons and quarters which could be changing. Those are the aspects that we need to think of. There are newer categories that are coming in. We never thought that there would be a fintech or adtech which are contributing so much from an advertising perspective. Finding an opportunity within a challenge is an interesting problem to solve and we are finding these opportunities in a span of every two months. The growth is there and it is constant. There is consistency in the growth story and I think the bet is still on India because we are a very large consuming market. There is room for many more things to be tried not just in different categories but even in media and marketing. I think that will be true for many more years to come. The 2020-30 decade is an interesting one to watch out for.

What would you attribute to the success achieved by GroupM in the last few years?
I have been very lucky to have good bosses and colleagues. We have to really work on learning and working with our teams. The aspect of win-win has to be practiced. I don't think there is anything wrong with negotiation but the ability to find solutions when the problems are on your table will allow you to get more opportunities to work upon. You also have to commit yourself to do your best. We should also be open to doing newer and bigger things and it will pay off.

Who is your role model and whom do you look up to and take your inspiration from?
I have learned a few things from everybody including my partners, clients, bosses, peers, and seniors. It is important to pick and learn things that you want to imbibe. You should have the interest to learn new things. If you are able to imbibe that, you will be happy. You can have many role models in many things. For example, you can have multiple role models in a sport for different shots. That attitude has helped me.