The Role of Interim CXO's in Crisis Management

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Nitn Bbinhhani

Nitn is an investment banker and a customer experience strategist with over 25 years of leadership experience at prominent brands including Crompton Greaves, Al Qassimi Group (UAE), Aditya Birla Capital, Piramal Group, and Indiabulls.
As a founder of Jasaro.in, he helps the early-stage and early-growth startups to successfully raise funding (Seed to Series-A rounds) as well as in Mergers and Acquisitions. He also hosts a startup podcast channel #JasaRodio covering across 5 platforms and 18+ countries.

Appsian - A ERP Data Security & Compliance Company

Accessibility. Something that every corporate enterprise has made a part of their citizenship charter, and work towards enabling it in the physical world. But what about accessibility in the virtual space? Are the applications, documents and interfaces in the academic and corporate worlds accessible to those with accessibility needs?

This is the problem that PeopleUX, a product by Appsian (a US based ERP security company), wanted to solve. Appsian was in the market for a product marketing professional with a background and understanding of WCAG guidelines and their impact in the real world. Getting a WCAG Expert in India was not an easy task but the “Expert-On-Demand” platform, COHIRE, had a same skilled professional who was instantly CoHired by Appsian.

An important point to consider here is that Appsian had been struggling to find the right-fit consultant for months and the availability of C-level professionals on COHIRE made them to find one instantly.

PeopleUX had hardly a few assets and marketing collaterals from a WCAG perspective, to talk about the product’s amazing capabilities. The Gig CXO worked with the product and marketing leadership to understand, deduce and formulate the brand’s communication strategy through a set of sales and marketing collaterals. These collaterals not only provided the salesforce the requisite information to go and make a sale, but also captured the difference that the product had brought in the lives of those using it.

COHIRE helped the business fulfil their business requirements by engaging with the industry professional over a period of four months. This engagement model worked well for Appsian as they were not looking to hire a professional on their rolls as a full-time employee, but were looking for niche consulting deliverables.

Appsian was able to build a strong go-to-market asset pipeline in line with their product, which assisted the sales teams to go out in the market aggressively.

Reach out to us for senior gig roles that your enterprise is looking to fill.

Sridhar Raman

Sridhar is a content and marketing communications expert and business strategist with over 30 years of leadership experience at premier brands including The Times of India, Emap PLC UK, Larsen & Toubro, JSPL and Business World

He specializes in creating, optimizing and distributing content across platforms; driving end-to-end marketing communication on print and digital platforms; strategizing and executing 360-degree marketing plans and competition analysis, driving PR and performance tracking and reporting.

Vedantu - Live Online Edtech Company

Today online education classes are in vogue but it was not always so. Definitely not in September 2014 when we started our association with Vedantu, a pioneer in online school education where expert teachers brought their experience and skills straight into a student’s home providing an unmatched learning experience on a virtual real-time platform for students across geographies.

This is when Vedantu, unwilling to invest in a full-time marketing team, teamed up with Outsourced CMO hired from COHIRE platform to market this exciting new concept.

But as with any new concept, the concept of online education too needed to be marketed in a manner that not only the student community but influencers like parents, teachers and other educationists too would view it as a hugely positive step.

It was a challenge and we figured that initially, instead of brand building our marketing efforts should focus on the newness and modernity of the concept itself. Thus we devised strategies to educate our audience and potential customers playing up on the immense benefits of the concept and how this was not only a departure from the drab and dull classrooms but a vibrant and youthful learning experience that was a perfect fit for the digital age.

Our narrative was so successful that not only did the company register phenomenal growth leading to a surge in valuation but also Series A funds from two of India’s largest VC firms. This meant greater financial muscle and marketing budgets which enabled us to go the whole hog by using all available marketing channels to further strengthen and propagate the concept which resulted in a four-fold growth for the company in two-years.

The success of Vedantu is an apt illustration of the strengths of the COHIRE model including flexibility to service companies throughout their entire life cycle, expertise in CoHiring, vetting and zeroing in on the most suitable external vendors, etc.

Flatworld Solutions – An IT Outsourcing company in India

The story of association between Flatworld Solutions and COHIRE exemplifies how a distinctly successful pre-digital company can collaborate with us to gain greater heights, visibility and traction in this digital age. An Indian outsourcing company that has carved a niche for itself in the MEA, USA and Europe, Flatworld is engaged in outsourcing services across a broad spectrum like engineering, BPO, web analytics, legal process, IT, etc. It had mostly depended on word-of –mouth publicity and SEO for its growth like many other companies of the past.

However, with the advent of the digital age, companies came across an excellent avenue -the internet – to enhance and take advantage of their reach, market themselves and to build a strong brand image. On the flip side, it also meant that competition grew stiffer. Flatworld realized that it was imperative that they ride the internet bandwagon if they wanted to flourish in this new age. This is when they abolished their reticence and contacted COHIRE to get an Outsourced CMO to help them truly arrive in the age of the Internet.

