Creating Excellence

M P Hariharan believes ability to negotiate is critical for any entrepreneur. Also, the most important is to keep going as the success might be around the corner.

Armed with an architectural degree from IIT Roorkee, 14 months of experience and some visualization skills, Hari decided to respond to the call of graphic design and plunged headway into branding during the spring of 2000. Those were the days when "computers competed with snails" and "film posters still used to be painted by hand", says he. Speaking of early influences, he vouches strongly for David Ogilvy and used to have breakfast, lunch and dinner idolizing his idol. Much water has flowed since then
and ReZonant, the company he founded, is brimming  with ideas generated by the 24-year-average-aged, 35-strong team whose staple diet consists of an almost daily dose of Ogilvyisms.

His brow knits up when you ask him, "Why branding?", "why not", says he, "India is the most exciting place to be in for brands, with homegrown entrepreneurs realizing that suave negotiation and prompt delivery times are just not enough to compete in a changing global market. One needs to be able to build desire in the minds of one's consumers and building desire is what is better known as branding". In fact, ReZonant informally started off during his college days itself when he worked on several freelance design jobs.

Hari "constantly fights with himself"; the urge to continuously venture into new territory clashes with the more important task of pushing excellence in his company. He believes customer success is merely the means to reach the larger goal of reaching branding nirvana; which is to provide accurate consumer insight and reaction paterns to his clients.

E xcerpts: Hari Speaks his passion... about One of the recent clients we worked for, Pupil Tree works on building creativity in children and we created that theme in graphics for them. The graphic featured ideas tumbling in frenzy out of a child's head without inhibition. However, people in the creative business, though flowing with ideas, develop an inhibition for business. For every step taken forward, they get into a tangle, hence while setting up ReZonant, I realized that managing money was a priority. By keeping overheads low and by being debt-free, we have been able to chase our dreams by taking short but sure steps in each of our projects.

Early days: There was a lot of learning to be done. Graphics, tools, writing. One stumbles but then that is the best way to learn. Getting clients was going to be a challenge. After all, who would trust a change-over? I formed a marketing strategy that was simple in its working - look at business papers and figure out which industries were growing fast. Eventually, I started getting clients. My instincts told me that if I took good care of my clients, they would take good care of me. Even if a client was dissatisfied, we used to go back to them, willing to start from scratch and eventually they used to leave with a smile on their faces. The projects were small, but slowly and surely, we won new and larger accounts. We built a system to ask clients for referrals. Again, a simple yet effective method.

Why branding?

I was clear that I needed to be in a business that I would always enjoy, and hence not have to work;-) Second, that business had to have a global footprint and we should be able to showcase our work seamlessly across geographies. Branding fulfilled both. Besides, the domestic market holds great promise, especially in the SME segment. Many friends questioned my decision, "Would an architect be able to write copy and conceptualize ads?" I was firm in my resolve, though my instincts told me that it wasn't going to be easy.

Not being a one-man-troupe

I realized that the only way to maintain our stringent levels of quality was to recruit great talent. We were lucky to get good people early. That's how service businesses scale. Again, we were cautious in not setting very high targets of growth. There is no point talking about a 500% growth one day and come crashing down the next, due to failed expectations. Today, each one of our 35 creative people believes in putting the smile on the customers' faces. We may make less money due to more time spent, but the grateful words, when the customer sees value, are worth it.

We started off with small brands but now we handle the accounts of several multinationals and Indian industry majors. While we bend backwards to keep our clients happy, we keep a firm eye on consumer trends and apply that insight as added value.

On starting Thinxworks and other ventures

Animation holds incredible avenues of exploration for a creative mind and that what our next venture Thinxworks is all about. We work on clay and 2D animation which we are creating series out of and plan to market to TV channels worldwide.

I've set up a Toy Design company too. I document the ventures I plan to start and begin when I find a suitable resource.

On secrets to success

First, I believe that the secret to good growth lies in strategy, clichéd as it sounds. One should stand away from the day-to-day running and look at where one is heading. We, to start with chose a lot of clients from the IT sector. Being a domain associated with consistent growth, we tagged along and grew as well. Perhaps, our association with IT product companies has come full circle and inspired us to develop animated products, where profitability and scalability is higher. We aim to license our series to studios worldwide, year after year.

Second, good growth can be achieved by selecting your clients from rapidly growing industries. It is also important to maintain contacts in a good CRM platform. These days there are several good open source packages in CRM. It may be a wise idea for consulting companies to share their insights on their website. This also helps generate leads.

Third, the ability to negotiate is critical for any entrepreneur. It may just turn out to be the fine line between success and failure. You may have to just negotiate that wee bit to get your concept in, cajole an employee to stay, get a good price from your vendors or strike a new sales deal.

Fourth and perhaps the most important, never give up. As someone wise once said, "Overwhelming success may just be around the corner when you decide to give up"

He was speaking at a Panel Discussion organized by Businessgyan and TASMAC  on the topic ‘ Passion Driven Businesses'