Abstract

In 2008, Aarti Joshi, founder and CEO of Modak Analytics, returned to India after working in the data analytics space in the US for seven years. At that time, India's SMEs were unaware of the benefits of using their POS data to differentiate themselves from competition. Hence, Modak Analytics was incorporated to serve these SMEs.

However, soon the CEO realized the diminished potential of this target market, which was plagued by wafer thin profit margins, lack of long term strategy for their companies, and lack of awareness towards the benefits of big data analytics. Modak Analytics then started targeting the more attractive BFSI segment. The company soon developed advanced analytics products for this sector. Major ones included Enterprise Data Warehouse, RapidETL product, Master Data Management and Campaign Management System.

Modak Analytics' MDM software could help banks to achieve desired differentiation in the marketplace. This was possible due to the unique customer and household profiles that MDM helped create for the bank. The next step in the company's growth ladder came when Modak Analytics was asked by a bank to create profiles of not only its current customers, but also its potential customers. The exercise that started as data collection within the city of Hyderabad in India soon converted into a mammoth exercise when a pan-India political party approached Modak Analytics to do the voter profile analysis for the whole country. This was a herculean task as it involved deciphering the PDFs collected from electoral commission, which were in various languages and very heterogeneous from one state to another.

At the time of the case, Modak Analytics was at a crossroads with respect to its future business strategy. Modak Analytics can either specialize in data integration and target the big markets of Europe and the US or it can aim to become a leading data aggregating company in India, given its huge repository of Indian voter profiles.

Learning Objectives

1. Understand how to define a relevant industry and how to determine which industry (industries) or industry segments are more or less attractive given the resources and capabilities of this organization.
2. Demonstrate that the ideas of coherence in corporate strategy also apply (with relevantly defined objectives) in the context of entrepreneurial organizations where the seeds of future corporation are being sown.