Our team comprises senior professionals who have worked across various verticals and industries and come from a wide range of disciplines. Moreover, our combined experience, facility of CoHire and our measured approach to tackle various kinds of scenarios made us ideal associates. We started by interacting with various teams and managers at Flatworld to gain an insight into their working methods and challenges.

During our interactions, we realized that the company viewed paid digital campaigns as a high-cost, low return strategy and consequently had stayed away. We decided to change this perception and strategized a digital marketing plan that was based on return on investment matrix. We focused our plan on the most probable opportunities and clients types across geographies that could be tapped gainfully. This strategy paid handsome dividends and continues to do so in the present times.

Innorel – B2B Renewable Energy Startup

A market beset with energy-related problems is undoubtedly a golden opportunity for a B2B renewable energy startup to carve out a niche for itself. This is the opportunity that Innorel wanted to encash when they set up shop in 2014

They had the perfect product for a market marked by falling supplies resulting in rising energy costs, the bane of all industries. The Energator is an energy optimiser that uses technology to maximize energy yield from solar panels. But even the most excellent product needs relevant marketing efforts to create awareness, make its presence felt in the market and convince potential buyers about its benefits.

This is where we at COHIRE with our expert Outsourced CMO in various marketing related and other fields came into the picture. We took up the entire marketing function at Innorel as they did not have any team or professional to take charge of their marketing function.

Thus we had to start with creating a strong brand identity for the product and propagate it using all the available channels including digital and non-digital platforms like social media, niche magazines, portals and websites and optimizing digital presence so that it reached the targeted audience.

We ensured participation of the company in events of relevance so that leading EPC players start recognizing the company.

We ideated strategies that were aimed at concentrating on the USP of the product and the value additions that Ignore could provide for every kind of business. OCMO used its immense marketing experience of serving various large and small businesses and technological capabilities for cultivation and deployment of new ideas to connect the dots between Innorel and its potential customers.

Our experienced and hands-on professionals who have successfully negotiated such challenging market situations numerable times in their careers hit the ground running and generated favorable results for Innorel.

Chief Marketing Officer

If you have walked through the Instagram, Twitter or Facebook pages of Zomato, Swiggy, Netflix, Tinder or Dunzo, or TV and Radio ads of CRED, Surf Excel, Fevicol, etc, you know that the content of these companies markets their products. The team behind that creativity, advertisements, end-consumer attraction, communication and retention is led by a confident and able Chief Marketing Officer. While the above situations pertain to only advertisements, one of the major responsibilities of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is to build a positive and memorable public image of the brand.

Why should you hire a CMO?

A business is not just built on a novel idea; simply having a product doesn’t guarantee a business’ success. A product becomes a brand when the company not only answers a present need but also understands the future wants. To market the product, is to help the idea reach a potential buyer. How expert are you in the modern marketing tools and current trends?

Even with the best ideas, without an able leader ideating the strategy, the best products can face downfalls. You may have a content creator, a graphic designer, an online-office market analyst, but to lead them and position your brand, you will need a marketing leader. A qualified CMO, or in another role/title – an executive leader in Sales and Marketing – and his/her/their team can tap into modern tools and the internet to reach and influence customers. They will help with the brand/product position, challenge competitors and communicate with the executive team as well as the customers.

Hiring a CMO increases your brand’s ability to not only reach but also create a target market.

Responsibilities of a Chief Marketing Officer

The primary responsibility of a CMO is sales. But with the advent of the internet, the role of a consumer is also ever-evolving. A consumer has many competing options to satisfy their needs, but why should they choose your product? Of course, the selling price, quality, add-ons etc can be an advantage. But the current consumer wants to know what your brand offers to satisfy his/her/their over-the-top needs.

Any other leader in the team can sell a product, but only an experienced CMO can widen your target market. He/She/They understand the difference between online and offline marketing tools to execute successful campaigns. They keep up with the latest trends and cater to the over-the-top needs, aka wants. This helps help create a niche and an attraction of the potential consumer to the brand. They work on marketing efforts to raise brand awareness, recognition and loyalty and, in turn, sales.

Why should you CoHire a Chief Marketing Officer?

According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a CMO in India is upwards of 20 LPA + incentives, bonus and commissions. With more experience, the figure only increases. CoHire offers industry leaders with 15-20 years of experience and at least 5-7 years of business leadership experience who can help even your smallest product idea and the biggest business objectives, into a consumer-favourite brand.

Chief Digital Marketing Officer (CDMO)

A Chief Digital Marketing Officer has the crucial task of taking a company online and keeping it there. With 5G around the corner, no firm can afford to not have a solid presence online – a solid online presence can drive sales, generate a positive image for the company and create solid relationships with the customers.

This is where CDMOs come in handy. These executive-level people are responsible for the digital aspect of marketing and sales.

