Suchitra Anish, Founder at Oni360

Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?

Suchitra Anish: The idea of setting up a boutique Communications house germinated in 2015. After working for nearly 12 years with leading Indian companies and foreign MNCs, the Corporate Communications-agencies' disconnect became increasingly apparent to me. The creative agencies did not function as an extended arm or partner for the Corporate Communication functions of corporates. Instead, the relationship would be hierarchial and transactional. It would be mostly output driven as opposed to being outcome based.

The ability to understand the big picture business objectives of clients and map that to communication goals across different verticals of the function sparked the idea of Oni360 - a boutique, integrated Brand and Communications agency offering the full spectrum of Communication solutions under one roof. No longer would Communication work in silos but would operate as one unit to deliver value to clients.

The journey of Oni360 has progressed from being a proprietor driven concern in 2016 to growing into a Limited Liability Partnership in 2018. During 2018, seasoned industry professionals joined Oni360 from leading creative agencies and MNC to strengthen its Advertising and Creative Production and Event Experience and Design verticals. Leapfrogging into the next phase of growth in 2020, Oni360 brought Nano Media Creatives Pvt. Ltd. - a young, dynamic team of creative filmmaking enthusiasts, under its wings. Through this partnership, we have worked with over 100+ emerging and world renowned brands across different industry sectors. Our work has won globally prestigious awards in Communications and Public Relations for our clients spread across the US and India.

Great Companies: What are the various Services provided by Oni360

Suchitra Anish: We offer the full suite of Communication services from Brand design, Public Relations, Creative Production to Event Experience Design and Digital Marketing solutions.

Great Companies: What makes Oni360 different from hundreds of other similar service providers?

Suchitra Anish:

We have evolved from being storytellers to story-doers. What this means is our ability to curate stories where none seem to exist. This requires us to dive deeper into understanding the brand's problem statement and design an integrated bouquet of Communication solutions to solve a business problem.

For instance, we carved a distinct positioning for an international Sports Fashion brand that manufactures cutting-edge sports shoes and apparels by creating a new category called 'Athletech' - Athletism meets Technology. To reinforce this positioning we did a live broadcast of the Sports Science lab where these products are manufactured outside of India straight to Bangalore to a select media persons.

The press coverage garnered 14 times the coverage and increased digital traffic to the client's website. This was extended into an influencer driven digital campaign to strengthen the brand's Athletech category 'differentiation'. The campaigns were supported by several creative assets.

Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?

Suchitra Anish: Initially it was difficult for clients to understand our value proposition and differentiation. Our ability to see the big picture and offer integrated Communication solutions wasn't understood easily by clients. Initially, clients struggled to fit us into a conventional Advertising, Public Relations or Digital Marketing agency template. The idea of an integrated Communications agency that functions as an extended partner for companies wasn't well understood in the early days. Overtime, our clients have reposed faith in us by extending their engagement with our agency every year.

The other challenge we are facing is in attracting the right talent. We are working with different recruitment agencies and using social media platforms to hire talent.

Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Oni360?

Suchitra Anish: We plan to grow through the organic and inorganic routes. We will be inducting more youngsters from campuses to groom the next generation talent to strengthen our business verticals and expand our business to other geographies outside of US and India.

Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Suchitra Anish: The world is moving to a gig economy. According to Boson Consulting Group report, the gig economy will create upto 90 million jobs (roughly 30 per cent of India's non-agricultural workforce). This can add up to 1.25% GDP to India's growth. Start ups are therefore not the flavour of the month or season but the new way of how the world will work. This is therefore an exciting time to start out. However, be sure to enter the arena only if you have a strong sense of purpose, integrity, discipline and fortitude.