The year comes to an end

- N Chandramouli

Financial year endings are tough from many perspectives. They are mostly tough because they show the truth – they act like mirrors to every decision, every judgment that the management balanced. The errors and the omissions all come starkly to the open.

However, no matter how truthful the mirror is, it is still a conjurer’s best friend. The mirror can play with light and shade, it can distort and it can even hide at times. The Blue Lotus Group companies performances are a case in point.

Of the various companies let me take Blue Lotus Communications first. We remained mainly flat in our toplines in 2009-10. Though this seems like a very sub-normal behavior for a high-growth company like ours, we’ll make sense of it once the mirror is out. If you look at our performance in light of the fact that last year was the worst year for marketing communication companies when budgets were summarily slashed, our performance was above normal. Plus if you take into account the fact that we nimbly controlled our costs very early on, kept a long-term vision than a knee-jerk one and tightened prudently, we actually saw a doubling of our profits in this financial year. In fact, abracadabra, we made the highest profit ever in this financial. Apart from this our average fee has more than doubled and we’ve acquired very prestigious clients over the same year.

The other companies of our group are far more straightforward. bluebytes doubled its turnover and today has become the leader in its segment. It has become the most preferred information logistics partner to any progressive company and services over 15 reputed PR agencies. We’ve acquired 24x7x365 capabilities and we cover over 1500 articles each day for our clients.

Mustard, which has been buoyed by the spirit of its team-members alone, was brought back from the ICU by the energetic and involved action of the team. It has now making quick wins including some retainer accounts. It continues to service its older accounts steadily as well.

For i9, this was the starting block year and it gained a strong foothold into the entertainment, lifestyle, hospitality business with its clients. It has also made its presence felt in many pitches across its interest areas leaving strong overtones of its acumen.

The next year looks great for the group. Blue Lotus has already clocked in 50% growth over last year on the basis of contracts in hand (and naturally we’re bound to add more business over the year), bluebytes is enhancing its software and its operations to accommodate a 100% growth again, i9 is on the verge of some significant sign-ins, Mustard will also nearly double its turnover, and the newly constituted Brix Market Research has not only made a debut with billings, but is also undertaking one of the biggest studies ever done in India.

All this is not without us having rewarded our people – and having completed two successive Performance Appraisals in the last 6 months has also get us to an aspirational salary for all. We’ve also given substantial discretionary budgets for knowledge acquisition to TeamLeaders to meet the training and education needs of teams.

This is a watershed year for our Group and all we need is focus towards deliveries and client servicing and we’ll go from the neighbour’s envy to envy of the world.