Why Should You Hire a CDMO?

This is where CDMOs come in handy. These executive-level people are responsible for the digital aspect of marketing and sales.

Any serious company looking for an online presence at least owns a website. That is the start of a company becoming digital. A CDMOs job is to expand on this – they will be responsible for promoting the company’s image and promote its products online within a greater reach and impact. They don’t realize it till very late, but businesses need CDMOs for their protection online and of their businesses.

CDMO is a fairly recent job title. However, with digital literacy rising among people and more and more people having access to the internet, it is imperative to be in the online market and use it to the best effects.

What does a CDMO Do?

The CDMO is responsible for leading all digital and marketing functions for the company. As such, the role comes with a multitude of things a CDMO person looks for to increase a company’s digital presence. The duties include leading the company’s digital transformation, challenging existing go-to-market strategies and internal processes, driving the effectiveness of a young company in the market, follow marketing best practices or share the same with the people working on the task.

Once a CDMO is hired, they look after the digital footprint of a company. They ensure that there is enough digital marketing happening across the board, that the social media platforms are supporting the company the best way they can and so on. Along with this, they coordinate with production, designing and marketing departments to calculate best practices for the company.

Why Should You CoHire a CDMO?

The answer is pretty similar to any kind of executive-level post in a company open for hiring. In the early phase, companies are usually cash-strapped and all. However, CoHiring a CDMO means that the person does not have to fully commit to the company – instead, for a smaller fee, a CoHired CDMO can do similar levels of work with probably more efficiency.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

A CTO is an executive-level position that leads the company’s technical staff. A CTO also leads a company’s R&D department, as well as looks after the company’s technological needs. A CTO’s job includes managing all the technical aspects of a company. All the IT and IT-based companies do have a CTO so that they can handle the technical personnel better.

However, what makes CTOs different from CIOs, or Chief Information Officers, is the fact that they focus more on strategic planning, and the role is more focused on external aspects of a company’s business than internal, as is the case with CIOs.
Since so many budding organizations work in IT, tech and services related to the ecosystem, there is a great need for them to have an executive-level person who understands what they need and what is to be done to achieve that in either R&D or tech.

Why Should You Hire a CTO?

There are obvious merits to hiring a CTO. First, the other top executives may or may not have enough technical knowledge to understand their products or services. Having a CTO on board can provide the company with the right direction to take their products and/or services in.

Dee Hock, an ex-president of Visa, says, “without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities”.

If you are still unsure what kind of products you should be selling, or feel that something is missing in them, a CTO might be the right person to have a trained eye look at the product range. A CTO can spot technical errors and help eradicate them fast.

What does a CTO Do?

There is still some confusion around how this title works. This title has been around for the best part of three decades – starting with the companies in the dot-com bubble, and spreading to IT companies. A CTO looks for new technology to either launch or create new products for the company, or improve existing ones. The CTO also oversees the R&D department in the company for new products. In some cases, the CTOs also look after internal tech needs for IT and operations.

In companies where there are CIOs, CTOs report to them, as there are multiple overlaps in both position’s roles and duties. However, if there is no CIO, the CTO directly reports to the CEO.

Why Should You CoHire a CTO?

Many companies get away with hiring a Technical Advisor in place of a CTO. However, if you feel you need one, rather than committing to one person, you can always go for CoHiring one. A CoHired CTO will be better than a Technical Advisor, and over the short term can stabilize an organization, helping with technology externally and, in many cases, internally.

Chief Sales Officer (CSO)

A Chief Sales Officer oversees the sales personnel in any organisation. As young companies start to grow, to drive sales and revenue, they need a person who can cater to that, and build and maintain a great team of sellers to keep the revenue flowing in the company. In short, a Chief Sales Officer is responsible for all the sales-related activities that happen within your company.

Since sales, and more importantly, maintaining a positive revenue stream, while looking for new ones are something the CEO/Founder cannot manage alone after a certain period, hiring a CSO becomes all the more imperative for a growing company. The timing should also be right – too early and the hiring itself becomes a burden to the company, too late and the revenue stream has already started drying up. It is one of the most important hirings for every company who need to decide at the right time.

Why Should You Hire a CSO?

Hiring a CSO can prove to be a vital decision for a business that wants to start making money. Such companies need to establish sales channels, build and maintain revenue streams, and maintain a positive image with the customers. Hence, an executive-level person to plan sales and execute those plans, lead the sales personnel towards a common goal and create new revenue streams is sort of the dream-hiring for an organisation. For example, in the startup ecosystem, competition is cutthroat, and if it fails to establish a continuous revenue stream, it is doomed to fail. Hiring a CSO can help avoid that.

What Does a Chief Sales Officer Do?

A CSO leads a company’s sales teams. This person is in charge of meeting the sales and revenue targets of a company. The person in this role also looks after daily operations management.

