Mudra lays eyes on outsourcing market

Plans acquisitions to beef up archives portal Magindia.com.

After exploring marketing solutions as a business opportunity, domestic advertising agencies are now looking at outsourcing as a revenue generator.

Mudra, the country's fourth largest advertising agency, is working towards setting up a strategic business unit that will concentrate on the outsourcing business.

In addition, the agency is looking at setting up a separate agency to handle its Johnson & Johnson business and is also scouting for acquisitions that will complement its ad archives portal, Magindia.com.

Madhukar Kamath, managing director & CEO, Mudra, told Business Standard, "There is a lot of back-end work that can be outsourced. We are on the verge of bagging a large outsourcing project" he said. Kamath, however, refused to spell out details.

The agency is also on the lookout for acquisitions to add to its ad archives portal, Magindia.com. Kamath said that the agency was in the process of working out a new strategy for the unit.

Mudra, which already has two smaller agencies, InteractVision in Delhi and the South and Canvas in Ahmedabad, is also looking at launching a third agency.

At a national level, Mudra already has smaller agencies to handle fewer dedicated clients such as Electrotherm and a part of the Adani Wilmar business. A third agency, DDB Mudra, will manage the J&J business initially.

Kamath said this was being done to increase focus on clients and ensure that there were no competitive overlaps in managing accounts.

The Mumbai operations are also being restructured with Aniruddha Banerjee, who recently took over as the agency's president overseeing the restructuring.

Post-restructuring, Mudra will have 12 strategic planners based out of Mumbai and 20 at the national level. Globally, this is a structure that Omnicom group agencies have gradually started moving towards, Kamath pointed out.

The company is also looking at increasing the number of specialised units under Mudra Marketing Services (MMS) to include retail, rural marketing, design units and public affairs.

MMS, which was set up about three years ago, today contributes 40 per cent to the group's total revenue and about 50 per cent of its bottom line. MMS includes units such as Tribal DDB India, Rapp Collins India, PrimeSite, Brand Therapist and Kidstuff Promos & Events.