Publicis Drugstore will drive cause of step change innovation: Anil K Nair

Publicis Groupe has launched Drugstore in India with an aim to bringing together some of the sharpest minds from within the tech start-up ecosystem in the country and its brand builders to ‘hack’ solutions on the various brands across the Groupe.

This innovation thinking will be mentored by the best of minds across Publicis Groupe companies such as L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis India, Leo-Burnett, MSLGroup and Razorfish.

The Drugstore India team will be led by Anil K Nair (CEO, Digital L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi), along with a core team comprising Sreeraman Thiagarajan (Publicis), Parth Nagar and Aarti Samant (L&K Saatchi & Saatchi), Sanju Menon (Leo-Burnett), Suryasen Kundu (MSL Group),  and Swapnil Puranik (Razorfish), and under the overall  mentorship of Praveen Kenneth, Chairman & Managing Director, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi.

Drugstore India will collaborate with leading players in the Indian start-up ecosystem like Zone Startups, amongst others, to bring some of the proven and agile innovation programs such as Minibar, Meet the Makers, Demo Days, Supper Club, Rapid Prototyping & Incubator Accelerator to capitalise on inventions and have radical outcomes in the process, products and services.

In an interaction with AdGully, Anil K Nair speaks at length about the Drugstore India initiative, its business plans, strategic tie-ups, and more. Excerpts:

Please tell us about Drugstore’s operations in India. What would be its main objectives?
Our main and primary objective is to create a bridge between large established corporates and the start-up ecosystem. To facilitate a symbiotic exchange of value between these worlds.

Will it operate as an independent profit centre within Publicis Groupe in India?
Though at a macro level, profitability and revenue for the Drugstore solution will definitely be our goal, our current focus is to add value to both the clients and the new world drivers. The delivery of solutions will be the center piece through various agency brands we have in the system.

As Head of the Drugstore India team, what is your vision for entity? What would be your key focus areas?
My vision is to explore more symbiotic partnerships and engagements between leading corporate clients that we have on our roster and the ever evolving ecosystem of start-ups. We will manage, moderate and curate these interactions for unlocking of value for both parties. We have a suite of curated and controlled programs like Meet the Makers, Minibar and other incubator-accelerator programs that we will deploy depending on the client requirement.  Our key focus area will be to help large organisations identify their innovation sweet spot and to then help them scout start-up ecosystem partners to deliver tangible, time bound and sustainable solutions that can impact their business. And in return, start-ups get access to organisations with scale, to test their prototype in live market conditions and in many cases to get invested in.

What would be Drugstore India’s revenue strategy?
We ourselves are a start-up and at this point we are focussing on setting up, creating awareness, debriefing our client partners and getting our mentoring team together amongst other things. This is a new concept and we will need to educate our partners as we go along and evolve revenue streams.

What business you are eyeing in the first year of operations?
We intend to pitch this solution to all our key clients across the Groupe. It is too early to predict a number.

Who all do you plan to tie up with in the tech start-up ecosystem in India?
We have already tied up with Zone start-ups, which is a leading Indo-Canadian incubator-accelerator.

The start-up ecosystem anyways works on a collaboration model and we are open to any and all players who wish to join us in our journey.

How will Drugstore India aid in the digital transformation of brands?
By espousing and driving the cause of “step change innovation”, Intrapreneurship and a start-up mindset within large companies who anyways have scale, experience and leadership.

What would be the key points in helping clients thrive at scale?
Our clients are anyways experts at thriving at scale. What they need is agility and step change innovation. And this can be achieved through an internalisation process and a mindset shift. And taking small but credible steps towards innovation thinking throughout the organisation.

What role would the Publicis Groupe companies play in the Drugstore India initiative?
All Publicis Groupe companies are equal stakeholders in this initiative. We have a fantastic start-up team of people with tech ecosystem experience like Sreeraman of Publicis Beehive and Suryasen Kundu of MSL. And transformation thinkers like Sanju Menon of Leo Burnett, Swapnil Puranik of Razorfish and Parth Nagar of L&K Saatchi & Saatchi to bring this vision alive. We will target all our clients, across the board to offer them this solution. We will also use a lot of in-house expertise to mentor and manage these programs. And as far as start-ups go, we will value add to their growth using the various in house resources ranging from Design to PR and technology. This will be done in a structured and sustained manner.

Globally how has Drugstore been performing?
Drugstore has had many interesting case studies in different parts of the world. Our proposition is about unlocking larger value and adding back to the ecosystem, and it can’t go wrong.