Communication is very stage dependent in a company’s life: Experts

After the pandemic struck last year, communication has taken a different approach in this dynamic and challenging environment for all the industries, including start-ups. Achieving sustainable growth is possible only when start-ups set strategies in place from the very beginning, believe experts.

Adgully’s inaugural IMAGEXX 2021 Summit saw an expert panel get together to discuss ‘The Changing Fabric of Communication for Start-ups - Brand Storytelling in a Dynamic Environment’. The panellists included:

Shipra Singh, Technology Practice Lead, India, Ruder Finn – Moderator

Nischal Shetty, Founder and CEO, WazirX

Sairee Chahal, Founder, SHEROES

Yogesh Agarwal, Founder, Onsurity

Ajay Adiseshann, Founder & CEO, Paymate

Lizzie Chapman, CEO & Co-Founder, ZestMoney

Commencing the discussions, Shipra Singh said, “When we look back to 2020, being a disruptive year, it changed the way we communicate with our employees, clients, customers and peers. The lockdown forced us to rethink about the marketing strategy, storytelling and a lot more. It was a time when all the brands had to be sensitive with their clients, considering the needs of stakeholders and to be purposeful with the communication that we do.”

How important is the ‘Function of Communication’ in the business?

Nischal Shetty: “The importance of communication differs from industry to industry. For a customer centric industry, communication plays an important role, right from interacting with the customers to interacting with the team members internally. After the pandemic took place last year, everything shifted towards digitalization and communication was the only key aspect left for all the businesses.”

“As a journey of an entrepreneur, I never believed communication to be a prime aspect of a start-up. The initial thought was to build a product, sell it and get success. After entering into the business, one gets to know the importance of communication, because it is necessary to know the story behind the product you are selling. Communication is all about being real and gaining the trust of people and it can be tracked by experiencing the engagement we see from our customers.”

Sairee Chahal: “The whole idea of communication is trust. One can only build an idea into the community if there is trust and it is a two-way street, not a platform behind the wall. As a founder, my core job is to show up every day and to establish a lot of model behaviour. Keeping the lines of communication transparent is important, especially during the current times. If the product is user friendly, one-on-one interaction with the users is the first priority of any organisation.”

Yogesh Agarwal: It is very important to be transparent with our clients about the products that we sell and what effect it can have on their health. At the time of selling or utilising the benefit of the product, communication plays a key role.  Being a young brand which was launched last year, the focus is more on communicating information effectively in order to ensure that our products will be with the consumers during the unpleasant times.”

“Since the pandemic struck last year, internal communication, too, has become a necessary aspect for all the companies. Before communicating with the users, it is necessary for the internal team to understand the essence of the product and the purpose behind building it.”

Lizzie Chapman: Communication is very stage dependent in a company’s life. Since the last two years as we have been in a hyper-funding environment, it is very important to know the core messages, requirements of your customers and co-values. The early stage companies are now going live with strong PR, strong communications strategies about how big they are going to be in the future without necessarily having their own voice yet in that space, which can cause confusions and challenges down the road.”

“Fintech products take a bit of time to reach product market maturity and thus, it is very important to ramp up the communication strategy at the right time in the journey. Communication is a tool to educate and connect with our customers, but it is important to learn what our customers need to hear from us.”

Ajay Adiseshann: “Dealing with the large enterprises, the standards and demands they set for our services is pretty high as they deal with renowned companies like Microsoft. Communication has always been an area of focus to cope up with such expectations by higher enterprises. Running communication webinars for the employees, doing the right PR for the company to amplify and to keep the communication channels open on addressing the issues dealing with the customers becomes very crucial and imperative.”

The above are edited excerpts from the panel discussion. Watch the complete session below: