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Interviewer:
There are some businesses that touch the day to day lives for a variety of reasons. One is because we use those services on a day to day basis and also because they often tend to be in the news. So, one of those industries is obviously, the airline industry in India there going to be talking to someone who's been a part of the airline industry. This crazy industry where there is so much happening on a day-To-day basis with that I welcome Sachet, Sachet thanks a lot for doing this with us. So really excited to be talking about your journey at TAS.
Interviewee:
Thank you so much for having me here.
Interviewer:
Sachet to begin with before you started your professional journey what's your educational background been like?
Interviewee:
So I'm a defense kid, so I roamed middle of the country, studied in different schools, army schools, air force schools. And finally, when I came to class fourth is when I came to Delhi when my dad got posted here and been a delicate since tenth. I'm an electronics and communication engineer with NSIT post that I joined Deloitte. I was working in Hyderabad for the Deloitte US Arm. And that's when, you know, while I was in NSIT, I understood that, you know, everybody was talking about marketing. And I know that coding wasn't meant for me. That's when I decided that, Okay. You know, the next route for me is a post tried, which is in MBA and which is where I started preparing for my you know, for my CAT and XAT. And every other exam. Post that I got into IIFT I did my calculations there being an engineer and I understood that, you know, of this is it. I will join IIFT. The credentials were great. And, you know, the kind of exposure that I was getting in IIFT was amazing.
Interviewer:
How did Titan happen then? What were some of the arguments in favor of Titan when you were considering that offer?
Interviewee:
See very simple for me it was a dream company for me. It’s a Tata group company. And that's one thing I've always failed on since my childhood, which is, you know, have your minimal spirit and have your ethical spirit. It was a no gainer. So I joined Titan and that's when the journey started.
Interviewer:
When is it that you decided to apply for the TAS Program? What was the impetus which made you think that maybe I should apply for the TAS program?
Interviewee:
We got a mail that you know, there's an in-house process which is happening and you give your GMAT and everything, I give my GMAT I prepared for like 20 days. So there's a minimum cut of, which is fairly easy. It's a 650 cut of which they generally have it's fairly easy to crack.
Interviewer:
So you got into TAS how did life change after you were into TAS?
Interviewee:
So before TAS I was in Varanasi. I was handling sales for Tanishq in eastern U.P and from there to TAS was quite a journey. You don't have to keep proving yourselves everywhere you go. There's always, you know, a basic minimum that you will adhere to. And it's not liked every day there's an IQ check that's happening. So the credentials are proven. Now it's about living up to those credentials.
Interviewer:
It goes to the moment when you got to know that you've been placed in the TATA. What was your reaction? What were your initial thoughts?
Interviewee:
Okay, so coming from a B2C background. So I was had two things in my mind. It has to be a sales or a marketing driven role, has to be a B2C, you know, company or a role that I do it. So while there are a lot of companies ever coming up with roles, I had finally shortlisted for Tata DoCoMo at that point of time. About a couple of roles from there which I had interviewed for I had cleared. And the startup happened to just open up their doors later on. So while I was all set to go to Tata DoCoMo as a product manager. Which Tata came up and which is where I realized that, you know, my Dad is from the aviation, he's a fighter pilot. So I've always dreamt of becoming a pilot. I couldn't because of unforeseen circumstances, but it's always there in my heart. So, aviation with B2C with marketing. I thought that There's nothing better than this.
Interviewer:
You're a marketing guy. You understand brands, etc. Tell us what does the Vistara brand stand for?
Interviewee:
The study is basically a joint venture between Tata Sons and the Singapore Airlines. So it's an amalgamation of these two big brands coming in and forming an airline. Trying to set a standard which has not been seen in India earlier. If you look at the Yantra, the Yantra itself is, you know, has been designed specifically for Vistara as far. And it's unique. And now wherever you see the Yantra, you know that, it's the Vistara Yantra that we are talking about. The colour we don't call it purple or and you know, that's a typical name, too, and it's called aubergine. We are very particular about the RGB. So the RGB is how you define a color. The red, blue and the green components in the colour make eventually all between what it is.
