The Entrepreneur Roundup | Episode 2 | Amarnath Sankar | CAT Entertainments

The Entrepreneur Roundup | Episode 2 | Amarnath Sankar | CAT Entertainments

In today’s interview, Mukund Krishna, CEO of Suyati Technologies and Committee Member in Kerala for NASSCOM’s 10,000 Startups Initiative, talks to Amarnath Sankar, Founder and CEO of CAT Entertainments, a business that focuses on cinema, technology and all fun things in between!

 

Amarnath Sankar started his career as a cyber security analyst, but only for a year. As soon as his junior from college graduated, they started CAT Entertainment. From his interview, it is very evident that Amar loves everything that is cinema and technology and is loving every bit of his entrepreneurial journey.

Sharing their way to success

sharing economy

There was a time when people equated ownership with success. Big cars, big homes, big offices. Today, the trend is to own less, experience more. Call it the millennial mindset, if you will! From ridesharing and apartment loaning to coworking and peer-to-peer lending, the sharing economy is fast becoming the norm.

Also known as collaborative consumption, the sharing economy is based on the shared production or consumption of goods and services.  An increasing number of consumers today are comfortable with the idea of booking a cab on Uber, renting an apartment on AirBnB, and setting up their laptops in a coworking space. From transportation, accommodation and household amenities, to education, healthcare and financial services, collaborative consumption is disrupting many industries.

This new ecosystem of entrepreneurs and businesses is changing the way we live.

Sharing economy – What an idea! 

The sharing economy works on the premise that access to goods and skills is more important than owning them. Experts agree that the sharing economy involves either the recirculation of goods, increased utilization of durable assets, exchange of services, or sharing of productive assets.

While coworking spaces like WeWork offer entrepreneurs and telecommuters the freedom to rent a desk or an office without the overhead cost of renting a traditional workspace, players like TaskRabbit, Care.com and Upwork have revolutionized the freelance market. In the fashion space, startups like Poshmark and threadUP offer an online platform to sell ‘gently used’ clothing, while there are innovative enterprises like Le Tote that encourage consumers to borrow clothes, instead of buying them. Did you know that there also online communities (NeighborGoods, for instance) that allow people to share resources, such as tools and kitchen appliances, with their neighbors?

Tech advantage – social media and mobile technology 

The growth of the sharing economy would not have been possible without the development of information and communications technologies. For collaborative consumption is, essentially, about using data effectively to provide services to people when and where they want them. Social media and mobile technology have played key roles in development of the sharing economy. How else can Airbnb or Uber cater to millions of consumers across the globe, tapping into the common resources?

The most interesting aspect of the sharing economy, perhaps, is that these companies are not the actual service providers. They merely act as facilitators, making the transaction possible, easy, and safe for the provider as well as the user. And that’s where the tech advantage comes in most handy.

Read: Digital Transformation: Don’t overthink it – Get Started!

 

Win-win situation – for suppliers and consumers 

A win-win proposition for both suppliers and consumers, the sharing economy has significant benefits for the entire ecosystem – from better utilization of existing resources and improved reach to the consumers, to the lower costs and convenience of on-demand services.

A paper co-authored by Princeton’s Alan Krueger – the former Chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers – based on Uber’s internal data finds clear benefits for “driver-partners” which has created:

  • New financial opportunities created for tens of thousands of workers
  • Lower prices for consumers compared with the traditional taxi cab dispatch system
  • Boosted demand for ride services, which, in turn, has increased total demand for hire-drivers, potentially raising earnings for all workers with such skills.”

Similarly, peer-to-peer lending enterprises, like Lending Club, allow people to lend one another money, at much lower interest rates and fees than traditional credit cards or bank loans. It helps investors earn solid returns, while borrowers get more competitive rates.

Experts believe that the sharing economy has provided an impetus to employment as well as helped in social mobility, by empowering a new class of micro-entrepreneurs to redefine success. That apart, there are many who believe that the unorganized services sector has witnessed greater transparency and accountability in business, courtesy the rise in collaborative consumption.

Fundamental challenges – trust and security 

Given that these enterprises are just connecting providers to users through the platform, with limited control over the services provided, there are concerns regarding trust, security and consistency in quality of service.

Most sharing platforms try to combat the trust issue by building a self-policing community.

They demand profiles of both parties and feature a community ratings system.

Amidst controversies regarding the need for strict regulations to control enterprises like Airbnb and Uber in several parts of the world, Amsterdam became the first city to pass the so-called “Airbnb friendly” legislation in 2014. Similarly, in London, regulations limiting short-term stays were scrapped, making it easier for Airbnb and others to operate in the city. The British government has even launched an initiative to make the UK the “global centre for (the) sharing economy.”

