Times Private Treaties’ investee company Allied Digital features in Forbes list

As many as 20 Indian company names made it to the 2009 Forbes’ “Asia’s 200 Best Under a Billion” list and two Times Private Treaties’ clients- Allied Digital and Micro Technologies featured in it.

Allied Digital (the world class IT Services and Solutions Provider) and Micro Technologies (the Information Technology Innovator), both TPT investee companies, rubbed shoulders with other Indian biggies like AIA Engineering, AurinoPro Solutions, Biocon, Bang Overseas, Birla, Deepak Fertilisers, Divi’s Laboratories, Everest Kanto Cylinder, FDC, Geodesic, GSS America Infotech, ICSA, IVRCL Infrastructure, Nitin Fire Protection, Opto Circuits, Parekh Aluminex, Raj Television Network and Selan Exploration Tech who featured as the Top 20 Indian companies on this list.

Featuring for the second time on the Forbes’ ‘Asia’s 200 Best Under a Billion List’ Allied Digital, has over 2000 employees spread over 132 locations. The company has built a brand name that can compete with the best in the industry. From being ‘just a server maintenance co’ to a complete IT services company, the brand now stands for reliability and strivers for innovation in the IT services field in India.

Another Indian company featured on the Forbes Asia’s 200 Best Under a Billion List’ for consistent growth of sales and profit was Micro Technologies. A leading technology innovator, Micro Technologies have tapped various domestic and international markets and aim to display not just the technological innovation but also product diversity in various segments of vehicle, premises, mobile, other assets and also energy, health segment and rural informatics.

The top 20 Indian companies on the Forbes list have found presence due to an aggressive entrepreneurial streak that is constantly backed by strong and functional infrastructure. From world class offerings in clothing, IT and engineering etc. the Indian brand has made its presence felt globally. These companies have transformed over the years and have shifted gears to churn out consumer focused products that are fast becoming brands to reckon with.

Companies from China and Hong Kong led the prestigious list, while India featured as No. 4. Singled out for constant growth of sales and profit over the last three years, moderate indebtedness and future prospects, all these companies have sales of less than a $ 1billion (Rs. 4,850 crore).

The survey done by Forbes outlined ‘consumerism’ as the key driving force behind most of the companies in the list, and which also outlined the Asian miracle as been built on the sweat of small and midsize enterprises.
Closer home, Times Private Treaties enables small and mid size companies to secure a greater share of mind and consequently market share, thus increasing enterprise value. The unique model of Times Private Treaties is designed to share risk, accelerate growth and augment the brand value proposition.

Times Private Treaties partners YourStory for Popular Entrepreneur Challenge

Times Private Treaties actively associates with several industry bodies and organisations for Entrepreneurial mentorship programmes. A step in this direction is Times Private Treaties (TPT) association with YourStory’s for “The Most Popular Entrepreneur Challenge 2009”, sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials. For the first time in India, YourStory is conducting a Challenge for Entrepreneurs which will be 100 percent community driven.

Conceptualized with the aim to applaud unique Indian Entrepreneurs as creators and shapers of ideas which have changed the world, the Most Popular Entrepreneur Challenge 2009 seeks to rediscover the charisma, leadership, and foresight of the Great Indian Entrepreneur.

Mr. Karthik Reddy, Vice-President, Times Private Treaties, will mentor the contestants on all aspects of an entrepreneurial startup.

Times Private Treaties’ business model, which involves spurring innovation and mentoring entrepreneurs, has found acclaim as one of the finalists in the seven most innovative business models by the PubliGroupe and International Newsmedia Marketing Association (INMA), in the second edition of their 'Innovative Business Models Contest' Miami, USA this year, was testimony to the success of the Times Private Treaties model.

TPT’s basic philosophy is that brands need to occupy many emotional platforms in order to facilitate differentiated branding and brand recall.

Earlier, Mr. Sivakumar Sundaram (CEO, Times Private Treaties & Principal Secretary, BCCL) mentored the incubates at iAccelerator, a unique start-up acceleration program conducted by IIM, Ahmedabad in collaboration with Upstart.in which was aimed at mentoring and investing in first time technology entrepreneurs in India working in the internet and mobile space. At the 4 month program (started on 1st May, 2009), teams received intense mentoring by leading industry experts and academicians to support the acceleration of their idea into the market.

