'At Avigna, we want to be world number one'

Shobha Ponnappa enjoys doing a myriad things at a time. Divorced for the last sixteen-and-a-half years with a 17-year-old daughter, she does not find managing Avigna Technologies and travelling on assignments difficult tasks at all. "I feel uneasy only if I do not have anything to do."

After an 18-year stint at various advertising agencies, she found stagnation catching up with her. So, she took two years off and decided to do something different when she realised she had a 'head for computers and technology'. In 1993, the term 'multimedia' was new, so she went abroad, trained herself in 'multimedia and Web technology', and came back to start a studio at home.

"It was a very expensive hobby for me. It was crazy to fly people down to India spending your own money, after chucking your job for something that had yet to catch up here."

However, her old clients started contacting her when thy heard about her studio -- set up at the cost of Rs 5 million in her bedroom. "The collaborators of those business houses had Web sites and they came with their laptops and multimedia presentations to India and the Indian partners felt foolish in front of them. So, they wanted to be like those who came from abroad."

India Pistons was her first major client. Thereafter, there was no looking back. The 'one woman army' very soon had 15-20 clients. So, she employed five people initially, and rented a room in another apartment. Five became 40 soon. The figure went up to 80 and then 250. "By the end of the year we will have more than 1,000 people working here," gushes the Avigna managing director.

The company's turnover rose from Rs 4 million to Rs 15 million, and then leapt to Rs 30 million last year. Avigna earned all this from the Indian market with a smattering of global assignments. This year, Avigna is handling business worth $10-15 million. It has also moved from the Indian to the US market having picked up an 'enormous amount of business' during her last American trip. Now, it plans to set up two offices in the US.

"We have not advertised since the day we launched. People came to us. We are growing like crazy. Our aim is to be the number one in the world. Why should we settle for anything less?" she tells Shobha Warrier in a candid tête-à-tête.

Did you ever expect your hobby to grow so big?

No, I did not expect it to grow even as a business. The biggest surprise is that I never thought I would be a businessperson. Now, I have started liking my entrepreneurial side. I was a creative person and not a businesswoman. I didn't know I had entrepreneurial skills, but once this took off, I realised that I had what it takes to be successful.

How do you rate yourself as an entrepreneur?

I don't know what the world says, but I think I am very shrewd. At least, everybody likes to think they are. I believe that if you are successful, more success follows. Success breeds success. Now, the entire team feels that Avigna cannot do anything wrong. This optimism has almost spread like a disease in Avigna: everybody feels that since we are Avigna, clients will buy our work.

Will this attitude make you complacent?

Has it made us complacent?

I don't know. I am asking you.

As a matter of fact, you get addicted to success, which I feel is a brilliant feeling for an organisation. You feel invincible and success is a positive addiction. That is what I want to build here. Basically, I am optimistic and have lots of energy and enthusiasm. I have passed on a little bit of that and all of us are always full of adrenaline. We are doing brilliant work, not to just satisfy the client but also because we have a passion for the work. You have to come to work because you are thrilled with life and enjoy your work.

Did you feel the same when you were working for others?

I must tell you that I had lots of ups and downs in my creative profession. You go through this angst in advertising agencies, which have their high points and low periods. Low periods are when clients reject your work repeatedly. It is a creative person's nightmare to have his or her work rejected. However, I don't regret a single day of my life in the advertising world. For 18 years, I was taught the tricks of the trade by some of the most distinguished people at HTA, Lintas and O&M.

At O&M, where I had started my work, there were some very inspiring people. They taught you the basic discipline. However, I didn't see any radical creativity coming out of O&M at the time. What I learnt was solid principles of creative standard. At HTA, I got to work with different people. There, unlike at O&M, you had to deal with each individual separately. At that time, HTA didn't have a creative director. So, a large part of the responsibility landed on all of us: the creative writers. We had to run some of the accounts ourselves. There was nobody to defend the work with the client. So, you had to go and defend the work.

The Lintas experience was also brilliant as I had the opportunity to work with Alyque Padamsee, a creative genius. There, I had to be more than just a creative person. That was where I learnt the business aspects of advertising. Workdays were very tough, but I handled things well. From the day you start looking at clients as if they are the decision-makers or God, you realise that it is easy to sell something. So, the fear of meeting people goes out of your system. I found that I had the ability. If you are innovative, people are open to your ideas.

Let's talk about Avigna's first assignment. Were you nervous when you designed for your first client, India Pistons?

No, not at all. They were extremely good people. They were our first corporate clients, but we had been doing a lot of work for smaller clients. Our first assignment was for Rs 12,000. By the time India Pistons came, we had done work worth about Rs 150,000. Really speaking, I didn't have the time to enjoy success because there was a lot of work coming. It was a new medium and you too were learning. Every day was an 18- or a 19-hour day. We were getting so many clients that we had to work round the clock, almost.

Was it because you were the first to enter the field that you were flooded with offers?

All the competition we faced was from the software companies. Remember, software companies employ software engineers and they are not necessarily creative. Multimedia is a medium that is a hybrid of creativity and technology. If at all we have competition, it is very small. Our formula is to employ creative people from the advertising arena and train them as software programmers. So, we brought a new formula into the market. Even today, the lead that we have is because this formula is working well.

