The Disruptive Business Strategist

Kanika Agarwal, Founder & CEO – Passion Peers

Kanika believes that if businesses want to transform they need to do things very differently. And it all starts with people. A trusted digital transformation expert, thought leader and a mentor to the next generation of marketers and entrepreneurs, Kanika caught up fast with the startup culture in Asia, to build her own venture – Passion Peers. Passion Peers was a result of Kanika’s core belief in how digital transformation is going to change the business- customer relationship and the gaps she saw in the current existing agency models.

Passion Peers is a digital transformation consulting, agency and platform services company. “We are often misunderstood as another digital marketing agency, and this is largely due to the lack of understanding of digital transformation in the industry which is now improving”, says Kanika.

While pursuing bachelors at Singapore, she was handling consumer marketing for 12 APAC markets and was also a Digital Marketing Trainer with a couple of organizations teaching Post graduate students about Digital Marketing. Kanika started experimenting with cool technologies and did an intensive research on the digital landscape of Asia and to get some experience of working in different industries, she joined GroupM.

After covering every niche of digital transformation, from implementing digital technologies to transforming business culture, now she is building an ecosystem of subscription model services and IOT implementation services for MNC brands and SMEs.

Besides this Kanika is an amateur Muay Thai fighter and a weekly darts player. Read the feature to know more about Kanika Agarwal and her entrepreneurial journey, shared with team of ABT.

Who is your greatest inspiration & why?
Two people inspire me the most in my life. First my mom, from handling a big household to being a brave and respected leader in her company, my mother never stops. She has taught me an important skill – of making every moment count in your life and never giving up whatever the circumstance may be. Second is Virat Kohli. I know an obvious answer from many youth around the world, but his dedication on the field energizes me. I had read this somewhere that many have the talent and ability, but if one has the HUNGER, GRIT and BELIEF like Virat Kohli, you can go a long way.
These two people teach me how to be authentic and never give up until you win.

What led you to take the path of entrepreneurship?
To have something of my own inwhich if I fail or succeed, would be as a result of my decisions; to learn a lot quickly and every day, to do things differently and innovatively and to take my career literally in my own hands.

Tell us about the services offered by Passion Peers
Our services are divided into four pillars namely-
a) Re-envisioning Customer Experience which includes – Design Thinking, Customer Journey mapping, Digital Marketing and analytics, User Experience, Digital Business Strategy etc. It comprises of everything that a CMO needs in his toolbox for today’s connected customer.
b) Implementing Digital Technologies which comprises of building IOT solutions platforms, data marketplaces and latest technology led platforms for brands
c) Evolving Business Models- we pioneer in providing end to end ecommerce solutions including stock management and logistics, on-demand platforms like subscription model services.
d) People Transformation with a key focus on enabling digital mindset in organizations.

Passion Pioneers was started in 2016 and within a short span, we built a strong clientele ranging from luxury retail, FMCG, automotive, personal transportation, health & wellness to building materials industry. Built on a concrete amalgam of full time and remote working employees, our lean structure and capabilities make us a futuristic company with tailored and flexible solutions for our clients. Besides a retainer model, we also engage with clients on profit – sharing model which promises accountability and performance.

Do you feel privileged as a Woman Entrepreneur? Tell us about challenges, if any.
I feel privileged as an entrepreneur. I don’t like to specifically call out myself as a woman entrepreneur because if you start to distinguish yourself on basis of your gender, it will give more a reason for the society to do so. I face a lot of challenges in business everyday but not because I am a woman entrepreneur. It is more to do with the work and industry I am in.

What’s your philosophy when it comes to doing business?
There is a thin line in disrupting and being disrupted. Listen to what clients and industry want and think ahead.

Can you recall any one proud moment / milestone from your journey so far?
Every time our clients feel happy about any big project we executed and that have yielded them great results, I feel proud. When my team expresses that they feel fortunate to be a part of Passion Peers, I feel proud. There are a lot of other milestones that I still await for as we are a young fast disrupting company.

What would you like to achieve in the coming years?
Well I have a long list of things I want to achieve in the coming years. For myself, I want to make it to the Forbes Global 30 under 30 before I turn 30! I have also been working on a book and hope that I can find more time to complete it and launch it soon. On a personal level I want to achieve a greater peace of mind and hence make time to learn meditation and practice it regularly.

For Passion Peers, we are working on a lot of digital tech led platforms for companies and our next step is to make them proprietary platforms. I want Passion Peers to become the go-to company for CXOs be it CEOs, CMOs or CIOs, offering them one stop tailored solutions for their digital business transformation needs.

I am also soon launching two more new businesses with one of them complementing the ecommerce ecosystem and the other one which is very close to my heart because it is for a cause my mom believes in and would like to work in after her retirement. So the latter will be a tribute to her. Details of both will be launching soon and I am really excited about it.The post The Disruptive Business Strategist appeared first on Top Asia Business News, Trends, Insights & Analysis.