Offbeat: Transforming businesses – Nidhi Agarwal & her corporate hustle

Nidhi Agarwal’s shift from an accountant to a business leader who scaled up TimesPoints, which is now one of India’s most comprehensive rewards programmes, was a result of persistent self-discovery and an indomitable spirit to fully realise the potential of fledgling businesses. 

Despite her training in the corporate ecosystem, Agarwal realised that her true calling lay elsewhere. It was at the up and starting Bharti Airtel (with a limited reach of only 5 telecommunication circles) in 2004, whilst helping develop India’s first mobile commerce product, that she realised she had a thing for the unbridled challenges of building businesses ground up. 

Notwithstanding an MBA degree from the Kellogg School of Management, and corporate stints spanning some of the biggest brand names in the industry, Agarwal decided to challenge conventional ideas of a good career and risked it all when she decided to launch KAARYAH - an online technology start-up in fashion, eventually backed by Ratan Tata, before joining Times Internet. 

“Times Internet hires entrepreneurs. It hires people who are ready to build businesses. So, from that point of view, coming to Times Internet was about coming into a larger network of entrepreneurs for me and not just being in corporate again,” Agarwal explained. 

Here, Agarwal was soon put in charge of TimesPoints, a loyalty programme that offered users redeemable points for reading articles, watching videos or engaging with Times Internet’s properties online. It has now evolved from being a ‘loyalty-only’ concept to rewarding users with exclusive offers wherever they like to shop. “TimesPoints has come a long way since July last year. We refuse to constrain ourselves and call ourselves just ‘loyalty’. We call ourselves a rewards programme, which is as good as money in our wallet,” she said. 

The value of each redemption point has now been increased with the velocity of redemption, currently 22x versus the same time last year. This has seen the number of redeeming customers rise to 24x of what it was before. The number of points people earn has also risen by 6x in comparison to the same time last year, while all of this has been achieved with the same team she started out with. 

Understanding the fluidity and high variability of online business functions, Agarwal also expanded the company’s portfolio of strategic partnerships. There are as many as 200+ partners on the platform, ongoing talks with multiple other companies to become their brand or exchange partners. For example, TimesPoints can now be directly redeemed as actual Amazon Pay balance in the users’ Amazon Pay accounts or Paytm Cash into their Paytm wallets. 

“There should be so much value in TimesPoints that a user finds it as valuable as money in the wallet. It should be a pull use case, not something we spend tons of money pushing to the users. When your consumer is propagating you and you don’t have to propagate yourself, it is true proof of product-market fit,” she added. 

“At Times Internet, I get the wingspan to define and execute to achieve a business vision that may alter the legacy in this landscape altogether. Also, being a woman entrepreneur was very challenging, which is why I appreciate the Times Internet’s ecosystem even more. It is not protective, but it is truly enabling,” Agarwal said. 

Her career also chronicles the democratisation of the workplace. More and more women are taking control of their own lives. Compared to when she started her career, there is a greater percentage of women entrusted with senior positions across companies. 

“Women today know what they want and are unapologetic about it. They don’t feel mitigated in any way and that, in my opinion, is the best weapon they yield,” she noted. Agarwal herself being a needle-mover in that direction, women aspirants of today can still take a lesson or two from her in setting and exceeding goals.