Past Work

The client was addressing a key pain area in the field of students pursuing their education in foreign countries - awareness about the different aspects of studying abroad - from diverse courses across countries and their advantages, to local support systems they could tap into, to allow a quicker, safer and more productive adjustment to college life abroad. We served them as a strategy consultant, working on designing and refining their user process, and the positioning of the service. We worked with them on identifying allied services and helping them conceptualize an ecosystem around it. We then helped them with refining their service offerings, pricing them, and building their revenue and business model.

Our client was an angel investor exploring an investment opportunity in a niche, robotics training business. To start with, we carried out extensive secondary research to assess the potential. We then undertook a competitive landscaping exercise, identifying and studying related businesses in the sector. As the assignment progressed with increasing interest from the investor, we were asked to work with the promoter and team at the startup towards designing their growth strategy. After several interactions, understanding and offering our inputs on their growth plans, on leveraging capabilities and team strengths, missing skillsets and defining strategy changes necessary to scale rapidly. While the investment itself did not take place due to changes in the investor's overall strategy, the robotics startup continues to occasionally seek our guidance on strategy and investments into the firm.

The client was an online education startup that aimed at helping schoolchildren prepare better for their school exams. The model involved select standards/grades, and included simplified explanatory modules and a testing platform where students improved their overall learning of the subject, not just from an exam point of view, but from that of understanding and retaining the learning. The client needed help in designing their marketing strategy to spread awareness. We worked on identifying potential customer groups, and created processes for the firm to connect with these groups, both online and offline. In the next phase, the company's web content was reviewed and reworked by us, from a visual and content effectiveness standpoint. The most relevant social media platforms were identified, and appropriate profiles created. We then guided the company on their email marketing strategy, created their telemarketing strategy, and guided them through execution.

The client is a 1.5-year-old company in the technology space, with a sharp focus on the Indian hospitality sector. The client aims at becoming the leading partner for hotels and hotel-like properties in India, and subsequently abroad, where it would help the hotels boost their online presence and revenues, as well as have an offline strategy to constantly improve customer experience and eventually build a hospitality brand. The requirement was for a strong business plan to pitch to investors. The company’s app was still in testing. We helped test the app, and make suggestions on the features from a user-point of view. We then started working on identifying the exact service offerings and pricing, something that had not been done by the client yet. After preparing a well-defined list of services with pricing, we started work on the financial projections, an extensive exercise that, in some cases involved over eight variables just to arrive at a value to estimate revenues per service. We then prepared a crisp Business Plan for the client to discuss raising capital with representatives of an international investment firm.

The client was a newly formed arm of a Gulf-based Special Economic Zone (SEZ), that was looking to build a strong presence in India, and have companies from here set up manufacturing and export related facilities at the SEZ. The requirement was for an internal strategy plan to present to the top management, and once approved, use it to rapidly establish a strong presence in the Indian industry. Working closely with the team, we first clearly understood the offerings of this particular SEZ. We then created a competitive analysis of offerings of other leading SEZs in the region. Using this, a short note was prepared, highlighting key advantages of the SEZ compared to others. This was to come in very handy at a later stage when the client would interact with business leaders of large Indian corporates and conglomerates, when making a business case for them to expand or relocate their manufacturing or export facilities to the SEZ. Subsequently the A-Team helped identify 6 key sectors that the team should focus its efforts on in the initial phase for maximum impact. Giving the team and the top management a birds-eye view of the various industries, growth and areas for future potential, we helped further narrow down the initial areas for the team to channel their efforts on. We then helped build an offline and an online strategy map, identifying key avenues for the team to work on, and what it would need to work on each of those areas. Subsequently, working with the team, we broke down their targets, and helped them gain better clarity and plans the steps ahead to achieve them. We also created a reference database of the support ecosystem, including key industry bodies, major industry associations, as well as law firms, industry experts, etc. who could help the company forge lasting relationships with clients in the Indian industry. The Strategy Plan was well received by the top management of the company, and the India team has been progressing well.

The client was a young service that aimed at facilitating crowdfunding of enterprising startups in India by tapping into a large community of investors. We were appointed to help them identify how it can be grown more rapidly. As part of the assignment, we developed a fee-based investor model, created processes, and identified allied services that would help create an entire ecosystem for deserving startups to grow in. We also proposed a novel collaboration with a financial institution, and prepared a proposal for the same, highlighting advantages for both parties from the association.

