Integrated marketing communications firm, RK Swamy recently took the IPO route to fund investments in areas like content production and market research. Srinivasan K Swamy, chairman & MD, and Narasimhan Krishnaswamy, group CEO & whole-time director, RK Swamy Ltd, talk to Christina Moniz about the value of long-term partnerships in the industry and the role of technology in marketing. Edited excerpts:

How ready is the company to harness emerging tech such as generative AI?

Narasimhan Krishnaswamy: We don’t perceive new tools or technology as a threat — generative AI is just another tool for the industry. Looking back in time to when television became an emerging medium in this country and when print was still a dominant medium, the shift presented challenges for all of us in the industry. But we navigated that phase well.

New technology is something that the industry and organisations like ours will also navigate well. We are tool agnostic. We also believe it is imperative for the organisation to create the culture to empower and upskill employees so that they are in step with new technology.

Post the IPO, what is your vision for RK Swamy?

Srinivasan K Swamy: We have been in this business for a long time. We started our market research firm Hansa Research and our analytics firm Hansa Cequity well before it became fashionable to talk about marketing tech.

Narasimhan Krishnaswamy: One of the objectives (of the IPO) is to set up a digital video content production studio; the second is an initiative that we have already launched, which is the RK Swamy Centre for Study of Indian Markets. The Indian market is a complex one and the centre is committed to putting out studies that are unique and monetisable. Third, we will have a new vertical to address a critical client need — in-depth brand and marketing consulting.

We are creating a data mart of individual and household consumers, using third-party data taking into account privacy. This is in addition to the fact that our practices need to be augmented as our clients have more requirements than ever before.

So what are some of these client requirements that you’re working to address?

Srinivasan K Swamy: While people say that the client mandate is changing, the fact is, it is conceptually the same as it has always been. At the heart of every client’s mandate is the need to improve its marketing efforts. To do that, one needs to be in sync with the evolving media, consumer and retail landscape. Our mandate is to marry the three variables and give our clients solutions so they can market their brands better. This holy grail is not going to change and it is something that we tell our clients too. One of the statements we make during client presentations is that we want to deliver disproportionately positive results for your marketing spend. This has not changed in decades, though the nuances might have.

You have had a long relationship with clients like LIC and SBI. How much of your business comes from legacy clients?

Narasimhan Krishnaswamy: In FY23, almost 84% of our topline came from repeat business, and our top 50 clients generated almost 70% of our topline. These have been with us for about a decade, on an average. Our top 10 clients, which account for about 40% of our topline, have been with us for an average of 19 years. So forging long-term relationships has always been an important focus area. Even our key employees have been with us for over 14 years, on an average. So on both stakeholder fronts, we are happy to have been able to build a sticky ecosystem. Our business growth is an outcome of that. If you look at the trajectory of our growth, our revenues have grown at a CAGR of 30% annually between FY21 and FY23.