Interviewer:
You must be making agency guys life hell.
Interviewee:
Well, I think they better know what RGB’s are. You know they are very particular about the brand colour. Same as with us. You know, whenever you're talking about or any creator that goes out in the market has to adhere to the brand guidelines been set up.
Interviewer:
I'm not sure our audience is more different between full service carrier and budget carrier. So do a little bit of a recce on that before you get into it.
Interviewee:
Carrier is a primarily divided into two categories full service career and low cost carriers. So, when you look at, let's say Indigo and Go-Air and Spice jet, they primarily started off as low-cost carriers, whereas Air India, Jet Airways, Vistara are full-service carriers. For a customer to easily understand what a full-service carrier is, when you get meal. Jo Khana Khilata hai. Jo free mai apko khana khilate hai is a full service carrier primarily, however that is not the only thing that a full Service carrier provides. A full service carrier means the entire gambit of, you know, aspects that come with it, which is, you know, there's a when you moves up that years when you are a frequent flyer, you have free ID check and you have lounge access, you have increased baggage allowance.
Interviewer:
Sachet, there's so many airlines. I think most of the airlines have frequent flyer loyalty programs. What is the business logic behind having these programs?
Interviewee:
See for any airline. What's their core target? It's to acquire more customers. So customer acquisition is the first and foremost job that any airline would have. The second is retention and engagement. So when you have all three of them, then let's say you're not a frequent flyer program. You're not part of a program as such. You book a ticket and you fly and that's why your journeys end. But for an airline to track, how many times have you flown with us to reward you for your loyalty and to entice you to, you know, fly the airplane again? You have a loyalty program. What does it do? It acquires customers. You'll spread the word about publicity, about the airline. It engages with you. And it also retains you. How does it engage with you? Let's say you're flying from Delhi to Bombay and you get an email which says that you know here is a complimentary upgrade offer for you. And that is because you're a part of the loyalty program. So that is where it is engaging with you and to retain you. Let's see that. You know, you've not been playing with me for the last six months. I go back and understand why is it that, you know, I've been saying with me, let's see you are a deal seeker. So, I through a deal at you that, you know, the next time you want to book my airline, I give you an x% off and you come back in default. So it's a whole journey that we try and track. And data is coming right now. So you're not a loyalty program primarily is data for the company.
Interviewee:
So when you say everybody's a deal seeker, that's one segment that you're talking about. But when you look at the entire universe, it’s split into several segments. And deal seeker is one segment of it? But there are also other people who look at service, who look at, you know, am I being treated differently because I've been flying with them for the last hundred times I've flown.
Interviewer:
Right.
Interviewee:
So is there some kind of a differentiation that these people are offering? So that's another set of people. Also, when you see that there's a difference between full service carrier and a low cost carrier. There is a lot of difference and I tell you how, then you say there's no inside entertainment, there is inside entertainment in the startup. Maybe not in the other airlines. So it's the product which is going to differentiate or be the deciding factor for the customer. The kind of offers that you give, which is primarily targeting to the deal seeker but there's another way to target people for not doing sequels. Let’s say the kind of, you know, privileges or the benefits that you give. If they give you a lounge access, that's not a deal. Okay. It’s an enhancement in a life style to give an upgrade. It's an enhancement in your life style. That's what we see the value of a frequent flyer program is. And it's all about customer stickiness.
Interviewer:
What do you think is the founding stone of a good loyalty program?
Interviewee:
I think it's very simple, when you fly you get enough points. Okay. And there's something called an onboard ratio, which means that your number of flights that you take and you earn points to the number of flights that you can fly for free using those points. Now, if you maintain a healthy balance over here the customer attraction remains and you as a customer is obviously understand that eight times I fly and the ninth flight is free for me. I think it's a good product for me.
Interviewer:
Sachet what are some of the metrics that you as someone who is trying to drive business for an airline? Would you be focusing on a day to day basis?
