ITV

Tag: invests

  • OgilvyOne invests in India

    MUMBAI: OgilvyOne – the world’s largest CRM and interactive agency – has recently invested in the establishment of a database development and management team in Bangalore. This team, initially comprising four new hires, will work on behalf of the worldwide Bridge database management team, which manages databases for international clients from around the world.
     

     
    The team will report to CS Krishnakumar based in Bangalore who in turn reports to Fernando Spella, leader of the worldwide team, based in the region’s head office in Hong Kong.
    Ogilvy & Mather CEO, India and South Asia John Goodman was quoted in an official release saying, “This is only a small step, but I think it marks the beginning of something significant – India becoming a hub for our worldwide data management business.”

    OgilvyOne Worldwide Director, Consulting and Bridge Regional Fernando Spella stated, “We have been developing our Bridge application and data management business for seven years. In line with the growth of the business we had a need to boost our team. After reviewing the options, India was by far the best. It has the people with the right skills and drive.”

  • Future Group’s Indivision India invests Rs 500 mn in VLCC

    MUMBAI: VLCC, health, beauty and personal care products player, has announced that it has received an investment of Rs. 500 million from Indivision India Partners, a private equity fund promoted by Future Capital Holdings, the financial services arm of the Future Group..

    An official statement says that the investment would be made in VLCC Health Care Limited, which manages the VLCC brand of businesses spanning a chain of slimming, beauty and fitness centers, manufacturing and marketing of personal care products and management of educational institutes for beauty and health.
    The investment is structured in the form of a convertible debenture and the proceeds will largely be used to fund the expansion of new VLCC centers both in India and overseas.

    In addition, the funds will also be utilized in growing the company’s subsidiary, VLCC Personal Care Ltd., engaged in manufacturing and marketing ayurvedic/herbal personal-care products.

    VLCC Health Care Ltd., chairman and managing director Mukesh Luthra said, “We plan to be a 300 centre strong company in the next three years, with a significant presence in international markets. Also on the cards by 2010 is a Rs.10 billion turnover.

    Another area where the investment would play a key role is in building VLCC Personal Care Ltd. into a leading player in the
    personal care products segment. Overall, this investment would help us achieve faster growth and strengthen our efforts to further consolidate our leadership position, for in addition to investing into the company; Indivision shall add considerable strategic value to the business. We are indeed pleased to have them as our investment partner.”

    “There has been a growing trend towards increased consumer spend on personal grooming, health and wellness products and services.” said Future Capital Holdings CEO and managing director Sameer Sain. “The value-add from the Future Group and the Indivision team will enable VLCC to accelerate its growth and continue to dominate this category.”

    Luthra added, “The Indivision investment represents the second round of funding that the VLCC Group has received, the earlier one being in 2004 when US$ 10 million were invested by CLSA, the Asian investment banking arm of Crédit Agricole.”

    VLCC currently has nearly a 100 centers in 55 cities across India and the UAE. It also has 10 VLCC Institutes in seven cities that provide diploma courses in beauty and nutrition to over 2,500 students a year.

  • AC Nielsen invests Rs 100 million in hand held terminals in India

    MUMBAI: Market research organisation AC Nielsen India has unveiled its plans to create the country’s first ever market research field force equipped with Hand Held Terminals for data collection across the nation.

    This announcement marks the culmination of a two-year long plan to bring world-class collection methodology to India. The company will sink in Rs 100 million into the venture.
     
     

    AC Nielsen’s Hand Held Terminal is a personal digital assistant embedded with proprietary software applications designed to capture retail sales data used by the country’s marketing community. With this investment, AC Nielsen becomes the first market research organisation to deploy Hand Held Terminals across the country.

    The company states that the level of investment and technological advancement are unprecedented in the market research industry in India. It is the single largest technological investment since the inception of market research in India with the launch of Operations Research Group in 1961. AC Nielsen states that this move reaffirms its commitment to grow the industry as a market leader and deliver the best quality data to India’s marketing community.
     
     

    Hand Held Terminals offer a paperless solution for capturing marketing information to be used by marketing decision makers and analysts. Until now, all consumer product marketing-related data has been captured by more traditional means. The company states that the paper-and-pencil methodology, while accepted as a norm, just needs to be improved in tandem with the rapid development on the technology front.

    Hand Held Terminals with built-in error-checking mechanisms on the other hand offer marketers leading edge collection of better quality, less error-prone data. This is especially important when the information pertains to over 150 varied product categories and over 17,500 brands from 50,000+ shop shelves across the country’s vast retailing landscape.
     
     

    Data from 750 individual Hand Held Terminals will be transmitted from over 200 locations across the country to AC Nielsen’s processing hub at Baroda and supported by a technology infrastructure using Compaq Unix and high-end servers for data storage and processing. The company adds that this ability to collect, transmit and therefore process data faster will enable it to reduce turnaround time for delivering market information to marketers from the present 16 days to nine days.

    The knock-on effect is faster and more effective marketing actions than ever before. The benefits can range from better sales to more efficient and targeted distribution. The Hand Held Terminal initiative in India has been under planning and conceptualisation for a period of 18 months. The technological enhancement process has also entailed rigorous training of ACNielsen’s mammoth in-house field force with the aid of specialist workshops covering each of ACNielsen field professionals in every state. “