A CSO also oversees VP Sales and other related posts, such as CSM. The job description of a Chief Sales Officer also entails overseeing all sales-related activities. These activities include assessing, implementing and reporting sales strategies that will bring in more revenue and help the company grow in the long run. Apart from that, CSOs also hire sales personnel, plan sales and revenue, maintain relationships with related fields within a company like production and marketing and so on.

Why Should You CoHire a CSO?

As I mentioned previously, hiring a CSO can be a crucial decision for a company’s coffers too. And most organizations, in the growth stage, work on a fragile balance of cash and credit. Hire someone too expensive and they risk drowning. In comes CoHiring. You can just hire someone on a CoHiring basis, that is, not for the full-time, but for a limited amount of time to help out. A CoHired CSO can plan out sales targets and strategies for the whole year in a couple of weeks and do just about the same without becoming a burden on the organisation.

Chief Financial Officer

As an organisation grows, so does your financial planning requirements. This necessitates the need for a seasoned professional to manage your finances. They will help improve financial stability, implement strategies, and bring credibility to the company. Further, when the small (Point A) organisation plans to go large (Point B), they can help pool resources, draft plans and chart the journey from point A to B.

Especially with the pandemic’s after-effects like a knife on the neck, businesses are persistently looking for robust retrieval strategies. They aim to have a revival and business continuity strategy along with a robust pay-out system. A financial leader can help resolve immediate concerns to safeguard the overall financial status and performance of businesses.

Why should you hire a CFO?

The intermittent economic scenario in the country requires that every company have a sound financial proposition in place to stay ahead in the competition. But like Rajmohan Krishnan, Founder and MD, Entrust Family Office suggests, fluctuating demand, customer requirements, regulatory changes, and uncertain financial situations; these demand suppleness from a modern CFO who can spearhead the organisation towards viable growth.

A CFO can draft revival policies for a company to chart the course for steady growth and manage everyday challenges. He/She/They also impart confidence in the leadership and contribute to the compliance needs.

Responsibilities of a Chief Financial Officer

According to HBR, a CFOs act as a strategist, offering financial leadership; a catalyst, instilling a financial approach and mindset; a steward, protecting and preserving the organization’s critical assets; and an operator, fulfilling the finance function’s core responsibilities.

Still, for many organisations, the direct meaning of a CFO is someone who helps mitigate financial risks in the organisation. He/She/They also help incentivise assets, clarify the board or investors on money matters and aid with compliance.

Why should you CoHire a Chief Financial Officer?

One of the most sought after and highest paying job is that of a CFO. According to ETCFO, the average drawn salary of a CFO in the private sector is 60 LPA to 2.5 CrPA + bonus. The majority of money is bet on their 360° financial strategy skills. But a small organisation, a startup generally, does not always need a full-time CFO.

The final statement for many small organisations is that while CFOs add significantly greater value than a more “junior” financial analyst, they are expensive. Thus, for many companies, Gig CFO services will remain a cost-effective solution for a long time.

Money View- Personal Loan Fintech startup

A fintech startup set-up in 2014 to make the personal finance space in India quick, easy and hassle-free by use of technology, Money View has over the years gained appreciable goodwill in the industry and funding from India’s top VC funds.

Ever since its inception, the B2C mobile app platform was very conscious about the financial side of its operations and even though it did have a regular monthly marketing budget it was alive to the need of having the best possible ROI on its marketing outflow. Thus it was logical that they got out of their dilemma of whether to use their existing in-house marketing team or add a senior professional to it and contacted COHIRE to get an Outsourced CMO that has a rich history of marketing specialization, guidance and to give direction to their marketing efforts, which proved to be a perfect fit for them.

Like any company, continuous growth in the digital and brand space is imperative for a startup too, that too at a cost well within their budget. This requires planning and execution of sound marketing strategies that only experienced marketing professional scan draw and implement.

As soon as we came on board we started analyzing their marketing plans and modified, renewed and rectified them wherever necessary keeping their team in the loop. We impressed upon the management the need for diversification and inclusion of new channels of digital marketing and offline modes.

We impressed upon the management the need for brand repositioning, building brand strategy and character and exploring new digital and non-digital avenues for marketing campaigns. All through this, we focused on maximizing the return from each campaign by monitoring, interpreting and analyzing the data.

The results prove that we are working in the right direction and we are well and truly on our way to take Money View to greater heights.

Chief Human Resource Officer

People are an integral part of the success of any organisation – big or small – and the performance of the people determines whether they are an asset to the company or not. An HR professional, especially at the top level of an organisation, is always an asset. Generally termed as the Chief Human Resource Officer or CHRO, he/she/they play an important role in creating a company culture or maintaining one.

Why should you hire a CHRO?

Many a time, C-level or senior executives, or even the general workforces have understood HR duties limited to the Diwali rangoli, Holi sweets and timely appraisals. But there is a lot more to the department apart from doing administrative and compliance tasks.

