With 25% YoY growth, future of Digital media share looks promising: Dhananjay Arora

Dhananjay Arora, a digital entrepreneur, launched KWebmaker back in 1998. Under his guidance and supervision, KWebmaker has today grown to a team of 100+ digital and web experts with global offices present in the US, Denmark, Botswana, and South Africa. With over 2 decades of experience in the digital space, Arora has seen the digital landscape evolve over the years.

During the lockdown, KWebmaker witnessed a significant growth with a jump of 25% in its business Q-on-Q and also expanded their business to Saudi Arabia. During this time they also won the mandates of NBA and RBI, along with the designing and development of 4-5 e-commerce websites.

In an interaction with Adgully, Dhananjay Arora looks back at the year 2020, his perspective on the growth of the digital sector and crystal gazes into the year 2021 for KWebmaker.

The year 2020 was an extremely challenging year for many. Tell us about the challenges that you faced as a digital agency and how did you overcome them?

The year has indeed been challenging, but we have also been fortunate enough that we were able to change this challenge into an opportunity.

In terms of the challenges we faced, they were far more in the earlier part of the global lockdown where, firstly, rotation of funds had come to a halt. All businesses have a rotation of funds, which helps the wheels turn, but with the sudden rise in the pandemic at a global scale all companies and clients that owed us funds had halted, paused, or delayed all payments since all clients wanted to themselves remain cash-rich as the markets were unpredictable.

This posed a huge challenge for us in the overall functioning of our organisation. We, too, had to hold any expenditure that could be avoided. Our head office is owned, but we had other 2 offices on rent, both of which we had to pause since we could not afford an outgoing of office rent whilst it was not in use, besides our funds were not flowing in at a regular rate.

Secondly, employee salaries were a concern as month-on-month we need to have the right rotation of funds for the substantial outgoing for our salaries (which is one of the highest costs for us as a company). We were fortunate enough to have enough reserves, where we did not delay or deduct any salary for any employee, and we were also fortunate to retain all employees as we did not lay off any employee. I believe this situation was a time to prove to our employees, too, that we stand with them and for them, and though the company was facing a financial crunch, we were always able to meet our commitments.

Thirdly, though Work From Home is the new normal now, initially it was more of a challenge to make sure that the coordination and project management are in order. Luckily, our Project Management teams were really pro-active and we soon developed a system where remote project management could be streamlined and we could keep a clear vigil on our teams and projects.

Fourthly, another critical challenge that we initially faced was new projects going on hold or new orders not coming in as the initial few months were a bit of a panic for all industries and clients. Apart from these, there were other small challenges, but as I mentioned, with time, we were able to overcome all. It was most important to stay positive and optimistic in this situation as first any challenge needs to be addressed mentally and once you are mentally balanced it is easier to get the ball back in motion.

While digital growth has further accelerated during the lockdown, what does this really mean for the digital ecosystem? How are brands looking at digital today?

The digital ecosystem has various parts to it, and from an individual services perspective can be divided into – Websites, E-commerce, Web-based applications, IT integrations (for CRM, ERP, etc.), Cloud-based applications and services, Mobile applications, Marketing automations, included but not limited to SEO, social media, media buying, IoT, Augmented and Virtual reality, Virtual and Cyber events, training, and conferences.

Fortunately, KWebmaker as a company provides a complete IT/ Digital ecosystem solution in all the above-mentioned service areas to clients across industries. What the lockdown did was change the mindsets of the drivers of the industries and the companies (right from the top management down to the foot soldiers) that Digital is the need of the hour and the only way of doing business in the future.

They have all truly realised that going DIGITAL is the way to not just survive, but even to grow. So, fundamentally the DNA for all businesses has changed to the extent of wanting to use Digital to run and promote their businesses.

IT/ Digital helps them run their business, (take any industry – travel, retail, B2B trading or manufacturing companies, hotels and hospitality, gems & jewellery, etc.) every single industry and company is using IT as an integral part of its day-to-day processes to run their operations. Of course, Digital has become paramount as a marketing tool as it allows companies and brands to reach out to their precise target audience (both geographically and demographically) in the most cost-effective and ROI-driven manner.

