It is uniquely positioned to deliver fast changing business and marketing needs. We are committed to high-level knowledge exchange, thought management and personal association building among high-ranking corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of worldwide industries. It is able to offer unified marketing solutions that make commercial sense to both business and marketing leaders.
BWDISRUPT interacted with Vineet Arya, Founder Outsource CMO. Here are some excerpts from the interview:
Brief us about your business model like how did the idea came to start and how does it work?The concept of “Outsourced CMO” was initiated to bridge the gap of hiring experienced professionals in the field of marketing , brand , communications, digital etc.. at a very affordable cost. Usually when a Startup gets funding from the investors, they immediately start building a robust team of domain specialist so as to scale the business model faster & hence create a market space for themselves. The challenge here is to get experienced & skilled people at a decent cost to work. Needless to say that getting right talent in India is very expensive despite our country having a population of 1.2+ billion people.
The concept of ‘Outsourced CMO’ was conceptualized to strengthen the Startup ecosystem in India, which enables the start-ups to scale faster specially from a marketing point of view.
Typically below are some of the questions that arise in the mind of an entrepreneur:
• Should I hire a Marketing Manager? OR
• Should I manage marketing myself? OR
• Should I use agencies to manage marketing? OR
• I have a well-established marketing team but I still do not have a domain specialist in department like PR, brand marketing, Media planning, Direct Marketing, etc.
We typically help solve the above problems, as start-ups/companies do not need to hire a marketing team or a domain specialist in the existing team. This is a perfect plug & play model. You can hire whenever you want to do specific marketing & get started almost immediately.
Besides the above, with my 22+ years of experience in marketing, brand, communications etc.. I am able to guide the startup as to what marketing approach or campaign should be followed which saves time & energies, which otherwise would have been lost thereby helping them scale faster.
What are the unique key points of your company?As the name “Outsourced CMO” suggests that we work like a virtual CMO ,so one of the biggest key point is to get all possible marketing domains under one roof.
A typical CMO or a senior marketing manager in any company is mandated to take complete control of 360 degrees marketing & we actually do the same without any hefty salaries
We are not an agency nor a marketing consultant so we work from the premises of the companies which makes the entrepreneur feels that we are an integral part of the team.
Summarizing Key Points• Hire experienced marketing resources at a low cost
• Work from the premises of the company
• Manage complete marketing domain for a company – Brand – Digital – PR – Offline etc..
• Monthly fixed fees as against time cost
How are you different from the existing competitors?We believe in working with everyone in order to build a healthy ecosystem of start-ups which helps them to scale. In the past where we have worked as an Outsourced CMO , have used various marketing agencies , freelancers , external resources to execute marketing campaigns.
Since we are a part of the core team of any start-up so we ensure that the business interest & objectives of the same are fulfilled first.
What is the funding status and monetization model?Our monetization model is the monthly fees that we get from the start-ups / companies we work for.
What challenges are you facing in running your business?Most often the companies are looking for hiring a marketing team internally to manage that function & getting a right skilled resources is a major task in India specially at a senior level. Our major challenge is most of the entrepreneurs do not know about this concept which solves the problem of hiring as well as managing marketing through Outsourced CMO.
The feedback about this concept has been extremely encouraging as there is a desired need in the industry for such type of services which helps entrepreneurs solves lot of issues at the initial stages of his journey , the only challenge is to get this concept spread far & thick.
How has been the people responses so far?This concept has been very well accepted by the entrepreneurs & the testimony of the same is that 6 start-ups have gone to use Outsourced CMO model as against hiring an internal marketing team.
How do you look at expansion?Outsourced CMO is not a single person entity but a group of like-minded people , so we are constantly looking for senior marketing professionals who after working for decades in a corporate sector ,now want to contribute to the entrepreneurs of India & help them become a unicorn.
What are your marketing plans?We help other companies in marketing but have never marketed our own concept of “Outsourced CMO”. We mostly rely on WOM as all the start-ups that we have worked in the past has come from references only.
What has been the biggest learnings so far?After having worked for more than 20+ years in the corporate sector in leadership positions , marketing for start-ups is totally a different ball game. You need to be very close to the market dynamics & needs as they change quite rapidly . The other major learnings is to manage the expectation of the entrepreneurs as they are also under lot of pressure to scale up faster.
Besides the above ,the past experiences of the Outsourced CMO team really comes in handy for the start-ups specially for growth hacks & low cost marketing.
BW Reporters
Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