If a company has a high employee turnover, it more or less implies that it’s a less-workable organisation. Meaning, many new applicants may find the organisation culturally unfit. The right HR leadership can do wonders in terms of contributing to the business in providing strategic value with leadership development, organization planning, and people analytics. They ensure accountability, all-around development and success of every employee at every level.

Responsibilities of a Chief Human Resource Officer

A Chief Human Resources Officer is the people’s person in any organisation. He/She/They supervise all HR administration, practices, regulations, rules for other C-Level managers, and oversee that the organisation has the necessary workforce to meet all of the business needs and goals. The CHRO also encourages staff learning and development, training, and carries out initiatives to supervise and motivate the performance of the workforce at all levels.

Having a CHRO is like having a cool-aunt/uncle for the organisational family, who helps keep the employee morale high, determine the causes for low morale and create and implement cool solutions to boost it. Further, the CHRO also shaped the culture of the company.

The CHRO generally has at least 10 years of experience with excellent communication, interpersonal, and time-management skills.

Why should you CoHire a Chief Human Resource Officer?

There are varied benefits of CoHiring a C-Level HR ranging from lower costs, saving time and resources, access to expertise, gaining a large network pool of resources for specific skill sets and, looking at a very lower pay-out than an average 50 LPA. (Source: PayScale).

Hiring a Gig CHRO or CoHiring an experienced, matured and skilled C Level brain as CHRO or HR Head, with at least 15-20 years of experience, can help hire and train the young populace of the organisation, at a divided cost.

Chief Customer Officer (Chief of Customer Experience)

Word-of-mouth publicity – physical or online – is the most organic way a brand can grow. When a consumer of your product shares his/her/their experience, others are compelled to shift to your organisation. Further, the needs of a consumer are ever-evolving, and so is the range of services your competitor can offer them. As a result, the company must continually innovate the experience delivered to customers. They also need to make sure that no customer feels neglected or small. A CCO or the new term, Chief of Customer Experience, is the person to transfer this mindfulness responsibility.

A very great example in the industry would be The Souled Store. The company’s Customer Management Team ensures that every consumer feels as much as part of the buying group as the richest buyers. From when the installation of the app, to when the consumer buys an outfit and then uninstalls the app, the CX team monitors and communicates for feedback at every stage.

Why do you need to hire a Chief of Customer Experience?

While a CPO and CMO work towards making a product and selling it, respectively, the review of the end-user completes the entire loop of communication. But the duty of a Chief of Customer Experience is not only turning the feedback into praise but also assisting in production and marketing functions.

Initially, the role would be a part of the marketing team, as a part of completing the communication loop between the company and the user. But now, Customer eXperience has become the new marketing. It influences brand perceptions and impacts business performance just as strong as traditional marketing such as media advertising and price promotions.

Experience Matters states that a good customer experience makes a person 5x more likely to recommend a company. He/She/They will also more likely purchase from the same brand in the future. Further, Forrester reports that 76% of executives say improving CX is a high or critical priority. Thus, many companies have established a C-level position to oversee it.

Responsibilities of a CCX or Chief Customer Officer (CCO)

It is the CCO who builds up high-quality long-lasting customer relationships by converting regular customers into happy, loyal and satisfied ones. These, engage with the company, stay longer and purchase more products and services. They also push their friends, families, influenced crowd to purchase from the brand.

Further, a CCX ensures that the product team creates customer-centric dimensions to the product and the sales team sells to the right-fit customer. They aim to make the customer experience flawless, and not only consider the customer, a king, but also make them feel like one.

Why do you need to CoHire a CCX or CCO?

Indeed highlights that an average salary that a Consumer Experience Head draws is Rs 13 LPA. That person might not even be a C-Level employee of the company. This just goes to show how important it is to have a CCO or CCX on the board. The C-Level leadership in a company needs a leader who can integrate and align the customer experience into marketing and product roles.

Chief Product Officer

A Chief Product Officer is responsible for the strategic product direction. His/her/Their work includes planning, envisioning, designing, developing and managing a product. In many companies, the CPO also performs distribution, manufacturing, and procurement tasks.

If an organization prioritises making an excellent product, it is not possible without an expert in the C-Suite. The product’s journey from ideation to creation is that of several levels. Thus, with a customer-focused framework, every organisation needs a CPO who can develop an impactful product.

Roles and Duties of a Chief Product Officer

Apart from product development, the primary responsibility of the CPO is to handle all aspects of purchasing and supply chain management processes. He/She/They should be able to manage purchase functions within budget, finding systematic purchasing patterns and improve the supply chain methods.

One of the most important aspects of the job is setting effective goals, standards, and metrics to keep track of the product at every stage and improving every process for efficiencies.

Why should you CoHire a Chief Product Officer?

