Indiattitude is one of the leading companies in the Indian MICE industry with an unblemished track record of over 1000 events of various magnitudes already under its belt. Headed by Amit Saroj, CEO and Chief Creative Officer, the company is driven by its core values and hands-on knowledge of every aspect of Conference and Event Management.
The company’s Marketing Head, Nishtha Bindal, divulges details on how the team constantly strives to ‘Add Value’ to events. The following is an excerpt from an exclusive interview with Amit Saroj.
1. Kindly brief us about the company and its initial journey.
Indiattitude, previously “Attitude” was started in the year 2000. Over the initial years we got our business breakthroughs from the development sector organisations, specializing us, as a development sector meetings specialist. Indiattitude is now a full-service conference management company with a team of committed, innovative, customer focused and experienced professionals with positive attributes of flexibility and adaptability.
Indiattitude is an organisation specialized in handling large high-level conferences and meetings across India. We have the credentials of handling National and International, Non-profit organizations and Government meetings. Delivering customized, cost effective and long-term solutions to our clients and setting new benchmarks of excellence has been the standard operating procedure at Indiattitude. We have grown consistently both horizontally as well as vertically. We have handled over 1000 events of various magnitude, a guest list that has seen successive Prime Ministers, Presidents of India, political and business dignitaries from all over the world.
2.Brief us about your role in the company and the motivation behind choosing this industry?
Presently I look at the expansion goals and strategy implementation in the organisation.
Having started as a hotel sales professional, always had the inclination and training towards customer service and hospitality. At Indiattitude, the story continues, with our team believing in the old adage and putting in optimum resources, latest technology, best of experience and personalized services to efficiently organize our client events, ensuring that we ‘add value’ to the original outcome of the event.
3. What are the key points that you consider while organising any event?
Over two decades and 1000 plus successful events, our team is one of the most prepared group of professionals in the Indian MICE industry. We strongly benefit from our core values and a ‘Can do attitude’. With a wide-ranging experience, our team understands the time constraints, complexities, needs and goals of our client meetings.
Key points we consider.
- Understanding of requirements: Understand the complete set of requirements of the clients and guide them through our extensive experience.
- Develop a detailed project plan with resource mapping and timelines
- Take the ownership and accountability of the entire project with granular detailing of tasks
- Use of technology (Salesforce.com) to record continuous progress
- Follow a periodic evaluation, review system for course correction if necessary
4. Brief us about the services that the company offers.
We constantly achieve excellence by combining the elements of energy, strategy, creativity and technology to exceed expectations of our clients.
We bring together a strong platform to support flexibility of operations, quick turnaround time, increased participation and revenue. Strengthening the brand value using technology and be the credible partner for your meetings.
- Planning and Budgeting
- Design, Conceptualization, Website and Communication
- Accommodation Management
- Audio-visual Management
- Conference Material Production
- Airport and Transport Coordination
- Staff Planning and Allocation
- Entertainment Management
- Venue Selection and Contracting
- Online Registration and Abstract Submission
- Secretariat Management
- Exhibition and Displays
- Tours Management
- Protocol, Licensing and Security
5. What are the unique propositions that the company offers giving it an edge over competitors?
We are governed as an organization by our stated purpose “Connecting people to facilitate growth and knowledge sharing using technology”.
Our unique propositions for our customers include
- Latest event technology mobile application
- “FLO” our Loyalty Rewards program
- “Attenddee Mobile Application” for exchange of information in events
- IAPCO certification for standards among 139 companies in the world
- International affiliation in Europe, South Africa, China and Canada
- Transparency in transactions
6. What are the challenges in this industry in India?
As per my understanding, the following challenges need attention:
- Customer Knowledge and Outsourcing for events: Although, this is changing rapidly but being a relatively new industry the customer knowledge, to best use the outsourcing model needs more awareness. The difference between a vendor and partnership for common interest needs to be developed. This can happen through more interactions and we offer our clients consultancy based on our experience.
- Scope Creep: Stretching of defined the scope of services without additional costs and free value offers, is sometimes a challenge. We present a detailed plan of deliverables and try and address it with clarity in agreements.
- Scarcity of Talent: Relatively new industry with limited exposure in the educational institutions for formal training, there is always a shortage of the talent pool available for hiring. Mostly we have to educate and train on the job to suit our needs for the industry. Our management trainee programs have been very useful in this direction.
7. Please share the latest technology that the company is utilizing to offer better solutions.
We are a technology driven company and we are able to deliver impeccable events through the use of technology. We use CVENT, at present world’s best technology solution for event services and Salesforce.com, CRM for sales planning and execution of all our events.
8. Which Country/State, according to you is most popular when it comes to corporate events and why?
Delhi being the capital and Mumbai being the financial capital are the most popular hubs for corporate events. Most corporates are head quartered in these two major metropolitan cities and hence decision-making is concentrated here. These cities are well connected and offer variety of venues for conducting such events.
9. What would be your advice for the budding start-ups and entrepreneurs in the industry?
- Event management is a very broad area and now getting into specialisation and niche services, all budding start-ups should have a clear goal and clarity of which area of event management they wish to specialize as an organization.
- It will time and years to build it, so stick with it.
10. Brief us about the company’s future perspectives.
Indiattitude is on a structured growth path within the umbrella of its stated purpose “ Connecting people to facilitate growth and knowledge sharing using Technology”. In future we will be focussing on international geographical expansion with additional verticals including Destination management, Technology initiatives, Growth workshops and Marketing services.
