Dipankar Das Purkayastha, MD & CEO of ABP: Big dreamer, Bigger doer

Dipankar Das Purkayastha, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, ABP Pvt Ltd., is a man of few words. In an exclusive interview with Adgully, Purkayastha, who oversees the strategy and operations of the entire ABP portfolio, believes that dreaming big along with hard work helps a person to redefine success. Excerpts:

Adgully: How has the print media space evolved since a decade?

Dipankar Das Purkayastha: The last decade has been very exciting in terms of the complete evolution of print media. The market is growing and there are opportunities everywhere.

Ag: What are some of the challenges, threats, key learnings and the opportunities that you see?

DDP: A decade ago there was hardly any competition. The market has now become highly competitive. It is a challenge to maintain our leadership position. Youth readership is another challenge for us, especially in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. The youngsters are reading less. Moreover, they are reading less of the regional newspapers. So it is a challenge for us to try and tap the young market. We tried through various initiatives to engage the youngsters better, but still there is a long way to go. The audience belonging to the age group of 15-25 is a big challenge for every publication. We have to engage them better, offer more to attract them towards our publications. As far as threats are concerned Television is definitely a threat.

Biggest learning is how to motivate the whole team, how to get them polarized to a single goal and keep them moving and ticking. The young generation wants more challenge. They are restless. To keep them engaged and to give them a goal which they pursue with conviction is very important.

Ag: How is the eastern market different than the other markets? You have been a strong leader in the eastern markets, have you thought of entering the other markets?

DDP: We have no immediate plans of entering the non-east markets. It is very expensive for print. The same amount of money can be spent on other priorities to deliver higher ROI. We want to remain as the strongest player in the East. We recently launched Telegraph in Bhubaneswar and Patna. We want to have powerful presence across all the states in the East and segment the market through multiple editions. We will be segmenting it so that we can provide better value for money to our advertisers. We believe we have a lot of opportunities here in the Eastern market.

Ag: What has kept you ahead of the competition in the Television space?

DDP: We never compromise on quality

Ag: Can you share with us some of the future market trends that you foresee?

DDP: The market is booming. There is huge opportunity as the readership and circulation keeps growing. I see growth coming in from every sector as India is a fast growing economy.

Ag: Can you tell us about the success stories of the magazines that are published by your group?

DDP: All our Bengali magazines are highly successful. They are profitable and successfully catering to their niche segments. They are leaders across their space and there is hardly any competition. Businessworld has retained its position successfully in a shrinking business magazine market. I feel, as the economy booms the business magazines should see great opportunities.

Ag: What were the learnings for the Group in the recession year?

DDP: Firstly we started looking at cost very closely. We are a much leaner organization now. As the economy is back on track we are in a much better position to reap the benefit with a lower cost base.

Ag: How are you trying to combat the digital revolution?

DDP: I believe digital will atleast take 15 to 20 years to become a real threat to the print media. But at the same time I also believe that we should have a play in all the media. We are building our digital properties keeping this strategy in mind. Considering our unique positioning in the Bengali space we believe we can establish a strong niche.

Ag: Can you share with us some the social-responsibility initiatives that you have carried on?

DDP: We do a lot of things for the society at large. We recently carried out a programme for the under-privileged students in association with Aviva Life Insurance. The initiative was to collect books for them and we collected 4,00,000 books through donation and distributed through NGOs. We tied up with Tata to build entrepreneurship in Bengal and carried series of articles on how to develop entrepreneurial skills.

Ag: Any initiative the Group has undertaken to increase the readership and circulation of the newspaper?

DDP: We do a lot of initiatives depending on the TG. We are trying to reach out to the housing societies of Kolkata so as to build our leadership amongst that community. Similarly we are carrying out a lot of activities targeted at the youth.

Ag: In the digital space, how are you equipping your team to basically stand against the possible threat by digital media?

DDP: We are in the process of integrating print and digital content. We have formed a separate 360 degree team to sell integrated solutions to the advertisers including print, TV and digital.

Ag: In your journey so far with the medium, share some of your memorable moments?

DDP: The day we signed the JV with Star Network, we made a strong entry into National Television. Fortune India launch is a recent memorable moment.

Ag: Any message to young media enthusiasts...

DDP: Dream high, take stretched targets and have conviction in achieving those. As days are tough, there are threats and there are also opportunities. Remember, winner takes all. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]