A Chief Product Officer can create and develop the product. The C-Level executive can be in charge of project management, and act as a team leader. Thus, incorporating this leader as part of your company is a valuable decision that will translate into increased cooperation and direction within your team.

While the costs of hiring a full-time CPO can put a hole in the pockets of small organisations, the option to CoHire will always be available till the product line-up grows. Further, an experienced CPO brings with him/her/them, a huge network of suppliers. The CPO will direct the Product Management team, assist in supervising other departments such as UX and Marketing and also be part of the hiring committee and training.

ABC for Technology – Bangalore based Edtech company

How does one go about pushing the growth trajectory of a technology company that despite being the doyen of the software skilling space is not able to unlock its full potential?

This is the question that we at Outsourced CMO (hired via COHIRE) faced when Bangalore-based ABC for Technology came on board as our client.

The company had an impressive track record of polishing the talent of fresh engineering graduates by enhancing their language and software skills by learning a number of patented programs in Testing, Full Stack, Data Science, Java and Python and then placing them in prestigious blue-chip IT companies, yet it was unable to fully exploit the opportunities in a growing market.

We deep dived into this problem and in about six months the fortunes of ABC saw a turnaround. We quickly evolved a strategy to enhance its content and communication and make it more target oriented to benefit from the numerous avenues available in the B2B space.

We devised a coherent PR action plan that created an immediate business impact in terms of revenue by greatly boosting the visibility and brand recall value of the company. The partnership between OCMO and ABC for Technology has opened new vistas for ABC at a minimum cost. It now has unfettered access to a CXO-level business leader and an opportunity to CoHire from a pool of highly qualified specialists who are ready to tackle any situation head-on. This talented pool has a brilliant track record of having delivered nimble solutions at the who’s who of Indian industry including Reliance, Ernst & Young, L&T, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dentsu Advertising, etc.

We are deeply involved in every aspect related to marketing at ABC and are quietly confident that with our focus and wealth of experience we can collaborate with ABC to maximize its potential in the ever expanding B2B market.

Vidal Healthcare – India largest TPA company

When Vidal Health a leading health and wellness insurance provider to corporate houses decided to further its reach by hitching on to the mobile revolution by launching its healthcare app COHIRE was its natural choice for marketing the app.

Why?

Because launching & marketing an app is a specialized field and requires sensitivities that are different than normal marketing and we are experts in it.

Our team with its wealth of experience brainstormed about the actual needs of the company and with its deep knowledge of strategy, technology, customer insight and crafting digital experiences came up with a well-modulated marketing strategy that focused on all marketing channels – digital, offline and online.

This strategy combined customer insight, technology and engineering along with crafting digital experiences that change the game for the company and their customers.

Today, the app market is very overcrowded with hundreds of apps being uploaded every day and in this situation, easy discoverability of an app is of utmost importance. So our team at Outsourced CMO hired via COHIRE devised strategies to enhance the discoverability of the app. Furthermore, retention is imperative for the success of an app thus we worked to draw and deploy an effective app retention plan.

The increasing number of apps is making life increasingly difficult for marketers who must make all efforts to ensure that their app stands out in the crowd. It entails huge human and financial costs on the company. This is where we prove beneficial for our associates. Outsourced CMO with its team of insightful strategists and performers who have honed their skills and developed the requisite tools to achieve amazing results all the time, top-notch CXOs with the relevant implementation and technological capabilities, concept of co-hire and an ability to add real value to our associates’ business prove to be a force multiplier at an optimum cost for companies across the spectrum from nascent startups to established SMEs and from mid-sized companies to large ones.

Pikkol – Supply Chain Solutions Provider

The moving and packaging industry in India is highly competitive and majorly dominated by the unorganised sector. When Pikkol, a tech-enabled logistics & warehousing company decided to disrupt this space they naturally needed a seasoned marketing professional to stand out in this overcrowded market.

Even though they had their own marketing team, yet they were sorely missing an experienced marketing leader due to cost-constraints. This problem was addressed when Outsourced CMO was CoHired via COHIRE was taken on board in May 2017.

At this time, the young startup was looking towards another round of funding and thus it was imperative that it not only enhanced its branding but also see an appreciable jump in its revenues in double quick time. And what better way to achieve it than to let a dynamic, experienced and capable professional lead its marketing efforts at an affordable cost.

The first task that we undertook after onboarding was to rationalize the team and designate an OCMO team member to shoulder the responsibility of its SMM and SEM related work thereby reducing the company’s dependency on social media marketing agency, in line with our top priority.

This move ensured that we had better control over its campaigns that led to an enhanced understanding of the customer needs whereby we could plan the best path to their sustained engagement through flexible, agile and precise processes thus reducing the cost per lead.