In response to the IT and Mobile space leaning more towards product differentiation and placing less importance on brand building, Mr. Sivakumar (CEO, Times Private Treaties & Principal Secretary, BCCL) stressed the need to view brand building as a necessary long-term sustained relationship which in turn will fuel brand visibility and business scalability – in a nutshell, one of the important factors that will influence success.

From the time of its inception to the current market scenario, TPT has been relentless in its quest to help Indian brands extend their brand to fill a new market space. The TPT model has helped its parent organization attract new audiences and generate new revenue streams, whilst aiming to prolong the sunset of the print medium.

Riding on its USP of sharing risk while partnering entrepreneurial ideas, Times Private Treaties helps leapfrog growth in both early stage and mature companies across various industry verticals. For entrepreneurs the opportunity that leveraging the BCCL advertising vehicles provide whilst parting with equity works when he looks at growth and expansion.

Economy on the accelerator

According a release by the Central Statistical Organization on Monday, country’s economic growth has seen acceleration for the last three months of the current fiscal year at a rate of 6.1% contrary to the slum in the previous five quarters.

According the Policy makers and economists, the worst is over for Asia’s third largest economy if we go by GDP numbers. The release suggests robust economic growth in the current fiscal, credited basically to an upbeat performance by the services and manufacturing sectors.

Though a growth rate of over six percent looks dull in comparison to the previous GDP of nine percent, yet in the current global situation this is no less than a magical number which any country would crave for.

The Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said that the worst may be over for the economy and growth will get better in the coming quarters. Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla added that the growth rate released today is on expected lines which may even exceed to 6.5% for the fiscal ending March 2010.

Yahoo to promote its products and brands

Yahoo will shell out more than 100 million dollars to promote its products and brands globally in the next 15 months said Carol Bartz, the company’s CEO. The objective of this global campaign is to be the centre of people’s lives online.

Yahoo’s online services and sites undoubtedly attracts massive visitors and traffic but this campaign will carry the goal to make sure people are responsive of recent developments to its Webmail service, homepage and its search engine.

The campaign will also include promotion of Yahoo’s social-networking, personalization and features of third party integration across several of its core services.

In U.S. the campaign will be launched on Monday and its rollout abroad on 5th October, this will be Yahoo’s first global brand campaign, said Elisa Steele, Yahoo’s chief marketing officer.

Times Private Treaties Puts Muscle to B2B firms

The Times Private Treaties model of enabling advertising play to brands seems to have come up with unusual winners: Business to Business communication. Despite a large number of retail brands seeking, naturally, to extend their advertising reach, what is indeed interesting is the way in which B2B brands seem to have found growth value in advertising.

Times Private Treaties investments today include Action Construction Equipment, Bartronics India, Birla Power Solutions, Gujarat NRE Coke, Refex Refrigerants and Unitek Power Solutions.

The Kochi based Unitek Power Solutions last year signed an exclusive tie-up with the Italian pioneer, Borri Industrial Power Solutions, which has 75 years experience in the field to meet the growing power needs of the Indian industry. The Unitek-Borri Power Solutions got the Rs 32 crore order from L & T for Cairns Energy. “There are more than 22 sites in and around Barmer where the rugged industrial UPS system, which has already won kudos in even more demanding conditions in the Middle-East, is being installed & commissioned by our company,” Managing Director John Zachariah says.

Action Construction Equipment Ltd (ACE), a Faridabad-based company which manufactures mobile cranes used in construction, changed over a new leaf after spending a decade without looking at advertising and the results are showing in both the topline and a bottomline in a year that has not been the best for the construction industry.

Similarly, Bartonics is also turning in very strong growth figures. Sudhi Rao, MD & COO of Bartronics India recently said that the order backlog of the company is of Rs 700 crore.

Times Private Treaties model is based on providing brand building and advertising opportunities to smaller less known companies to help them create their brand and unlock value. This model enables companies to advertise in BCCL vehicles in return for equity in those companies.

This also helps the company to bring in many first time otherwise media shy advertisers and increase BCCL’s advertiser base.