 DC said I love to pay him a lot more money if he doesn't get lots of applause So I can distribute the same money to you. So can you give me a big round of applause? Thank you so much. Thank you bigger round after lunch, you know, it might be even better to kind of stretch I know it's a It's a after lunch session DC first of all good to see you you worked in multiple sectors you started in FMCG you went to retail You then are back in a sector, which is the One of those sectors that is growing. It's literally sunrise and you know There is a new sunrise every day this week. There was a new EV policy I was everything to it in the morning and whenever we talk of brands we talk of sustainability We're talk of contributing to the earth You now work with new go which is building a new ecosystem For buses for mobility Tell us tell the audience a bit about what is new go and what you're trying to do with new go. Thanks, Anurag Thanks for having me here and so new go is It's a mass mobility what we call emas which is electric mobility as a service and India is at a cusp on rug now Like you've seen the way the roads have become or the expressways have come What happened to the u.s. In 1920s and 30s? What happened in the rest of the world in 50s and 60s and What covert is also done is people want to travel and people want to see India now like as much as they were like wanting to go abroad and India you will be surprised has 800,000 private buses When you if you want to go from like Bombay to Pune or Delhi to Jaipur Delhi to Chandigarh or wherever Chennai Hyderabad But you have airlines and you have one day Bharat kind of trains, but you don't have an experience on the road in buses The way Indians deserve now. So what you go is doing is first of all, it's completely electric bus so there's no emissions good for the planet and We are building a world-class customer experience starting with lounges The lounges are as good as the lounge where we walk like something like this where people don't have to stand on The road if it's it's rainy season if it's sunny, you know, maybe there's no bus shelter. Sometimes there is everything is digital and it fits your theme so well on customer and I'll surprise you that There's not even a penny of cash exchanged 82% of booking is online 18% is through agents, which is also online So it's completely tech. The bus is a piece of technology. There are 26 features Our coach captain who's who drives the bus Actually in full public view for safety takes a breath analyzer test. Nobody does that Right, and if the laws are that you can't go beyond 80 or 100 kilometers per hour on that expressway or that road We won't go that it's like locked, right? There's a governor. There's a go. Yeah, absolutely. So you can't even go. There are six cameras and From the moment you book online You can track the bus if you're sitting here right now and the bus is supposed to come Let's say half a kilometer from baby are near the airport You can see on GPS tracking where the bus is moving and at what second it'll reach there So you can time your own travel to the point at that moment and we're in the bus You can share your trip and somebody can see where you're going. So that's so much so on safety What we are also doing is in intercity in the world There is nobody in EVs who's doing range like which we're doing There is something called range anxiety in EVs like some there at least till two three as a back people used to worry Oh my whatever range runs out of the charge runs out. Let me surprise you we run more than thousand buses a day Which is new go plus the ones we run for the state and roughly if we are moving roughly around 1.3 to 1.4 Lack people every day put together Wow and on the new go side Not that we found any because it's a very unorganized industry and there's no brand in India Which does it on the bus side? There is no company in the world which does intercity So world over if you see like in London or New York or in Delhi Bombay The buses like BST in Bombay or DTC in Delhi they do within the city We're the only one who does from city to city and our average bus does 600 kilometers a day on electric charge and Women safety is such a big deal for us. I'll come to the yeah So that's what new goes. It's a platform, right? So like it's it's a completely it's a completely technology driven customer experience You know you call it as the electricity mobility as a service. Yeah, so E mass like mobility as a service and electric mobility as a service absolutely Now, you know life is about aspirations. You know people buy a certain car. They want to upgrade the buy certain house They want to upgrade They have a certain phone brand. They want to upgrade in India. Somehow bus travel is not seen as You know up there so to say it's not seen as you know aspirational if I may use the word With new go you're trying to change that right from the lounges to the quality of buses To the overall experience Do you think the movement from airlines to Train that happened the next moment is from even effluent customers feeling comfortable traveling in buses Anurag, you're so right and can I surprise you that 70% between 7 to 75% of India every day in India moves in buses and It's not a very pleasant experience And what we've done in planes and train is yet to be replicated At least of that class of customer experience worldwide if you see there is Flix bus in Europe, right? There are brands There's a big brand in the US also in India It's like currently very fragmented and if I ask you that name three brands of airline You can if I ask you name three brands of train even in train. You'll say Shatabdi Vande Bharat Rajdhani some some and these are good trains right these but if I ask you name a National good coach bus service which can take you from Bombay to Goa or wherever from Chennai to Hyderabad We'd like to take a flight we know at least I never think of taking a bus Yeah, can you guys not a bus brand which you go from one city to another? So red bus is a platform red bus is not a bus red bus is like an Amazon. It's a it's a market aggregator New go is one of the biggest players on red bus on PTM. So red bus is an app They don't run buses any other take City flow is yeah, it's within city. It's not into city It's within city and