We brought the crucial level-headedness and maturity to the enthusiastic young team at Pikkol and worked as their guiding light. We created a road map for them to become trailblazers who could accomplish their targets with ease and efficiency in the least possible time and cost. OCMO’s ability to do extensive market research, competitor review and an uncanny ability to create and penetrate various kinds of markets along with our CoHire feature makes us the best option for enterprises across various industries, scales and verticals.

MSG Global – A Consulting & Managed Services Company

MSG Global is an 8,000 strong international IT services company with its India office in Bengaluru. Its employees are spread across various geographies throwing up various challenges that confront such huge organisations. One of these challenges was undoubtedly internal communication which required the right set of internal communication channels.

What added urgency to set-up these channels was the fact that it aimed to treble employee strength within a year.

Why? Because the German-based company had to deeply focus on employee engagement so that the diverse workforce could feel engaged, contribute positively and work collaboratively towards achieving organizational goals.

MSG started with the idea of hiring a full-time resource to take care of their communication needs but our track record in CoHire, professionalism, target achievement and more along with the effectiveness of our model of working convinced MSG to give Outsourced CMO hired via COHIRE the go-ahead to chart out a meaningful path for their internal communication initiatives in March 2017.

We clearly understand that speedy, effective and right communication is a must in such organizations.

Thus we started our engagement with MSG with a thorough assessment of their business needs and employee experience. As per our KRA we work closely with their leadership and HR teams to formulate, strategize and populate their internal communication space. It includes activation and management of all internal communication channels; sharing knowledge, timely dissemination of information about company policies in the right context, internal branding and brand communication. We do all this and more through engaging, creative and inspiring communication that is clean, crisp and effective and designed to boost employee engagement. We use our expertise and deep knowledge of formal, informal, horizontal and vertical forms of internal communication to transform the workplace from bored and tired to exciting and positive. We use a research-driven approach to create positive experiences across the entire employee-life-cycle. This makes the employees informed, enlightened and inspired and unleashes them to drive results.

Travelspice – Unique Hotel Bidding Platform

Travelspice is the sole online hotel booking site where a customer can find a star hotel for a price decided by him/her. We joined its journey in November 2017. Our brief was to leverage its USP – finding hotel accommodations through bids by customers – to right position the company with the aim of attracting more customers in this ultra-competitive market replete with big names.

OCMO CoHired from Gig CXO platform COHIRE faced a familiar challenge as far as the manpower of the company is concerned as the marketing function was shared by a number of team members without any clear demarcation of job description, leading to a lack of focus and efficiency. Our intervention provided them with a two-fold benefit. It gave more scope and time to their team to concentrate on their core responsibilities and at the same time, our expertise in marketing helped them ramp up their website traffic which is undoubtedly the first step towards increasing revenue.

We streamlined their marketing efforts and processes keeping our focus strictly on developing marketing plans that matched their USP to make the best use of their budget thereby minimizing their anxiety about cost overruns, a natural worry for most of the startups. We did a hands-on-job and not only organized & managed Travelspice’s online presence but also arranged and planned their daily marketing activities necessary to meet their organizational goals.

Associating with COHIRE to get an Outsourced CMO turned out to be a positive step for Travelspice as this obliviated their need to hire a permanent in-house team or a marketing agency to achieve their organizational goals.

The highly targeted approach of our experienced team of marketing professionals and our CoHire function gives companies big and small the flexibility, adaptability, strategy and creativity to maximize their reach, revenue and visibility. It is a win-win situation for companies like Travelspice as they can utilize the strengths and experience of our highly qualified professionals at an affordable cost.

mVikarsha – An assisted rural eCommerce platform

mVikarsha, the e-commerce startup was set-up in 2012. It offers several brands for rural consumers on feature phones with its mVPay marketplace platform. Feature phones with this proprietary app preloaded with a catalogue of branded products are supplied to retail stores to aid customers to find, select and order products of their choice from this catalogue. The payment can be made securely through the app itself.

mVikarsha allied with COHIRE to get an OCMO in 2014. It did not have a marketing team of its own thus we had to start from scratch. We discussed our profile with the mVikarsha team and the resultant brief was exhaustive and clear cut. Thus we created the company brand, built awareness around it, popularized and increased brand visibility across all platforms including both digital and non-digital.

We realized that a large chunk of our potential customers was not tech-savvy thus we invested a lot of attention towards offline BTL tools like targeted search engine marketing, direct mail campaigns, catalogues etc.

Identifying vendors who had the capacity to produce the desired results within the time and budget constraints, which working with a startup puts on a vendor was a part of our engagement. Thereafter we had to ensure that these vendors were properly on-boarded so that a mutually beneficial arrangement could be arrived at. We were able to achieve all the pre-defined targets and much more thanks to our result-oriented approach and undying commitment to excellence.

Outsourced CMO via COHIRE has got the best team of veteran marketing professionals across various business verticals who have shined bright throughout their careers and who are ready to pitch in whole-heartedly for achieving your business goals.

