Business
-
AI in Indian WealthTech & Micro-Lending: Beyond the Chatbot Hype
Attend any financial technology summit across Mumbai, Bengaluru, or Pune today, and the main stage pitches sound remarkably homogenous: “Conversational artificial intelligence wealth advisors,” “WhatsApp bots for instant...
-
My Experience at the Entrepreneur Future Summit 2026, Pune
On June 12 and 13, I joined founders, institutional investors, and engineering executives at the Radisson Blu in Hinjawadi, Pune, for the Entrepreneur Future Summit 2026. Over two intensive days, the gathering offered a panoramic view into...
-
Indian Financial Service and General Post Office
I went to my local post office to collect a parcel. Most of the people there were not collecting parcels. They were doing banking — deposits, passbook updates, converting fixed deposits. The Post Office Savings Bank was busier than...
-
Citizenship in a Democracy
Voting day in Mumbai is always a heated affair — in every sense of the word.
-
Vanity Metrics: What They Are and Why You Should Avoid Them
Vanity metrics are metrics that make you look good to others, but do not help you understand your own performance in a way that informs future strategies. They feel good to report. They just don’t help you make better decisions.
-
Why ChatGPT is Going to Change Inbound Marketing
GPT-3 — OpenAI’s language generation model — is capable of producing text that resembles human writing with remarkable fidelity. Its applications for inbound marketing, particularly through chatbot technology, are worth...
-
Reduction in Stamp Duty Rates
Stamp duty is an additional charge levied when purchasing a home in India. Depending on the state, it is payable at different stages of the transaction. Maharashtra requires upfront payment during the down payment phase, while Karnataka...
-
Data, Reporting and Doing What’s Right
Data is being used to showcase that value has been generated. To do this, the most beautiful reports are created. If you follow Avinash Kaushik and dislike data pukes, you would be aghast at some of the reports agencies in India dish out.
-
Data the New Oil
Data and business analysis was until recently a support function — it needed business data to be useful, but the data itself was not the product. The analysis was. That has changed. Data is now being presented and sold as the main...
-
Why You Need to Stop Tracking These 5 Metrics
Going digital grants brands access to substantial data volumes. That abundance often leads teams into an obsessive pursuit of metrics without questioning whether those metrics actually matter.
-
AMP and Advertising
This blog has accumulated steady readership over seven or eight years, which gives me a useful vantage point on how blogging monetisation has transformed — particularly with mobile becoming the dominant consumption device.
-
Comfort Zones
I typically write about technology, gaming, and analytics on this blog. I have a certain unhealthy fear of engaging with design work. Analytical work has become comfortable territory, and that comfort has created a mental barrier against...
-
Marketing for India2
Nearly a decade into digital marketing, there is a critical gap in how brands engage with India’s emerging online audience: a billion people who may not be comfortable with English, who lack traditional credit infrastructure, and who...
-
Are We Over Zealous on Remarketing?
Remarketing follows potential customers across websites through ad networks. Like the old Vodafone/Hutch advertisement where the network follows you everywhere — if you visit an e-commerce site, add something to your cart, and then...
-
Google Launches Machine Learning for AdSense
Google AdSense has existed for over fifteen years, enabling site owners to generate revenue alongside DoubleClick for Publishers. The persistent challenge has always been determining optimal ad placement while preserving user experience...
-
Thoughts on Social Media
Social media platforms evolve from win-win partnerships with publishers into monopolies. Here is how it happens every time.
-
Using Intelligence Reports in Google Analytics
Google Analytics continues to evolve, gradually bringing premium features to free-tier users. Intelligence Reports represent one such advancement: the ability to ask questions in natural language and receive meaningful analytical insights...
-
Shiny Tools Don’t Make a Purpose
I recently bought a Fitbit. Colleagues asked the obvious question: “Has it changed you?” The honest answer was no.
-
Data Anomalies in Search Console
Organic traffic has been a key growth driver for online businesses in recent years. Search remains fascinating even when — especially when — the data is incomplete. And it is always incomplete.
-
Importance of Context in Analysing Data
I recently examined user-generated data from a mobile app that delivered content to a niche audience. Users rated each piece with a five-star system, which the design team treated as an objective measurement. The problem: user behaviour is...
-
Game Theory in Dating: More Towards Understanding Nash’s Equilibrium
Game Theory is compelling when applied beyond theoretical economics — to actual human interactions and collective behaviour. I previously explored its application to SEO. Dating turns out to be another rich area.
-
Game Theory and SEO
Game theory examines mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between rational decision-makers. It has applications across economics, political science, psychology, logic, computer science, and biology. I want to apply it to SEO.
-
Using Data Studio to Create Beautiful Reports
In November 2016 Google Data Studio became accessible to all users in India. Previously limited to US users and Google Analytics 360 premium subscribers, the product now allows anyone to create dazzling reports that can be shared with...
-
The Case of the Missing Engagement Glue
In December 2016, my family’s flight from Mumbai to Gwalior was cancelled due to fog. What followed was a month-long ordeal involving Air India, Cleartrip, and an almost total absence of what I can only call engagement glue —...
-
Creating a Kickass Campaign #LikeAGirl
At a recent meeting where the think tank team of a large organisation was discussing branding, an ex-Ogilvy speaker made a point that stuck with me: building a brand that supports a larger cause is the most powerful thing a company can do.
-
Customer Orientation
Every company claims to be customer-oriented. Almost none of them actually are, and the gap between the claim and the reality is one of the most reliable predictors of long-term failure I know.
-
IIM Jobs
IIM placement season generates a particular kind of media coverage in India — the annual ritual of astronomical salary figures, investment banking offers, and consulting packages that prompt both celebration and anxiety in equal...
-
Meetings
Meetings are one of the primary ways organisations convert time into noise. This is not a new observation, and the fact that it continues to be true despite decades of complaints suggests that the problem is structural rather than merely...
-
You’ve Been an MBA for Too Long When…
A lighthearted list for those of us who have spent too much time in business school classrooms or corporate meeting rooms, and have developed certain linguistic and cognitive habits as a result.
-
God as a Brand
If you apply brand strategy thinking to religion — purely as an analytical exercise, setting aside the metaphysical questions entirely — you find that the major world religions are extraordinarily sophisticated brand operations...