What Apurva Chamaria teaches about AI in marketing

Indian entrepreneurs with the lack of a strong legal framework, not having access to high quality product managers funding, are entrepreneurs who have grown up with a lot of grit. Actually, starting back from your journalism days to marketing to HCL and now a revenue role at Rate Gain. Tell us a bit about this journey. You've had very interesting sort of roles.

So, I started out as a journalist and I used to write for a very reputed firm called Indian Express and it was a great learning and I think which really helped me when I moved on to advertising and then I was a planner with Redefusion. Right. From advertising I moved on to marketing and very recently 18-19 months ago I moved on to a revenue leadership role where I'm the chief revenue officer at Rate Gain. So, I personally see these are all building blocks to the career I now have. And is there a goal inside?

The goal is to run my own company or lead a very large company as the CEO. Right. Yes. You've written a book on growth hacking and you have written two books, right? Yes, I've written two books. And this is the last book. So, this included a lot of startups stories. So, what is that one thing which is unique about India's startup culture, the startup ecosystem that sort of sets it apart? What is so special?

So, I believe because Indian startups still very recently didn't have a lot of funding support, even today the amount of funding which happens in a year in India is comparable to possibly what happens in 15 days in US. Okay. That's the quantum of difference or in China. So, Indian entrepreneurs with the lack of a strong legal framework, not having access to high quality product managers funding, are entrepreneurs who have grown up with a lot of grit.

And they've demonstrated an ability to do very, very frugal innovation, scaling up businesses. So, there is a lot of resilience and grit in Indian founder ecosystem. Because one of the strongest trends today is that a lot of young companies powered by data, powered by technology are completely transforming what the industry is all about. Oyo is an example, right? So, how well are India's legacy businesses dealing with the digital challenge?

So, I believe a lot of legacy businesses in India and globally think digital is a technology. Digital is about data. And they make initiatives, they launch initiatives by either appointing a chief digital officer or empowering the CIO or the CMO to start digitizing the business.

What they often don't realize is any kind of digital transformation is at the very core, a massive cultural transformation, which comes from opening your wounds, becoming more transparent as an enterprise, becoming far more data oriented in the way you manage your internal processes. So, there's a lot of agility which needs to come into the business ecosystem. And I personally think Indian traditional businesses have a long way to go.

Also, I mean, in that line, I mean, how is data and AI transforming businesses? What do you think they mean? Rate Gain is an example. Yes. Are you leveraging AI strongly enough? And what does that mean for future businesses in terms of the dynamics?

So, Rate Gain is a proud partner for travel and hospitality companies globally. We have three kinds of product offerings. The first is around revenue management and business intelligence, where we use the power of competitive price intelligence, social, news, events, weather, demand forecasting to drive pricing recommendations.

So, the dynamic pricing which you see on airlines, hotels, OTAs is actually driven by us. The second business which we have is electronic distribution, where we use ML, AI to guide travel providers and hotels, where should they distribute? So, all the first or second degree price discrimination that happens, Rate Gain is right behind it? We are right behind it. And the third is around Guest Experience Cloud, where we actually help hotels personalize the guest journey and really, really engage with their guests in a more meaningful manner.

So, the last question, I mean, so you have been across several roles and very well sort of positioned for the journey where what marketers are making today from a purely sort of creative marketing role to something which is more of a chief business officer, chief operating officer sort of role, right? Yes. And that is how the world is. So, what are your tips for the upcoming marketer? What are the things he needs to be on top of to stay relevant over the next decade or two in this space?

So, I would always say, as an upcoming marketer or even as a marketer in later stages, be very, very close to… See, marketing is a combination of three things. You have your own brand or product or service, you have your competitors and you have your customers. So, I would really recommend please be very, very close to customers inside your own company, be very, very close to business so that you have a pulse of what's changing.

Understand what drives the P&L and be very conscious about it and also keep a very keen eye on how is competition responding to market trends. So, these are the three variables. So, I would always say don't become very comfortable just being as a part of the marketing profession doing the same role over many years. Even inside marketing, move to new product development, to consumer insight, to media, to brand management. That's what will make you a well-rounded business professional. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.