within city there are most cities have EVs But like from Chennai to Hyderabad or Bangalore to Hyderabad or any city to end like we run from Delhi to Shimla Also in the hills nobody does that. So there is no brand not in India or in the world actually nowhere and That's what we're trying to do and to an Iraq answer you Somebody has to start and this needs creating an ecosystem and the lot of capex Because this is not like a diesel bus that you stop anywhere and you put diesel and you can park the bus on the road No, you have to charge it So you need to plan a midpoint Where when people get down for lunch or dinner when you travel for so many hundred kilometers You tie up that lunch or dinner, you know a bio break you put up a charging infra there Then at the end there's a charging infra. So that needs a lot of investments, but then it's a seamless journey So you can't just it's not just like you buy an EV car of the of the shelf of a showroom and then start driving No, you got a built-in ecosystem of chargers depots training maintenance Coach captains. So I think that's what we are trying to do DC again There's a new class of Travelers these are solo women travelers and women from why understanding are very apprehensive traveling in a bus for various Historical reason now when we are looking at the kind of customers you go has almost 30% of your customers are women What have you done to be able to attract Almost 30% as your customers. So if you absolutely are again This is what we want to change because we are an ESG company and we are electric and we want to create change If you go on our Instagram handle anyone of you can go on you go right now You will see most of the post most of them are about women In fact, we just partnered with Delhi capital Which went into the final this Sunday itself And you go partnered with them, which is a women's Cricket team right WPL Tomorrow we are releasing something big with two of the women Celebrities on safety in our buses If you go and make a booking if any women goes to on the and by the way the booking is like an airline You go on the app the chart will come you can cheat seat one a1 b2 a2 b if a women books a seat The next seat cannot be booked by a male We'd rather let it go empty or only another woman can book it Then there's a separate helpline only for women. You can see it on our app or when you book you'll get a number and Here's what we do from our call center We know the PNR and you can study a PNR that suppose you've booked and you have a family You have four people traveling on the same PNR, right or different PNR But the same payment you your wife and two kids Let's say but if I have a peanut with only one woman then I know mostly she's traveling alone So that data calls out in the system through analytics and we call them Because we know everything is digital the bus is about to start so within the first 20 minutes of the bus journey starting Our team will call them on the phone and say hey miss so-and-so We are here to help you and the bus has so many features. There's a bit analyze a test There's artificial intelligence camera in front of the coach captain even if he yawns It's in real time the picture goes to our command center and the host from safety safety So suppose you're driving in the night and you're feeling sleepy and That camera will capture and immediately you'll get a the host will get a call and you have to stop the bus as per SOP Wash your face take a five-minute break. Otherwise, you can't drive the bus and All these feature we'll explain to the women. I don't think to the best of my knowledge people can Google We've tried nobody has 30% women occupancy on buses intercity, which a lot of buses travel all night We started a year back at 17% today. We're at 31 I have told my team like I'd love it if they can do it 40 There should be like a dream in the world that women feel safe to travel in our buses across the country And that'll be a dream for us. Thank you DC again. I would tell you a personal story. How many of you? Shifted to Mumbai from Delhi who live in now in Mumbai, but originally from Delhi one person To I would tell you I started with novel I started exchange from he did 23 plus years back and I you know, I was single novel was single So we took a house in Juhu and we had to travel for work and I was 28 now almost 26 and 28 and a half and I was 26 and a half He was 25 and a half sorry and you know we used to Travel used to somebody told us there is an AC bus from Juhu to Marine marine lines, you know sometimes we'd go and and I travel by the bus It was okay. It was much better than the The AC coaches in the met, you know, there was no matter whatever And I said I cannot live in the Bombay novel you live in Bombay. I'm very happy living in Delhi So imagine if we had convenient travel second is when I was younger I've Traveled only on two routes by bus one is actually three one is Volvo buses that go to Jaipur in the night There is Volvo buses to Shimla and that side and once to Chandigarh long time back more like 30 But you know, it is not even in my consideration set. You have to go to Chandigarh. I think of Shatabdi. I don't think of a bus So how do you change this consumer behavior? One is you upgrading the buses Sustainability consciousness electric buses better quality of drivers safety Electronic navigation lounges, which are good. So do you think the numbers that travel by bus save their x? When how are they likely to move up in the next 12 24 36 months? So fantastic first of all my stories like you I came at Rather than 28 or like novel 25 and a half 25 and a half from Delhi to Bombay, but I stayed for many years After China India has the highest number of buses in the world on the road and Despite a massive railroad network Every day in India more than 70% people even today travel by bus So you don't have to convert people. It is an ssd Right like I'll give you an example You want to go from Delhi to Chandigarh even I used to travel in my first job Asian planes from Delhi to Chandigarh The shatab the only goes at 7 30 in the morning If you want to go from Bhopal to Indore, there's train at one time now from Bhopal to Indore I have 40 buses leaving every half an hour Every half an hour, so you don't have to go at 7 30 Bhopal to Indore