Also, with the penetration of Reliance Jio, usage of Internet and social media has increased significantly across India (especially, in Tier 2 and 3 towns), which allows companies of all sizes and nature to use Digital as a marketing tool. So, essentially brands are looking at Digital as the most cost-effective and focused marketing tool and their spendings on digital are continuously increasing as they see more tangible results.

Tell us about the media share that digital takes up today. How have brands changed their perspective on digital? Do you see specific sectors suddenly pick up on their digital spends?

Digital advertising was at approx Rs 14,000 crore in 2019 and is expected to reach approx Rs 28,000 crore in 2022 (which is about a 100% increase). So, with an average of 25% or more year-on-year growth, the future of Digital media share is looking promising. As mentioned earlier, more and more brand managers want to use Digital as it gives them the most bang for their buck with the most transparent ROI possible.

With the pandemic, the overall consumption of content on social media has increased manifold with more and more people spending more and more time online. To give you an example – Instagram Live usage increased 60% within the first week of lockdown and approx. 90% of Instagram users are following a brand. Media consumption is increasing globally. The increase in the devices capable of supporting digital media along with increasing Internet access and speed has provided users with access to media content be it information, entertainment, or social activity at all times. With 5G coming, the consumption of content will grow at an even faster rate, with users of televisions now moving to consume content online both for information and entertainment.

According to GroupM, Indian media spends have grown by approximately 11% in 2020, of which 65% are towards digital. So, overall the digital media share is and will continue to grow rapidly and of course, all brand managers and marketers will be where their users are, that is, Online.

How was 2020 for you in terms of client acquisitions and digital activities carried out? How has your business grown during this time and what has most contributed to this growth?

Post the initial few months of the pandemic things have really started to look up again for us and everyone in the IT/ Digital sector. More and more clients have realised the importance of using IT and Digital for their business processes and marketing and hence this has helped us in a big way to acquire more clients. We have been fortunate to see a growth of nearly 25% quarter on quarter for the last 6 months and hope to see this growth continue to rise in 2021.

Since we are not just another digital agency, but a holistic Digital Transformation Company, providing services across IT and Digital, it helps us to really partner with our clients, understand their business processes, and Digitise them which helps them run their business better and more effectively, especially in this new normal.

There is no one service area that has contributed to this growth, but across our services we have seen substantial growth. Of course, there are certain sectors which have used Digital even more than the others in this period, like Retail, Education, Exhibitions, and conferences; these sectors have really turned to Digital to continue and grow their businesses within the new normal and have also played an important part in our growth.

What’s your outlook for 2021? Highlight some key trends that you think will define the next year and what are your expectations from it?

We are positive and optimistic about 2021 for everyone – consumers and marketers. With the increase of device penetration, Internet speed, more and more content being created, more and more users being online – it is a great time to be on Digital. Some of the key pointers or tends for 2021 include:

• 5G and IoT - 5G is designed primarily to support mobility services and will help in the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) to a large scale
• Personalisation of content, ads, sales journeys for each user
• Data Science will really grow in 2021. With more and more clean data companies will be able to analyse and predict user behaviour and buying/consumption patterns
• AI and machine learning are increasing at a rapid rate which will allow companies to have real-time interaction, engagements, and even grievance redressal
• Privacy and Security laws will become stricter and social media platforms (including brands that advertise on them) will need to adapt to the change in privacy policies globally. Cybersecurity will get more upgraded as a whole with the increase of online users.
• Digital Workplace - cloud computing and working from home are the new normal. Digital workplace trends will evolve and get more sophisticated.
• Sectors like Education and Exhibitions will truly focus on online, digital, and social media platforms for an increase in market and revenues

We, at KWebmaker, as always wish to partner with each of our clients and help each of our clients in undergoing a complete Digital Transformation of their business and are equipped to hand-hold them and collaborate with them to create a new Digital Ecommerce System Blueprint for them.