Interviews

Indiatimes is an online publishing business. A horizontal portal, it principally functions as a megalo content aggregator that caters to diverse age-groups and users. Fundamentally a window for the other portals in the Times of India network, IndiatTimes.com covers everything, from news to social media; it offers email service, has its own Bollywood channel and encompasses a zillion other topics that brings people to the web. With really exponential reach, present in 25 cities in the country and thousands of advertisers, this online mammoth platform delivers fresh content everyday at frequent intervals, making it the best source for information on just about anything!

In a nutshell Indiatimes.com is an aggregator?

Yes, the portal is an online publisher that seamlessly aggregates the content that appears across the wide cross-section of the Times of India network. A content repository, facilitating two-three revenue streams, the portal also delivers customised options, through its pay-to-read, adsales-driven and branding-centric alternatives. In a nutshell, Indiatimes, in addition to being the content aggregator of the Times of India group manages the group's telecom domain that drives the short code 58888, and also provides niche enterprise solutions to small and medium businesses.

As the Adsales Head for the south what does your job entail?

A conglomerate of well-known brands such as The Times of India, Economic Times and other regional forks, the Indiatimes arm covers diverse set of audiences and needs, across all age-groups. From offering user specific content, managing the telecom domain, helping small-medium enterprises control costs through cost-effective enterprise solutions, providing shopping and best deals information through its shopping portal to promoting businesses on Social Media, the business manages a lot of revenue and information streams. The Adsales team per se helps businesses and consumers to advertise their products and services across the various Indiatimes properties. Being an acknowledged content leader, the portal does attract a lot of traffic, which gives businesses and advertisers, who have tied-up with us, quite a large set of options and exposure. The Adsales team primarily helps advertisers get the best possible online coverage and as the Head for the South I drive the whole initiative from the top, co-coordinating with multiple segments and properties.

Any new initiatives that you're working on?

Quite a few actually. The most noteworthy of the lot will be the content syndication plans that we've been working on for sometime now. Indiatimes is a publisher first and having been in the industry for decades now, we have quite an unsurpassed market position. However being at the top we also understand the complexities that a small publisher will have to face to even gain a foothold today. That's why we as a group tie-up with small publishers and give them a platform that can help them gain some traction in the market. There is definitely a large untouched pool of publishing companies across the country. We've tied-up with a few regional language publishers and plan to increase the numbers soon. This will not only help advertisers make forays into regional segments but also help tap into region-centric content and make it accessible to the masses, which was not the case before. Moreover it is a fact that when a large publisher from the Times of India group comes into the picture and partners small publishers they are bound to gain more than just a foothold in the market - they get more visibility and certainly greater and more wide-spread exposure. So while this syndication happens we at the Adsales team work closely with advertisers and publishers to help them intuitively target their niche audience and get the best exposure in their chosen properties.

What do you think makes Indiatimes a leader in the market?

Well, there are very limited content players in the market who have significant presence in all mediums, i.e. electronic, print and the Internet. Our USP has always remained -content for everyone. From women to news to shopping to content relating to just about anything can be found in our portal and it is this capacity to deliver niche content to diverse segments of audiences that has made us a leading player. Leveraging content across various mediums is what we do and that is what has ensured that our readers have access to timely news from across the country. And moreover we make sure that the news is published at the right time and that is what has made all the difference.

So according to you as an employer what do you think makes Indiatimes a leader?

The brand has so much to offer. No one's efforts or work ever goes unnoticed here. But I would say that more than the other compensations, the personal gratification that one can get here is quite unmatchable. There is constant learning that happens across all levels. Knowledge sharing is not restricted to within teams, the group being large offers myriad opportunities for people to inter-mingle and collaborate that makes learning a routine. For instance even though I'm fundamentally part of the online Adsales team I've been given the freedom and scope to bounce ideas off people who are not even part of my team, like the Zoom TV and Times Now crew with whom I get a chance to interact almost everyday. This varied and insightful exchange is open to all, which makes learning the basic premise around which this business is built.

Does all this abundance mean that the group has successfully eradicated attrition or does your organisation face it too?

Attrition is always a concern for any organisation, but it is under control here. The rate was quite high two years back but things have settled now. However it definitely is a huge issue in this industry. There are only a handful of professionals and with more and more Internet companies springing-up by the day, retaining great talent can become a Herculean task, what with companies always vying for the best of the talent pool. However Indiatimes can confidently state that the business has fairly managed to retain the best of the crop.

So the group does encourage learning, but how does it recognise its employees' efforts and achievements?

No one's efforts go unnoticed here. Every quarter employees who have made a difference to the systems are given their due recognition. One such practice is the Category Heads that we choose. When someone instigates a remarkable change or difference or devices a distinctive strategy that benefits a client, we make sure that that employee becomes a category head and is given the opportunity to travel to other centers in the country and share insights, which gives them pan-India recognition. The thirst to be recognised is the greatest instigator, add to it the chance to become a Category's champion and anyone is bound to try and excel. Other than this we also have the MD recognition programs that give an achiever the opportunity to receive notes of praise from the Managing Director.

Tell us something about the way you started off and what made you pick a career in the Internet sector?

It was chance that made me choose an Internet-driven career. I've always been a people's person and I enjoy ideating, which is the main reason that made me join Zee TV way back in 1998. I was taking care of their Alpha language channels, which had Bangla, Gujarati and multiple others in it bouquet of regional offerings. From there, it was a risk but I moved to Webdunia.com. It was a language tech company based in Indore. I used to head their Adsales division nationally from Bangalore. They were the pioneers in the language tech domain, though when I joined them in the year 2000 the Internet was in its nascent stage. Though learning had begun, the evangelism process was quite challenging, as people were not too open to taking to the web. It was a tough journey, but I stayed on till 2008 when the portal branched-out to include several Indian languages and became a leader in the space. It is now two years since I joined Indiatimes, and it's been very good so far and I'm looking forward to more strategic partnerships and making further inroads through our content syndication model.

From Zee TV to Webdunia to now Indiatimes. What do you think got you where you are today?

Deep family values. I live a well-balanced life and I think that is an important driving force behind whatever you achieve. Maintaining the right work-life balance is an essentiality a lot of us overlook. But I believe that if you manage to tread that thin line with care it shouldn't be very difficult to chase your dreams and get what you truly deserve...