AgTalk | Learning from every client and moving up the ladder, Text100's Sunayna

Sunayna Malik has been with Text 100 India for over 9 years now. In her capacity as the Managing Director, she holds the responsibility for the overall leadership, strategy and direction of the Text 100 network in India. As a lead consultant, she is directly involved with some of Text 100’s key accounts  across India including Lenovo, Uninor, BlackBerry, Maruti Suzuki Ltd., Lupin,  The Max Group,  Yahoo! and SanDisk among others.

With an extensive Corporate Communications experience Malik has worked with leading IT companies in India. Prior to joining Text 100, she was the Corporate Communications  lead at HCL Technologies where she worked for almost 8 years and was involved with the company’s IPO, brand repositioning exercise and investor relations program, along with broader marketing and corporate communication initiatives. She has also worked at Fujitsu and Xerox as the Regional Marketing lead. A communications professional for over 15 years now, she holds pride about her understanding of communications disciplines including Advertising, Film making, PR, Direct Marketing, Brand positioning and BTL marketing.

Adgully caught up with Sunayna Malik, Managing Director, Text 100 India to get an overview of the industry that she is and how she plans to take Text 100 ahead.

Adgully (AG): Firstly tell us about some of key achievements of Text 100 in the last few years?
Sunayna Malik (SM): Text100 has grown significantly in the last few years. While we’ve always been strong in the technology sector, in recent times, we’ve diversified into other domains as well. We’re now well entrenched in the healthcare, media, travel & aviation, energy and auto sectors, among others. Some of our recent client wins include Maruti Suzuki Ltd., South African Airways, FCm, Fortum and KRDS. We’ve also done some great work in the start-up space with clients like Hike, Vserv.mobi, Ditto TV etc. That said, it is also important to remember that we work with some of the largest brands in the technology industry including Lenovo, IBM, Yahoo!, SanDisk, WD, Xerox and the like and these have been long standing relationships of 5+ years. Most importantly, as a company, we’ve moved the needle from traditional PR to a more integrated approach which includes consulting with clients across paid, owned, earned and social media disciplines.

AG: General industry perception states that with growing technology and media's dependence on it, the PR industry has gone absolutely complex. What is your take on that?
SM: The word I would use is ‘richer’, not complex. Given the advent of social media and the mobile-first revolution, the channels by which marketeers are reaching their target customers has broadened significantly. This has not only impacted the way we target communications but also how we measure the efficacy of a program. Media houses- old and new- have been focusing on the online medium to complement their print readership. Entire web bureaus have been formed at leading financial papers and many have invested in creating mobile apps as well. So when you’re thinking about targeting, you have to consider not just the readership of the paper but what its extended reach is. While Vocus and Cision were primary tools to measure PR coverage and messaging, today we’re dealing with Radian 6 for social media measurement. Integrated tools to measure overall sentiment are being offered by companies focusing on big data and analytics and suddenly PR agencies are customers to India’s leading IT companies. My take on all of this is simple – it’s progressive and forcing PR firms to think differently, be open to adopting technology and more importantly remaining relevant in this changing landscape.

AG: Tell us about the portfolio of clients at the organisation and how do you work on retaining and building your long terms relationships with them?
SM: As mentioned above, we’ve worked with some of the biggest brands in the technology sector as well as other verticals. In terms of client retention and building lasting relationships, we focus on a few key guiding principles that help us sustain strong relationships. Some of these are: (a) Domain knowledge: Our legacy is in technology PR which necessitates depth of knowledge and understanding. We believe in getting under the skin of an ‘account’ to develop a thorough understanding of the space and our senior consultants have proven experience across both B2C and B2B industries. So knowledge immersion allows us to walk the talk in all our chosen sectors and this inspires confidence amongst both clients and prospects. (b) Building trustworthy partnerships: We’re also very focused on forging the right chemistry with our clients and work towards building a partnership with them, than be seen as a third party service provider. We place a lot of importance on this element as it’s critical for effective collaboration, good work and a healthy, open and trusting relationship. (c) Motivated and empowered teams: Text100 has always been known to have one of the most vibrant work cultures in the industry. While fun and passion at work is a given, we also form enduring friendships at the workplace that foster a great sense of ownership and teamwork; something that shows though in the work we do. We offer our people several flexible work options, that have gone a long way towards cementing this culture and ensured that our people stay and grow with us.
We’ve been in India for 17 years now and our longest standing employees have been with us for upwards of 12 years. Most of the current senior leaders have clocked more than 5 years at Text100. They reinforce the Text100 values and way of working every day and are focused on building expertise across select verticals and horizontals that we want to focus on. This empowering culture encourages self-expression and experimentation and has enabled every team member to find his/ her own space within the organization.

