I like the feeling that the buck stopswith me.

At a press conference in Mumbai on July 25, Praveen Tripathi, the outgoing head of Starcom India, introduced the new managing director - Andrey Purushottam. An MBA (marketing) from the IIM, Ahmedabad, Purushottam's career spans 15 years in marketing, media and management positions both within and outside of India, in Lintas, Hindustan Lever and, most recently, Asiacontent.com (as managing director). He was previously head of Lintas' Initiative Media and also served as a member of the Executive Board of Lintas India. agencyfaqs! caught up with Purushottam to understand how he plans to take Starcom India from where Tripathi leaves it (from August 15 officially). In this freewheeling interview, Purushottam told Iqbal Singh that Starcom plans to take the acquisition route to growth and outlined how he plans to fight the perception that Starcom's failing lies in (media) buying.

Edited Excerpts

I was headhunted by Korn/Ferry. My first acquaintance with them was in November 2000. I had basically declined to progress because I was far too new in Asiacontent (former employer). They pushed again in February or March of this year. By then I had spent a fair amount of time in Asiacontent. Secondly, I also realised that opportunities on the dotcom side were limited. So I was more receptive in discussing it. Starcom met most of the criterion that I wanted. It was a global company, the assignment was in the area in which I had experience, it had world-class associations, and both of us were clear that I wanted to do a top-job involving P&Ls, business strategy, and so on. I like the feeling that the buck stops with me.

Initiative Media was always a part of Lintas. Here I am more like the director of a business rather than a profit-centre head. Initiative was just like a department of Lintas. Although I did have responsibility for P&L, this job has given me a lot more variables - structure, people, cost etc. So while the Initiative assignment became more of a maintenance job at the top level, the Starcom assignment involves actually running a business.

The agenda is two-fold. One, business growth. Two, being the best. Talking of growth, Starcom India has already shown very good business growth in the last two years under Praveen (Praveen Tripathi, former MD). I want to accelerate that. Our growth rate should be twice that of the advertising industry. So if the ad industry grows at 10 per cent, which is what it looks like, we should be growing at 20 per cent. In the last two years, Starcom India has grown almost 100 per cent. Last year (2000-01), our revenue in terms of capitalised billings was Rs 380 crore.

But when we talk business growth, what's important is profitable business growth. We will achieve this through organic growth, and equally importantly, through acquisitions. Time is right for acquisitions in this sector. The economy is not doing well. Most small- and medium-sized outfits are doing badly. They won't have the resources to provide the services that other globally oriented agencies can. They are prime candidates for takeover.

Second, and the more important part of my agenda, is being the best. This is what I was also stressing on during the entire press conference (the press conference held in Mumbai on July 25, where Praveen Tripathi, the outgoing head of Starcom India, introduced Andrey Purushottam as new managing director), accountability. What has happened across the spectrum of Indian agencies is, their job is being seen as delivering immediate deliverables - GRPs (gross ratings points), OTS (opportunity to see), and all those numbers. But what are our customers looking at? Brand results, market share, volumes, salience, and awareness. We can't wash our hands of that. As the single custodian of the client's largest component of ad spend, we have to ask ourselves, how do we become accountable?

Therein lie Starcom's strengths. First thing, it is the way we are structured. While most media outfits structure themselves broadly on planning and buying, we have a 16-member dedicated strategy team. Before any money is spent or even advertising strategies drawn, they are asking, what is the right thing to do? Brand advertising, corporate advertising, the interplay between the two, and a whole host of other questions. So first is ensuring that we are doing the right thing, and then doing that thing right.

That is the second thing then: doing it right, or effectiveness. Most agencies are pulling employees on efficiency, not effectiveness. We want to be responsible for relationships between GRPs and brand results. The third focus area is technology. Starcom has invested a lot in tools that crunch or increase our ability to evaluate a lot. Personally, I would be overseeing investment of about Rs 1 crore in just operational systems.

Fourth, all of us claim to be specialists in understanding consumers, but we hardly invest in it. Last year, we helped the BBC understand the urban elite in India. All this ties in very well with achieving better brand results.

Yes, accountability is the trend. But the accountability that exists today centres at savings. If a client wanted to buy 800 GRPs at a particular price and the agency could manage only 750, then he wants to know why. It is not going beyond that. We must move to what clients need.

We would be very happy to look at performance-based incentives. But not discounting. There has to be a base fee which covers operating costs and reasonable profits. On top of that has to come performance-based fee. Goals can be set in terms of awareness, salience, part of consideration set, image, even market share and sales. We are certainly open to that. We are willing to go the length to help the client achieve sales as long as clients are willing to give us extraordinary profits.

As far as the employees are concerned, Ambience employees have moved lock, stock and barrel. They have integrated very smoothly. We are protecting all commitments of salaries, incentives and the like. Second, they are now entering a global media specialist. So they get an opportunity for considerable skill enhancement through both structured and unstructured training. Advertisers who were Leo Burnett clients gain more bargaining power. And this applies more to Ambience clients. They will also get a far superior media product.

For media houses, it is a neutral move. It does bring in a lot more simplicity in dealings. If we get more scale, we get more leverage over media houses. My personal belief in media is not of strangulation but educating the media buyers of achieving the results that they require.