Our client was a fast-growing Credit Rating Advisory firm that engaged us to help them setup their Venture Capital (VC) advisory arm. The assignment included working with their new VC advisory arm on one VC assignment. The client team, guided by us, worked on an opportunity for a company in a niche software space. The company was seeking investments to fund a bold diversification into a manufacturing setup related to the same industry sector, which would help the company compete in global markets.

How do you improve pediatric patient experience on a limited budget, at a globally recognized oncology hospital that is already at the leading edge of patient care?
Read more on the Key Projects page.

Our client was a highly reputed consulting firm that was in the process of diversifying into a B2C business model that involved training, knowledge-sharing and networking initiatives, with an offline and online model. We first helped them identify relevant services they wanted to offer, after which we identified all potential customer groups that would come under that purview. We then designed a strategy roadmap and also advised them on their social media strategy. We then built a proposed organization structure integrating the proposed services, to give our client a better sense of how the new structure would operate. We also audited one of their educational webinar sessions, making recommendations on customer process, structure, engagement and experience.

The client is a 23+year old, DGCA approved Airline MRO (Maintenance, Repair & Overhauling) company with a reputed presence in the Indian airline MRO space, with an elite clientele that included HAL, Jet Airways, American Airlines, UPS (USA), Tata International Ltd., Tata Steel, Reliance Industries, Bajaj Auto, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh, among many others. The company was exploring avenues to start a domestic, commercial airline, and needed a Business Plan prepared to be able to discuss initially with airline manufacturers and then with international banks for funding. The A-Team spent multiple hours over the period of a few weeks, studying the company’s background, it’s financial performance, and reviewing its plans of starting a new airline to connect 10 smaller towns to a major metropolitan city. Working closely with the company, we arrived at proposed sectors by assessing everything from the government’s Smart Cities initiative, and reviewing population, tourist and business traffic, as well as potential demand. All this was undertaken using secondary data, and involved working through over 50 websites as well as hundreds of pages of various reports. The client had a small aircraft in mind, which was ideal for even the limited facilities offered by some of the airports. Using its technical specifications, we worked on trip durations, ideal mix and maximum number of trips between proposed cities/towns, staff required, etc. We built 10-year financial projections for the proposed airline, complete with ticket pricing, staff salaries, etc. Currently the client has already received most of the permissions from DGCA, and is currently in talks with international investment firms and aircraft manufacturers.

A client in the BPO industry was facing plateaued sales, a high attrition rate, and rising costs.
We assessed the firm's historical financials to get a better sense of their growth and strategy so far. We also did a detailed analysis of their current and past clients. Based on findings, we helped the firm narrow down on specific industry sectors and company-types they should target for business. This helped them increase their profit margins, while making their marketing and sales processes more targeted and relevant.
With regard to their hiring strategy, we recommended changes and connected them to relevant third-party partners to improve their process and quality of hires, thereby also reducing their attrition rates.
For the medium term, we proposed to the management, some innovative service offerings which the firm considered, as a means of further boosting revenues by offering niche services.
Specific recommendations for cost reduction and streamlining of operations were made.

The client was a highly reputed, Singapore-based B2B Branding Strategy consulting firm. The firm was planning to make a foray into the Indian market to offer its world-class services. We worked directly with it's Indian arm, conducting a segmentation support exercise to begin with. We then built a customer acquisition strategy and created an initial pipeline of prospective corporate clients by leveraging our network.

Guided a fashion industry focused personality development and training venture into evolving itself into a professional modeling agency, by understanding past client requirements, identifying appropriate new services to offer, creating an organizational structure, reworking web and marketing communications.

We were appointed by a global incubator to assess an investment opportunity they were evaluating in the mobile payments solution space. We assessed the industry from a future India potential point of view, and also carried out competitive landscaping before working on the company's business strategy. As part of several extensive meetings with the promoter and team, we broke the business strategy into its elements, highlighted critical areas, and helped design and rebuild a stronger strategy. This included identifying high-potential customer segments, re-prioritizing launch locations, and an overall rollout plan.