The CoHire facility that we provide to our partners also makes us the perfect fit for all organizations that want to achieve great marketing results at the most affordable cost irrespective of their size.

INCX – A Crypto Currency Exchange Platform

A state of the art trading platform, International Crypto X based in Hyderabad is a reliable crypto currency platform to easily transfer crypto currency. The platform is also engaged in information dissemination. It is a platform that matches crypto currency buyers and sellers, facilitates exchange between various crypto currencies and gives information about the liquidity of listed currencies along with other information.

It is a real challenge to market a crypto currency exchange as the concept is yet to gain traction and what better company to face this challenge than COHIRE who placed Outsourced CMO for this particular task. Our team of highly qualified marketing professionals who work directly with our associates, one of whom is placed in Hyderabad, means that strategizing, decision making and deployment of plans takes place without delay and is thus more efficient and cost-saving.

Our initial responsibility at INCX was to figure out ways and means to popularize the platform. We brainstormed with team members of INCX to pinpoint the lacuna in their marketing. This gave us an idea of what needed to be done. The fact that crypto currency is not a centralized currency, does not have geographical borders or limitation and is highly volatile makes it very difficult to provide relevant information to traders and crypto enthusiasts at one place. We had to devise ways to make this possible.

Our objective is to put relevant information like video tutorials, technology updates, market value and current news related to crypto currencies at one place for the users.

We are also working to ensure that INCX finds a place and is talked about on reputed media channels so that the underlying concept is popularized making the world of digital currency attractive for a greater number of people.

The block-chain phenomenon is still nascent and OCMO with its proven track record and ability to tackle new challenges and its CoHire facility makes it the best bet for all kinds of enterprises who wish to make a mark in this mostly uncharted territory.

Eat.shop.love – Women Fashion eCommerce portal

Established in 2015 Eatshoplove is a Bengaluru-based fashion e-commerce company that straddles the highly competitive fashion and lifestyle market sector and targets only females. Soon thereafter, the startup, seed-funded by a prominent VC organization decided to augment its strategies related to the market and operations.

We at CoHire working as OCMO were entrusted with the twin task of building the brand and to craft an effective lead generation strategy. In just a few months after on-boarding as a part of its core management team, OCMO was successful in introducing a consolidated marketing plan, spread across the online and offline spaces.

We chose Radio as our primary partner for brand building, creating awareness about the products and generating sales as Eatshoplove was a city-specific brand and catered to only the Bengaluru market. This strategy helped us clock a manifold increase in revenue and website traffic. Along with this, we used social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to create and propagate engaging content to create awareness among the people and build customer relations. The company was focused on strengthening brand engagement by using interactive features like community building and contests. This strategy was so successful that the brand not only penetrated deep into the Bengaluru market but elicited demand from across the length and breadth of the country.

So much so that by the time the ESL brand was acquired by a UK-based company in 2016, it had already captured a fair share of the Indian market.

Outsourced CMO with a proven track record in the market provides top-notch and senior-level professionals like CXOs at the most affordable cost. And on top of it, we have a beneficial facility of CoHire that makes life that much easier for our associates to make their brands scale greater heights. With our smart work, we enable them to outshine their competitors.

Wealth App – Robo Advisory App (Bengaluru)

Outsourced CMO began working with Wealth App, a B2C start-up in the Robo-Advisory space, at a time when the start-up was in its initial stages and did not even have its own marketing team. Their story was the epitome of the typical start-up story played a zillionth time across the globe – a brilliant product but no adequate marketing and financial muscle to launch it effectively. This is where we stepped in. It was a scenario right up our alley as we have always specialized in planning, executing and delivering the best possible marketing strategies, even on shoe-string budgets courtesy our forte of deploying the most appropriate managerial talent to obtain great results.
Our interaction with the Wealth App team helped us understand the specifics of the product and it’s USP. We concluded that the platform facilitated online purchase of Mutual Funds by providing customized investment advice. It entailed that we devise a strategy that would attract a large number of visitors to the site thus giving us the critical mass which could be converted into customers in a sizeable number. We decided to focus exclusively on Internet marketing to achieve our goals. Our expert and well-qualified team that is always available for CoHire evolved a tailor-made strategy and deployed it in a robust manner. This created immediate business impact by enhancing its visibility and generating handsome returns on marketing expenses despite the lack of finance. A testimony to the success of our approach is the fact that Wealth App won a round of Angel Funding in November 2016. Later, it became the fastest growing firm in the FinTech space in terms of AUM.

Sundara Nagararajan

Nagarajan is an accomplished senior technologist with over three decades’ experience in large global enterprises and early stage companies. He has performed director-level technical leadership and executive management roles in product development and deployment serving Customers worldwide at global technology majors including HP, Philips, Wipro & Netapp. As Director-Technology at IPValue he developed deep knowledge and expertise in the business aspects of innovation and commercializing intellectual property.

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