My Journey As Consultant - 9

Overcoming Adverse Market Conditions

 There are times when unfavorable external conditions lead to setbacks.  I faced this during the recession that followed acceptance of the Mandal Commission report by the Government of India in 1990, which resulted in political and social turmoil and, in turn, to an adverse impact on business activities across the country. I was pushed back so strongly that I ran out of money and had to even think of selling my car to generate cash. My wife's  modest income was just enough to cover the house rent and a little of the basic monthly household expenses. In those trying times, I took decisions that not only helped me tide over the situation but set me up for rewarding growth once the economic turnaround took place and liberalisation ushered in a new era of economic growth. Here briefly is my journey in those rather difficult days. 

Business conditions in Hyderabad were no exception to the recessionary conditions that gripped the country and suddenly I found that many of my regular clients were facing financial problems and were unable to either pay me or commit to new assignments. During this period, my consulting cash flows came down dramatically and I had to dip into the savings created from my marketing agency business to run the day-to-day expenses of my home. 

In the process, I was open to the idea of doing any legitimate business activity that  could bring some cash into the kitty. Since I had a marketing background, most of the ideas that came my way involved helping businesses to get orders leading to some commission income, but in the depressed market environment that was proving impossible. 

Around this time, I came across an advertisement from Datamatics Direct that they were looking for Marketing Franchisees in major cities including Hyderabad. Datamatics Direct was a direct mail advertising service provider promoted by Datamatics Corporation, known for their pioneering computer services in the mainframe era and an established player as a Registrar for shares. They had appointed Dilip Thakore, the founding Editor of Business India and an author, as CEO and he was looking for individuals who were self-employed with good professional background for this role. He promptly responded to my application and met me in Hyderabad and decided to appoint me as their franchisee for Hyderabad and the rest of Andhra Pradesh. 

Datamatics started this business based on two considerations. They had a huge database of investors and, with their strong background in computerisation, could prepare mailing lists which could be used for targeted direct mail campaigns. At that time, the concept was totally new, and part of the franchisee’s role was to educate prospective clients, both marketing executives and ad agencies, on how to use this medium of direct mail advertising effectively. 

It was an exciting prospect. In marketing, there is a concept called loss leader. Certain products and services are deliberately marketed at a loss, to help sell other products which give profit. For me, marketing direct mail services was my loss leader. I realised early that, unlike Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, Hyderabad was not known for large corporates spending much on advertising. The earnings from this business were consequently not large but it gave me the opportunity to interact with large corporate clients and ad agencies in Hyderabad. During these interactions I found that I could also promote my consultancy services as an add-on value, which would help me market my consulting business when the economy turned around. And this approach really worked, as I got introduced to many large corporates in Hyderabad who engaged me for their direct mail campaigns using Datamatics Address Lists and later became my clients for my consulting business when the economy was opened up after 1991. Some of them include Gati, Apollo Hospitals, ITW Signode, Hyderabad Batteries Group, etc., and I shall discuss the specific assignments from these companies in my future posts. But it is important to note that having worked with Datamatics gave me a reference point later when I saw opportunities for consulting while the  corporate segment was reeling under global competition. 

During this period, I also got some unusual assignments from some of the contacts I made while promoting direct mail advertising. One of my friends, who was running a cinema theatre in the heart of the city but had closed it down, wanted to offer part of the space available in that theatre complex to promote building materials as a permanent display centre. He engaged me to help identify the prospective building materials manufacturers across the country and persuade them to take space for display as per a display plan we had designed. While the idea was novel at that point of time and many companies showed interest in the idea, when it came to making firm commitments they did not come forward to walk the talk. After a few months of running around, we decided to drop the plans as we realised that the idea was probably ahead of its time.

Another engagement was to do head-hunting for the newly-formed agri products division of ITC Agro which had plans to go into the seeds business in a big way. I was introduced to this group by the local head of a national ad agency which was handling their account. ITC engaged me to go to the heartland of the seeds business, at that time based out of Aurangabad and Jalna, identify professionals working in the many seeds manufacturing and marketing companies there, and get them a list of of such professionals who were open to the idea of working for a multinational company, without naming ITC. This was a real challenge; I had to concoct a story about a Dutch multinational who was interested in setting up shop in India to get some of these executives interested in a change in their career so that I could finally give ITC a list. 

Another assignment was organising an exhibition for the Hyderabad Automobile and Components Dealers Association. This body was doing it for the first time and they needed someone who could guide them. I was introduced to their president and secretary who, after discussions with me, decided to engage me for this assignment. The concept of organising exhibitions and fairs was popular in big cities like Mumbai and Chennai but for Hyderabad this was new at that time. Even for me, this was a totally new experience but, having worked earlier on the building materials display centre concept, I had established some contacts with people who could supply materials and set up stalls for such exhibitions, and the association itself took the responsibility of getting their members to participate in taking stall space for the two-day fair. A nice learning experience!

I also got an assignment from Coromandel Fertilisers to conduct a market survey for a new combination of fertilisers they were planning to launch in Andhra Pradesh, and a marketing audit for Dyanora Lamps based out of Chennai which had launched incandescent bulbs and tube lights in the southern market but was making no headway in a highly competitive business.

As one can see, I was willing to do any kind of assignment to earn some money during this tough period and that kept my body and soul together, with some support from my wife who could contribute from her earnings to meet the family budget. During this period, as mentioned before, my computer associate was becoming restless and decided to move to the USA and I realised that I would have to manage without a good associate in that area of expertise which was growing in importance. However, with time, I did manage to find others who had the necessary background to back me up when needed in this area.

In the next  post, I shall narrate the story of my transformation from Jack-of-all-trades to a specialised service provider in organisational change management post 1992. For that to fall into place, I will discuss two major assignments I did around 1992 which paved the way for this.