Welcome to Crafting Bharat: Brand Ki Baat Mumbai Edition, industry first podcast about brands, businesses and people who make them and build them inside out. In this engaging episode, host Kartik Chawla is joined by Amitabh Saksena, Founder and MD of Actimedia, PR and Digital, and Sameer Varma, Executive Director at Coldstar Logistics in this entertaining episode discussing entrepreneurship, reality of supply chains, B2B storytelling and the changing demands of the modern consumer.
This series is proudly brought to you by NewsReach, India’s leading PR-tech platform, with Production Partner HT Smartcast; Gifting Partner Nanaji Natural and Beauty Partner Lakme Academy. Tune in for stories, insights, and inspiration!
Edited Excerpts
Coldstar is operating in 7,000 pin codes and 200 plus cities. What was a key obstacle which challenged your operations?
Sameer Varma: I would like to begin with something easy. A day or so back, I entered a famous bakery in Bandra. Back in the days, it was normal to wait 20 minutes to get a croissant. And that wait is unbearable today. It is that change in consumer expectation that has been transforming logistics.
We have swapped three days delivery to overnight, then six hours and to fifteen minutes now. Shoppers became accustomed to immediate gratification. And when they are accustomed to it, they cannot turn it back.
The real challenge for us was not that it was difficult. The challenge was figuring out how to solve for a demand that did not even fully exist yet. The technology stack had to be torn into pieces and reconstructed again. Retrain our teams. Rethink leadership. Since as a logistics company you are not merely finding a solution to meet the present demand, you are finding a solution to the aspiration.
How do you approach B2B storytelling, especially in a space like logistics?
Amitabh Saksena: Everything is a brand. You are a brand. I am a brand. Coldstar is a brand. The difference lies in the tools used.
In our case, things always start with messaging. Why does the brand exist? What is its DNA? What is its personality? Communication is sterner in case you see that.
The first question that Sameer asked me when I first met him was a simple one, what sells best on New Year? We guessed candies, icecreams, and drinks. The answer was ice. That’s where the story begins. And the way it goes through a cold chain and gets in your hand just when you needed it.
B2B storytelling is the search for human points of entry. The audience may vary, but the principle remains the same. Make it relevant. Make it relatable. And most of all, make it unique.
What is the biggest myth on logistics and supply chain?
Sameer Varma: The majority believes that logistics is a matter of trucks, warehouses and riders. But there exists an engine that makes it happen. Technology, forecasting and process is that engine.
With an effective supply chain, it makes the faces of the people to smile. When your food is delivered to your table in good condition, when the product is not out of stock, that is logistics that works flawlessly. The complexity is hidden. And that invisibility is the proof of real impact.
What was the origin of Actmedia and what was its philosophy?
Amitabh Saksena: Actimedia was founded in 1998 when one of my colleagues challenged me to make the jump. She said, what we can do for others, we can do for ourselves. ExxonMobil became our first customer, which is a fortune 500 company. That set the tone.
As the years went on we drifted towards lifestyle and we decided we were not going to go blindly after scale. We wanted curated clients. It was not about being the largest PR company. It was concerned with being the best in the brands we serve.
Happy people make happy clients. This has been our philosophy. When internal culture is high, the external communication is also a miracle of that culture.
In a fast growing business world, what breaks first: process or communication?
Sameer Varma: Personally, it would start with process. What you are communicating is not anything unless you have a product or a process that provides a better value. Our attention was on finessing our operations. We began exaggerating the story only when we were sure of what we had created.
Amitabh Saksena: I agree. The product has to be great. You can make some noise, but you will be thrown out of the market in case the product fails. A powerful product can be brought to the next level through communication. It cannot rescue a weak one.
This is a reminder that behind any brand in sight there is an invisible discipline. It is either a cold chain network that forecasts the demand of fruits or a PR agency that is perfecting brand DNA; the basics are the same. Build the product. Perfect the process. Then tell the story.
This discussion is a refreshing change to a business world that is usually fixated on appearance. Since when execution and communication coexist with each other, brands do not merely expand. They endure.
Brought to you by NewsReach–India’s leading PR-tech platform, with our production partner, HT Smartcast.
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