Personality Clashes in MR

In my previous post I had described how certain individuals broke out from MBA and went on their own - leading to quite a bit of bitterness among erstwhile colleagues.

Interestingly, the other leading agency of those days - IMRB - too underwent a split around the same period with a large group of high-profile senior executives walking out to form MARG. However, IMRB recovered quickly from the shock and went from strength to strength - probably because it had a very decentralized management structure - or because the bitter feud between IMRB and MARG kept the adrenalin pumped up within IMRB and pushed it to greater heights.

Interestingly the various feuds which started between the parent organisations and the break-away set-ups are widely seen as one of the key reasons why the industry got caught up into what many outsiders to the industry describe as "an enduring petty mindedness" where the focus across agencies was - and still is - on one-upmanship rather than on the up-liftment of the MR industry. I am not sure whether this is the cause for the current dismal state of the industry - but I am sure there is a grain of truth somewhere that we allowed personality clashes to over-shadow the greater good of the industry.

The MBA Culture

Slowly I started understanding and appreciating the culture of the organisation I had joined. MBA (Marketing & Business Associates) was started by the quartet of CK Sharma, Mathew Paul, Shyam Sundar and Thomas Olapally. Thomas subsequently left the partnership and DD Karopady then joined the partnership.

CK and MP used to teach at IIMB, and set up the agency MBA Ltd. to provide what they thought was a sharper, more business orientated alternative to the industry heavyweight of those days - IMRB. And since they were teachers, they brought along with them a GENUINE academy culture - complete with impromptu class room sessions and R&D projects taken up just for the heck of it . For a brief period of time in the late seventies and early eighties, IMRB and MBA were the 2 large MR agencies in India vying for supremacy. Mode - the other independent agency which made a name for itself - was set up much later.

MBA Ltd. those days had an enviable work ethic - very entrepreneurial but at the same time highly intellectual/ academy oriented.  In today's world, these 2 values seem to be "conflicting" values - I remember we used to take on loss making projects just because it posed an intellectual challenge. For a time the founders of MBA could actually grow the agency with these seemingly contradictory values, and developed a terrific reputation among clients for honesty and intellectual rigor.  It attracted the best of talent, and even now there are lots of individuals scattered across clients and agencies who owe everything to what they imbibed from their days in MBA Ltd.

But alas those golden days for MBA Ltd. were not destined to last long.

Firstly, the dominance of the "academy" values over everything else among the founders meant weak bottom-lines.  And secondly, like any organisation structured in a proprietorial manner, the fortunes of MBA were dependent on a few individual employees who handled some of the key client accounts. When the DNA of the organisation did not provide for aggressive individual growth, conflicts were bound to arise.  Sometime in the mid 80's, a fairly large team of senior executives walked out of MBA and started their own agency.

MBA never quite recovered from this blow. It took the Directors of MBA a few years to come out of the feeling of having been betrayed. Although they put together a plan for revival in the late 80's, it was by then too late and the momentum had already slipped away.  MBA was fast slipping into a "has been",  and was being over-taken by new start-ups.

Finally MBA was sold off - very reluctantly - to Gallup in the late Nineties. It marked the end of a glorious end of the entrepreneurial age in Indian MR, when home grown alternatives actually posed a challenge to the large MNCs.  Sadly for the founders of MBA (and for many of us), this was not the way the dreams were supposed to have ended.  

1st Day jitters

When the days to join my new organisation drew closer, there was the usual "post-purchase dissonance". Had I done the right thing by signing into an unknown organisation? Does MR provide a challenging and glamorous career?

Not wanting to be shocked on my 1st day, I landed up in Bangalore a couple of days earlier and decided to visit the MBA office. The address which was 5/1 Bore Bank Road - turned out to be on the other side of a railway track near Coles Park. There was no overbridge - one should cross the railway tracks by foot. That was the first shock for me.

Then I tried locating 5/1 Bore Bank Road. The building turned out to be a small 2 storeyed house. I hesitantly walked into the ground floor of that house, through the open door and into the reception. What I saw inside disappointed me terribly. What I was expecting was all the trappings of a modern, successful organisation; what I saw resembled a small house with some hired government-type furniture arranged like a class-room. There was none of the buzz or feel of an organisation that I was led to believe was at the fore-front of the Market Research industry in India.

I approached one of the accounts guys and if I remember right the dialogue went something like this:

I : um, err, I am joining this company, and wanted to know what you feel about this company.

He (with an amused expression) : so you are one of those new trainees joining us next week? Don't worry, this company will not sink. It is a good company.

I : umm, err, ok, thanks

He : And by the way, you can remove the tie - this is not that kind of place that requires a tie.

I went home with very mixed feeling that day.

Serendipity

In my 9th standard we had to read this essay called Serendipity. This essay talked about the origin of the word (from Serendib) and how it was related to the fortuitous "discovery" of the island of Ceylon by some ancient western mariners.

Thinking back Serendipity keeps having an impact on my life - and I am sure, on others' as well.

I have been in the field of Market Research for now almost 20 years - and the incident that triggered my entry into MR can be attributed purely to Serendipity. And I am not alone in this - I have come across very few individuals who entered the MR profession as a deliberate and well thought through choice.

The Placement seasons were on at BIM, Trichy and from the notice board I understood that a Market Research agency called Marketing and Business Associates (MBA Pvt Ltd.) was coming to the campus for recruitment.

I had decided that I wanted to get into one of the leading MNC banks (my dad was a banker too) - and so did not even bother to attend the pre-placement talk.

I was woken up from my afternoon slumber by a class-mate who indicated that Prof. Arya, the charming and charismatic Director of BIM has specifically asked me to attend the interviews in the afternoon as he believed I was temperamentally best suited for a career in MR. In fact he had already put my name in for the 2.30 slot.

When Prof. Arya wishes something, it happens, so I quickly made it to the interview venue. Needless to say I had no clue of what the agency was all about as I had missed the pre-placement presentation.

I met a person called Mathew Paul who I understood was one of the Directors of MBA. My first meeting was uneventful as he gave me a "marketing brief" - I was expected to quickly write up a MR proposal and submit it to him that night for his evaluation. It was a brief on the alcohol category and featured the issue of evaluating the success of a new brand launch.

I wrote up a proposal - but not with any high hopes - and submitted it that evening.

The next day was the interview - anchored around my thoughts on the proposal. It was then that I fell under the charm of Mathew Paul. The way he dissected my approach, his interpretation of the key issues, and his sense of humour. I think somewhere we struck a chord because I was selected along with a couple of other class-mates. The salary offered was Rs 2800 per month (all inclusive) - and as this offer was significantly above the placement cut-off I had no option but to accept it - though until that time I had set my heart on joining a bank.

For me the consolation was the fact that I had got to like Mathew Paul in that short meeting - something about him - his irreverence, his sharpness or his charm - had convinced me that I was in for interesting times at MBA.