Creating a niche with communication consultancy: Saurabh Parmar’s journey with Brandlogist

Saurabh Parmar graduated from Vellore Institute of Technology with a BTech in IT in 2006 and started his career with IBM. Feeling an urge to do something different, Saurabh switched his focus from engineering to digital media and landed a job at Gurgaon based, Quasar Media and Drizzin Media. It was in 2010, when he joined Ogilvy and found his calling, that Saurabh began his entrepreneurial quest.

The entrepreneur

Saurabh first started an ad agency with a few ex-colleagues and though that didn’t work out, the failure didn’t dampen his spirit. In January 2012, he launched ‘Brandlogist’ to do the work he believed in and build a passionate team who shared similar ideas.

Today, Brandlogist is a team of 14 people, with varying experiences from brand communication to designing to video production, all bound by a common thread, a common philosophy. “We don’t believe in unnecessary processes, which ad agencies often get stuck with. And we also are ambivalent to the platform. What we need is a marketing challenge and we want to help brands create an identity. So we deliver a communication solution via ideas and insights, the medium is secondary”, says Saurabh, elaborating that ‘Brandlogist is not an ad agency’. Their biggest strength, he believes, is in being a single unit that helps brands right from brand identity creation to marketing and customized solutions based on consumer feedback.

The challenges

The business idea itself is their biggest challenge, says Saurabh. “The concept of communication consultancy for business is different from the ad agency model. We help brands choose the most effective medium within their budget, which ensures they get better value at less cost”, hinting that marketing is not actually about doing everything but doing one thing effectively. Like all new concepts, Saurabh says, clients are taking their time to come around to it.

Their other challenge is something all small companies in the service industry face - keeping a continuous bank of projects. “To tackle this, we need a bigger team so we can take on more work. We are now looking at hiring another 5-6 people”, he says. While Brandlogist is currently billing clients as much or more than some established agencies, they are now looking at pricing their new verticals more reasonably and even considering working with 2-3 small businesses at reduced costs. The projects are mostly leads generated by word of mouth, through social media references and repeat business from clients. The company crossed 1.2 cr in revenue in their first financial year. “We are growing well with every project and the business is generating enough revenue to facilitate the growth” says Saurabh, explaining why don't need funding for now.

The philosophy

Besides the business idea, Brandlogist prides itself on its policies which live up to the quintessential image of entrepreneurs and startups - free spirited, accountability to oneself and open door policies. “We don’t have an office, so people have the flexibility to pursue their interests without having to worry about ‘office hours’. Even our HR/company policies don’t believe in burdening employees with revenue target. We want to foster an environment of ‘deliver value for clients’ over 'let's just sell stuff and earn money'. From deciding salaries to new recruitments, we all get involved as a team”, says Saurabh.

They also have a ‘young leaders programme’, where they recruit freshers from colleges, train and groom them, and this ‘learning at the job’ plays an important part in fast tracking their careers.

Do the work you believe in, build a team and grow as a team, Saurabh’s mantra has all essential qualities of the true spirit of entrepreneurship. It will be interesting to Brandlogist's journey from here.

Company website: Brandlogist