So, you prefer a creative person to a technical person…

Not exactly. We have learnt how to identify a person who's good at both the aspects. He or she must be creative and should possess a knack for logical programming. Sometimes, we find programmers who are creative. The point is, we are looking for hybrid human beings.

Is it easy to get such people?

I don't think so. I think we have perfected a formula. We know how to identify the right people and how to train them.

How do you identify such a person?

That is a trade secret. However, frankly speaking, I really do not know. Call it intuition, call it practice. I am trained that way. I just know how to pick the right person.

You said you have clients from the US. How did you break into the international market?

About one year ago, Intel invested in our company. I think it was just a coincidence that they were looking for companies like us who were doing innovative things and we too were open to corporatising the company. We didn't want to remain a boutique. We had already picked up 60-80 huge corporate clients in India and were doing very well. So, they saw a synergistic alliance developing there.

Did Intel's call surprise you?

No. Before the Intel offer, we had 17-18 venture funds approaching us, asking if we wanted money. We never needed money because we were doing well. With Intel, however, it was not just the money but also the technology, the name and the credibility that was coming to us. The world sat up and took notice. Along with Intel, we also had ICICI investing in our company.

This year, we consciously decided that since we have done enough groundwork in the Indian market, we should spread our wings. After seeing some of our work, they commented that they had rarely seen such work. That gave us a lot of hope that we could be a success internationally, too. Funnily enough, the formula that we adopted here also worked abroad. There's hardly any competition to our kind of work even in the West. So, we found it easy to go to the US.

We also work very fast. We are able to produce a Web site of 2,000 pages in 15-20 days. It is because we have 'templated' our archives. Our creative thinking also envelops the manner in which we are growing as a company.

Could you elaborate?

When I think of expanding, I ask myself: how do I go about it? Shall I open branch offices everywhere? We did a bit of creative thinking and decided, 'Let's do it via the Web'. So, even in growing, if you apply a bit of creativity, everything will work out well. Creativity is resourceful thinking. You need to be innovative in your business strategies. We do not say we are Web site developers. We are not software programmers, either. We are 'idea-imaginers' for clients. That is our mission. Every project has to have some breakthrough conceptually. Otherwise, why should the client come to you?

Is there any difference between Net consumers and other consumers?

There is a difference. An Internet consumer doesn't come there for communication alone. He seeks fulfilment. A person watching a television ad does not expect fulfilment from the product. He just watches it. He may then go to a shop, but may or may not buy the product. The Net is not like that. When he goes there and sees something, he wants to buy it immediately. Or, he wants to consume that stuff right away. So, a Net surfer is a person who wants instant fulfilment.

Another thing that I have noticed is that a Net consumer is a click-happy person. Net surfing experience is also like a game. The person becomes a child with the mouse in his hand. If you don't give enough in your site for the person to go click, click, click, he will click out of it. When he comes to the site, he should get tremendous thrills.

Is a Net consumer a difficult person to satisfy?

Not really. It is just that you should understand his psyche. Only when the experience of buying something on the Net is more attractive, will he buy on-line.

When Craig Barret was in India he seemed quite optimistic about B2B transactions on the Net, but not B2C. Do you feel that way?

Suppose I have a store and sell cosmetics on the Net. I have advertised my products on the Net. People want to buy them. But I have not integrated my supply chain. How will I satisfy the B2C function to the fullest then? People then suddenly realise that B2C without the B2B backbone cannot work efficiently. So, it has dawned upon everyone that every business must have the B2B function fully tied up before one ventures into the B2C arena. If one ventures with a strong B2C formula, B2B too will become seamless.

When the mechanisms for buying, distribution, logistics, procurement, supply chain, integration are all in place, then the exercise becomes rally profitable.

A customer who goes to a store has the opportunity to touch, feel, experience and even smell products. Won't he be missing all that when he is Net-shopping? Can Net ever replace the excitement of shopping in a store?

That's the beauty of what we are doing. Because they are shopping on-line, customers will have to sacrifice the touch and feel sensation. It is here that my company becomes crucial. We give near hundred per cent real experience through various methods.

But we still can't touch or feel it.

Not every product is like that. When you are buying a lotion, do you apply it on your hand before buying?

No. But, you still take the bottle, turn it around, read the label…

Yes, we are able to do that. We have allowed people to actually rotate products and read labels. That is the innovation we have achieved. That is why we call ourselves 'experience-management people'.

How did your meeting with Craig Barret go?

It was fine. That was a typical portfolio meet. It happens many times all over the world. It was interesting that he came to India. Normally, we guys go there. I think 20 of us were there for the breakfast we had with him. We were able to tell him what kind of help would we like to get from Intel. We had a lively session.

Do you see the new economy bubble bursting soon?

No, it will not burst. It will grow larger and larger. See, it is easy for me to start an online store even if I do not have a legacy. Of course, there will be shake-up somewhere down the line. After this, a lot of volatile businesses will go for a toss and the real ones will remain. That's how it is going to be. I agree with Craig Barret's view that the shake-up is going to separate the solid ones from the flimsy ones.

I am happy that we are not a dot-com. We are only service providers to dot-coms and corporates. During the Californian 'gold rush', guys who consistently made money were the spade and shovel guys! We are like that. We are serving, both, the old economy and the new economy.

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