AG: Out of the key clients that you acquired in the couple of years; who, according to you has performed well and given the best results? Also please share about the old accounts in your kitty.
SM: There are far too many to call out singularly. That said, the teams that manage mandates such as Lenovo, Xerox, IBM, SanDisk, Yahoo!, McAfee, Vserv.mobi (and many more) have done some outstanding work that has been acknowledged and awarded across the APAC region. Recent clients that we have acquired and done compelling work for include Uninor, Max Healthcare, Max Bupa, TripAdvisor, BlackBerry, Persistent Systems, NetApp, Sapient, Tata Power Solar and a host of others.

AG: What is Text100’s edge over competition? What sets Text100 apart from other PR agencies?
SM: As mentioned above, those are our USPs as well and among these, I cannot emphasize enough, the importance of domain knowledge and a strong, motivated team as critical differentiators. Being a global communications company we also benefit from best practice sharing and learnings from other markets and clients across the world. Some of our clients are global/ regional mandates where we work with global teams and gain broader insights and perspectives. We also work extensively with our digital and social media teams across geographies and this equips us to offer strong integrated campaigns to our clients in India as well.

AG: Through the years, which have been your best works? Also, was there any client you regret working with or consider to have underperformed in the business?
SM: There are far too many to single out but it would be safe to say that most of our long standing clients have seen significant value in working with us and therefore remain with us. As for regrets – I don’t believe that there is any room for regrets. You learn something from every client and while some relationships may not turn out the way you envisage them, we have always walked away richer for the experience.

AG: How according to you, has the PR industry evolved over the years? Share with us some of the key trends you foresee in the industry in the next 2-3 years.
SM: To begin with, clients are beginning to appreciate the value of PR, making it a must have in the marketing mix for not just the large and mid-sized companies but also smaller, leaner outfits. On the media front, not only are we dealing with a huge increase in print media outlets but thanks to the internet, clients are increasingly asking to be seen in online forums and media which allow them to become searchable to clients anywhere in the world. We’re also seeing tremendous uptake for social media outreach creating a massive move towards integrated communications. SEO and SMO are also becoming a part of mainstream PR in this context. As a result, today we’re consulting with clients on a multitude of communications disciplines and forging partnerships to ensure we are able to provide the full suite of services. That said, I believe that a lot of this is still in early stages of development and the next two years will see it hit maturity. Also measuring the ROI on integrated communications is assuming critical proportions and a multitude of measurement tools have become available that are allowing clients to measure diverse aspects of a PR campaign. This trend is only set to increase and will force us to rethink the constructs of a PR campaign. In terms of the industry at large, I also see a significant amount of consolidation and entry of new global players that is ensuring healthy competition.

AG: What is the kind of shift you have seen in terms of client’s demand which has helped the agency to think out-of-the-box leading to its growth?
SM: Client demands are always in line with their customers’ demands and in today’s world, a large part of this is being sought online – especially in the technology industry. While the online medium has often been considered easier to work with given the lack of space constraints, today, we’re also dealing with some very sophisticated outlets where content truly is king. In many ways, this has helped separate the wheat from the chaff in the PR industry ensuring that we’re not just “spin-doctors” but domain experts and content creators.

AG: What are the changes that you have brought in within the system and is there any wish list of things which you intent to implement/execute going forward?
SM: Over the last couple of years we have focussed on building a strong leadership team and on the back of this team, Text100 has achieved great things in recent years and going forward, we will continue to do so. Exploring new verticals and strengthening our integrated proposition have been our top priorities and we have made good progress on both counts. We’ve won several global, regional and local awards for our work and this is a huge focus area for us in India, as it allows our work to speak on our behalf.

AG: Lastly, in terms of business what are your expectations in year 2014-2015 for Text 100 PR?
SM: Simply put, we expect to strengthen our presence in sectors such as healthcare, auto, travel & aviation and energy, while we continue our bull run in technology. Our content arm, Text Ed has been witnessing good traction and we expect to grow our breadth of offerings in this area too. We are thus clearly focused on integrated communications and aim to demonstrate enough value so as to ensure we consult with clients in a holistic manner. [By Aanchal Kohli | Twitter: @aanchalkohli]