Girish Batra Chairman & MD, NetAmbit

NetAmbit is the first choice of the customer for all his retail financial needs be it loan; insurance or mutual fund the first name that should come to his mind is NetAmbit. Girish Batra, Chairman and MD, talks about his business and his future plans

Seema Seth(SS): Tell me about yourself, what was your previous profession and how did you think of coming into this business? 

Girish Batra(GB): I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and had decided about it way back while I was in school. Initially I thought of working for 6-7 years before I took the plunge as we came from a middle class background.

I was working in Bangalore with Godrej when my parents wanted me to get married.  I always wanted a partner who would provide financial security whenever I take the entrepreneurial plunge. They found a match in my wife, Deepti. She was working with NTPC at Noida. Just 2 months before our wedding she informed me that she might have to look for a change of job as NTPC did not have an office in Bangalore and she could not take a transfer.

Since I wanted her to continue the secure PSU job, I preponed my decision of turning an entrepreneur and quit my job to come back to Delhi to start a venture.

SS: What role did your family play in terms of supporting you?

GB: The family plays a very important role both emotionally and financially. My father provided the initial Rs. 1 lakh to start the company and the entire family supported me in my early days with emotional support and encouragement.

SS: What is your company’s full name and what is your product range?

GB: The company is called NetAmbit and we we want to be the Walmart of financial services distribution space in India. We sell all products in the retail financial category from loans, investments, insurance, mutual funds, corporate FDs, etc.

SS: How did you fund the business initially?

GB: As I said earlier, my father provided the initial Rs. 1 lakh to start the company.

SS: What is your team size and what challenges did you face in putting your team together, how was the experience of hiring the first employees?

GB: Today we are a 4500 strong team spread across 150 cities in the country. Yes initially hiring was a challenge as it is difficult to make people see your vision as one has nothing on the ground to support the vision. One had to spend a lot of time personally in meeting people and making them see the vision I had for NetAmbit.

SS: What is your product’s USP?

GB: We stand out vis-à-vis competition as we are brand agnostic and offer all financial products under one roof whereas competition is tied to a single brand.

Also most of the companies typically don’t offer all products.

Hence from a consumer’s perspective, the complete range of products and choice of brands is available at one place with a player like us.

Another aspect of our service that sets us apart from the competition is that we do complete fulfilment and also post sales – sending reminders about payments due, collection of renewal premiums, etc.

SS: What is your marketing strategy?

GB: We use telemarketing, branch, venue and internet to reach out to the customers.

SS: How are you planning to scale up your business?

GB: Historically we have grown by 70-80% every year and this year too we would be able to maintain our growth, we are targeting revenues of 160 – 170 crores this year. Growth would be primarily driven by channel expansion, geographical expansion- we plan to increase our coverage by 50 more cities, and 1 new channel of distribution. We are also looking to get 10% of our revenue by upselling and cross selling into existing consumer base.

SS: What is your turnover like?

GB: We had a turnover of Rs. 100 crores in FY10-11 and are looking for a turnover of Rs. 160-170 crores this fiscal

SS: Where do you see your products 5 years from now?

GB: As a company we want to be the first choice of the customer for all his retail financial needs. When the customer thinks of either loan, insurance, mutual fund the first name that should come to his mind is NetAmbit.