Read: Speeding up Enterprise Digital Transformation with IoT

The future 

A 2016 report by PwC predicted that the sharing economy presents Europe with a €570 billion opportunity by 2025 (€28 billion in 2016). Another study by the McKinsey Global Institute in the same year found that up to 162 million people in the US and Europe (20-30 per cent of the working age population) are already involved in some form of independent work in the sharing economy space.

In other words, it’s time to embrace collaborative consumption as central to the future of work across the globe. Are you ready?

The Role of Customer Experience in Brand Recall and Brand Loyalty

CX and brand awareness

Question: Does Customer Experience affect Brand Recall and Brand Loyalty?

Answer>: Google It!

“I’ll PayTM it to you.” “I’m Ubering.” All these are not just teen lingo. Brand names have now become synonymous with customer experience that they are no longer proper nouns but used as a verb. While it was believed that brand recall and brand recognition came with time, newbies like PayTM and Uber prove that customer experience can get you there faster and more effectively.

How did Google, Uber and PayTM do it?

Brand Recall, Brand Recognition and Brand Loyalty

Before we dive deep, here’s a quick primer on what some of these words mean:

Brand recognition: When you see the unique purple packaging on a bar of chocolate, you immediately recognize the brand as Cadbury. You recognize a Benz car by its emblem. Brand recognition is identifying a brand through its packaging, logo, identity, ads etc.

Brand recall: When you think of taking a cab, do you think of Uber? If asked to name an antacid, is it Gelusil? Brand recall is a measure of how well the brand is associated within its product category or industry.

Brand loyalty: This is your real competitive advantage. What will get your customers heading straight to your product again and again?  That’s brand loyalty.

Customer Experience and its Role in Achieving Brand Recall and Loyalty

A recent study on the impact of brand awareness and customer experience on brand loyalty, brought out the different aspects involved in a customer’s purchase decision. It proved conclusively that a good customer experience seals the deal and brings in brand loyalty.

A good customer experience touches on nearly every point of the sales and marketing cycle.

  • The product experience – The feelings evoked in consumers when there is a physical contact with the product.
  • The shopping & service experience – This is based on the interaction of a consumer with the store’s physical environment (website and ecommerce portal if it is an online purchase), the sales and customer service personnel and the store’s policies and practices.
  • Consumption experience – This is the personal experience of consumers when consuming the product.
  • Brand experience – This is the overall experience of the customer with the brand, which includes brand design, packaging, advertising and the emotions and behavioral response of a consumer when he interacts with the brand.

An unsatisfactory experience for the customer on any of these points “leaves a bad taste,” as it were, and the customer is left with a negative image of the brand. A consistent positive experience however, does just the opposite and contributes to effective brand recall.

This is where brand awareness programs can help. The same study mentioned above shows that just as important as it is to deliver a good customer experience, the experience in itself also depends on brand awareness.

Consumers’ brand awareness plays an important role in the decision-making process (Keller, 1993). It has been shown that brand familiarity can increase consumers’ confidence in the purchase and enhance their attitude toward the brand.

Aren’t we all guilty of approaching a product with an unfamiliar brand name with skepticism, which usually works to ruin the product experience for us? Increasing brand awareness and enhancing customer experience work in tandem to create a positive brand image for the customer. A consistently great customer experience increases brand recall and brand loyalty.

Case in Point: PayTM

The reasons for PayTM’s resounding success was brought out in an interesting blog on Finextra.

To summarize, here are the key points:

  1. Viral Distribution by encouraging non-users to register and receive money
  2. An aggressive and direct merchant acquisition drive
  3. Ease of Payments without repeatedly having to sign in and sign out
  4. Cashbacks as incentives
  5. Wallet preloads on the fly without user intervention

Classic Branding: Coca Cola

Let’s take a lesson from Coca Cola. It is one of the oldest brands we know and yet it keeps evolving, never slacking on its brand awareness efforts. Despite the knowledge that soda isn’t good for you and fierce competition from other brands, Coca Cola has made itself relevant through the years by creating a brand that is an experience, an idea that is relatable and which makes consumers feel good about themselves.

Their focused efforts date back as far as 1887 with a coupon initiative where 10% of all products were given away for free with the goal of increasing brand awareness. Posters, festoons and more were given to retailers to ensure the brand name stuck. Some of their more recent efforts include the “Share a Coke” campaign that continues creating a personalized experience for consumers worldwide. From regularly featuring influencers to the massive volumes of consumer generated content on their social media, Coca Cola continues enhancing customer experience through its brand awareness efforts. The 3.4 million followers on Twitter and 107 million fans on Facebook are a resounding testimony to this.  

In conclusion, working on enhancing customer experience is the way to go if you want to achieve brand recall and loyalty. I would love to hear your thoughts on how you are doing this for your business.