Interviewee:
Okay, so I think the first one is contribution to revenue, which is what percentage of the total revenue is coming from the club the sort of members. That's the foremost you know, KPI that look at the other is acquisition, which is how many people and what base of the total flyer, have I captured into the club the sort of program which is a acquisition for me.
Interviewer:
Now, I want to pull back and talk a little bit about this industry at this point of time. How attractive or exciting is it to be a part of this industry?
Interviewee:
See, I think this is an extremely exciting, period to be in the aviation industry and I will tell you why? One with Jet going away and Air India being the only other competitor it is kind of, you know, open skies for the starrer. We were earlier struggling with getting slots because, you know, most of the airports were running at full capacity. And these were really opened up for you know, chances for us to, you know, acquire the market the way you want to. What we've also noticed a start the brand acceptability has increased a lot. It's a lot more people are choosing the starrer or any other carrier. And how a competition is basically the economy class competes with the low cost carriers, whereas the premium economy is a new segment that we've created in the market, which was earlier not there and the business class competes with international carriers. The eventual aim for a full service carrier here in India is to, you know, do the long whole sector, which is from to fly to Europe and to the US from here.
Interviewer:
Sachet, a lot of our users often ask us what does a typical day look like for a lot of these managers that we interview?
Interviewee:
So basically what works for a manager here is how well your plans in terms of organizing? What you would do in that financial year? And not only that financial year but the year next because everything has a lead time to it. When you want to come up with some technological innovation. It's going to have resources, money to be and your time and your bandwidth. So if you're all planned you'll be able to execute the kind of things that you want to do. When I look at loyalty marketing, what does what all does it income first is one there is a main chunk of marketing which is communication. What does it that I send to the members? So does an analytics agency that I'm dealing with. They're the creative agency that you're dealing with. There are internal departments that we deal with. If I want to get something up on the website. Let's say I want to give an experience to you, which is only for you. But you come to my website for that. There's a segmented module that I have to put in, which is where I.T which is technology gets involved, which is where marketing team gets involved. There's a vetting of content, various approvals that are to be taken. So there are it's a piece of the puzzle which you have to stitch together to ensure that there's a seamless journey for the end user. The end users just want to see the final output. What goes behind is the string of activities that you're doing to ensure that it's seamless and zero error. So those are the kind of innovation activities that you need to keep on doing. There's several more which are in the pipeline, but it has to be planned well in advance in order to ensure that it gets executed.
Interviewer:
Guys here are the key take away from our discussion with Sachet. The first key takeaway in my opinion was that repeat business is very important in order for the airline business to thrive and by rewarding the customer for their loyalty to fly in a particular carrier. It makes them sticky to the company, resulting in providing more business to retain us. Second key takeaways that a loyalty program is data for a company every detail of a customer their preference of flight times, frequency of taking of offers and booking flights helps in creating a database that just does not help in creating a loyal pull of followers, but also gives a lot of intelligence in terms of designing future flights and future schedules. The third key takeaways that there are different kind of consumers who are looking for a different kind of offering from companies. Some may be looking for discounts, while some may be looking for comfort and exclusivity. Thus, in any business, you need to understand the kind of services your customers are looking for and segment them and then create a niche for yourself. The final takeaway is that when you are a new player in the market, you tend to lose out on the best slots. The incumbents. But with time things move in the corporate sector and sometimes being a late entrance becomes an opportunity when one of the incumbents is going through some trouble. So those are the key takeaways from our session with Sachet. You know the good part about a good manager is that that is structured in the way he thinks. And the good part about a good manager with great communication skills is that he can put the structure out there. He can tell you that this is how I break down a task and this is how I make decisions. And I really appreciate Sachet because you've been able to do that and we've been able to been from you exactly how you go about doing this is very interesting thing with Vistara. So thank you so much for doing this for us.
Interviewee:
Thanks a lot.
Interviewer:
I appreciate you taking our time on Saturday for us. Thank you so much.
Interviewee:
My pleasure. Thank you