The Latest BPO: Marketing

Posted by: Steve Hamm on December 04

I’ve been meaning to write up this item for weeks but craziness just kept getting in the way. A friend from my Bangalore Tiger book-writing days, Vinod Harith, has quietly been developing a new wrinkle on business process outsourcing: the outsourced marketing department. Vinod, a former head of global marketing communications at Wipro Technologies, quit last April to get his own business running. He set up shop as CMO Axis in Chennai, where the cost of doing business is less than in Bangalore, and now has 17 employees. He has 10 clients now, though he could name only a couple of them.

The idea is straightforward. Companies hire CMO Axis to play the role of an outsourced marketing department or for individual projects, like, say running an online community or running an awards program. For The Times of India’s Economic Times brand, CMO Axis researches, produces content, and publishes a series of business and training CDs that are distributed in business schools.

The initial clients are mostly Indian. Vinod finds that they’re wary of building their own marketing teams. Want to have variable costs and a lot of flexibility. Business is good. “In the past three months, I haven’t had to go to find business. They seek us out,” he says.

On the downside, the tiny firm hasn’t been able to expand as rapidly as Vinod would like because of a shortage of venture capital. “VCs are waiting. They want to wait and see what happens in the market. Stock prices are way down. So it’s hard to raise money.”

Based on the continued craziness in the capital markets, Vinod may have a long wait before he can raise money and grow fast. In the meantime, he has all of the business he can handle in India. Given the vitality of the Indian economy, in spite of economic uncertainty, that’s a good place to be.

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Reader Comments

Hamm's "Friends"

December 6, 2008 01:41 PM

When the word "friend" is included in a reporter's story about any company, you can immediately detect the reporter's lack of journalistic integrity.

When Hamm isn't being overly supportive about Wipro, IBM or Infosys, he's subtly negative against their competitors. Advertising revenues drive BusinessWeek editors. Truth is relative to only supporting their current advertisers.

What a shame because BusinessWeek just keeps losing millions each year.

Before BW goes entirely online, you might consider getting back to unbiased, balanced, managerial instructive articles instead of these gossipy column writing styled ads by Hamm.

Steve Hamm

December 8, 2008 08:32 AM

Hmmmm

I usually post the nasty comments without commenting on them. But in this case I can't help pointing out that THIS IS A BLOG.

Also, as far as I can make out, advertising dollars don't drive BusinessWeek editors or writers. Certainly not me.

niti bhan

December 9, 2008 08:35 AM

this is not a new service, just calling it BPO is. back in the early nineties, Result Integrated Marketing Services, part of Tara Sinha McCann Ericksonn would manage many of these activities for their clients, including the entire back end mailing and response to letters requesting baby food recipes from Nestle.

Chris George

December 10, 2008 05:05 AM

Also check out www.ebsworldwide.com for future reference.

MPO has also been known as 'Marketing Services KPO' OR 'Marketing Technology & Services (MTS)'.

Don't mean to sound disparaging and its great that companies such as CMO Axis are being built, but frankly they're not the 'first' such company.

Jessie Paul

December 10, 2008 05:19 AM

I think the difference between an ad agency and a marketing bpo is that the bpo would primarily focus on tasks that are repeatable and which can be templatized, whereas ad agencies do far more one-off creativity.

re the other comment on favourable coverage for advertisers, wipro hasn't advertised with BW magazine, nor have many of the firms they feature.

In the long run publications that are information-led will decline while those which are insight led will thrive. that's because the internet had made information way more easy and fast to access than a newspaper or mag could, but there is still a market for insight.

abraham simons

December 11, 2008 04:27 AM

I agree with Niti, BPO is slowly moving towards KPO. People are acquiring the skillsets slowly. Like, Jessie mentions ad agencies do far more creativity than BPO, yes they are, but over a period of time these BPOs will learn to create and turn into a KPO and then into a verticle.

Vijay Menon

December 15, 2008 06:22 AM

Parts of marketing such as PR, advertising, event management etc have always been outsourced but this works only when you outsource creative as well as the grunt work. Outsourcing just the grunt work would make it too boring to be sustainable.

On the other hand I'd imagine there is a case for outsourcing the entire marketing function--creative and templatized work--at small companies that neither need nor can afford a full-time marketing function.

ANNA

July 7, 2009 05:42 AM

I THINK THE BUSINESS WOULD SUCCESS IF ANYBODY WOULD COOPERATE AND FAMILIAR ABOUT BUSINESS THAT COULD HELP ANYBODY.

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