Indore to Bob so and how much time travel time can I surprise you if you Google right now Hopefully I should be right. I have not checked it in a couple of days, but for one day Bharat, just Google Indore Bhopal or Bhopal and the ticket should be between 800 to 1000 rupees Our bus is like world-class and the ticket will be 400 400 and Bottom of the pyramid and you know Indians are value-conscious. Let's be very so if there is safety if there is Customer experience and the biggest thing is you choose your time in train Every half an hour train is not leaving from Delhi to Chandigarh. I should have these not gonna go But for me every half an hour, there's a bus from Delhi to Chandigarh and half an hour 20 times I'm going from Delhi to Chandigarh and 20 times from Chandigarh to Delhi. So you and here's the here's the data I'll tell you in trains Bookings typically stop 12 days before the train goes 80% 90% people don't travel one day before train booking. So it's a very planned travel A-line happens till Three days back two days back the last two days the tickets goes up like three times. That's very few bookings Buses is the most convenient 80% of bus bookings in India happens in the last 24 hours and 36 hours So they are very different customer journeys So there's no overlap the customer journey is very different for an airline to a train to a bus And if you need flexibility suppose you've gone to Pune and you don't know what time you're gonna leave But you know between that one hour Right, you know, then you don't want to take a flight or a train, you know, there's a bus coming every half an hour And we have Pune Bombay. We haven't started Pune Bombay. That's the most part of the world No, but in we are in many in the country. We are like in Hyderabad Chennai Bangalore MP Surat Indore Bhopal Delhi Haridwar Rishikesh Lucknow most but not in Bombay Pune, but we will come we we have our services in Maharashtra from Pune We go many cities From Pune to Solapur and Madnagar, but Bombay we haven't yet started we will in time. So and you have Pune to Shirdi Pune to Shirdi we have to start. So I'll do these are you should be very popular, right? I know. I know. I know. I know Now again, you know customer experience something which most Intercity travel companies don't talk about I mean In you talk because there are no brands who will talk about there are no brands So that's why I see 800,000 buses. Can I surprise you the total addressable market if somebody is like When you do a startup pitch or a deck you always write time Today as per McKinsey, it's 55 to 60 billion dollar is India's bus travel every year and there's no brand and By 2030 it will be a hundred billion US dollar market, and this is McKinsey's number Imagine the potential Imagine if 800,000 buses and on top of this 160,000 buses which the government runs on state transport within city and across Add together a million buses and the government is very clear. They want to electrify it They've started with the fame scheme and now they also want to make Intercity electric so I think next ten years This is gonna like change the way Indians travel and Indians want to travel better. We know it now You know as we started our theme is leveraging technology to drive customer centricity As I said you work the cross FMCG retail and now in the UV space with green cell mobility Why do you think it's important for brands across sectors? I mean I was at a real estate conference of ours in Calcutta and developers were talking about You know being customer centric because in the past whatever you built it sold, you know scarcity You built it a certain price point it sold but today amongst good developers So they're talking about what does the consumer want? So why do you think? From your own journey. It's important for all brands to be very customer centric See the biggest thing brands are built and that cuts across all the industries which we spoke about is trust the number one thing today the biggest problem in the bus industries that if you go and if till the bus is 60 70% full the bus will keep waiting and the the guy will keep saying I don't know because they won't start because then the bus won't make that route won't make money for us 96 buses leave on time 96% we still fail on 4% for whatever reasons we do 96% time means if it's 305 the bus will leave at 305 and I'm saying it in public people can try it That's the biggest problem now when you said real estate Why do people when deal if launches in good gone or go to rich properties or micro tech or prestige in Bangalore launches or show They're sold out because with other builders people aren't sure that if they do pre-booking whether the building will complete or not But there are a lot of things that got sorted. Yes, but these were issues Real issues, but that's where brand comes in. So what you build in a brand is trust Convenience and a promise that what you what you say you will deliver. I Think that is why you need brands and it is no different like a soap or a shampoo or a house or a real estate or a bus or a plane The best airline in India is built on being on time Recently three four months back. There was a problem, but they've promised to fix it But over the last in 15 years, they've delivered Fantastic airline. Absolutely. It's a friend. Anybody can run into a couple of months. Mostly. They're very soft to them. Absolutely I only fly India. Yeah, so I think building a brand is building trust with consumers, especially overnight travel women traveling alone sometimes You know at which restaurant we'll stop You know one of the biggest challenges on rock. We're trying to solve you laugh It's not my problem. Oh, what's it? It's washroom on the midpoint. So we urge the restaurants where we stop our buses Where people eat? Keep a washroom, please. And now you laugh. We have a nap My tracks watch you take pictures when people are not and make sure that they're clean Because the only problem people say women is the washrooms aren't clean. No, it's not my restaurant It's a very important thing, but I'm choosing to stop it. I must take ownership. So that's what we are driving Hopefully, I'm not saying 100% we'll be able to address it But I think today with 80% people are getting more and more aware. That's how the journey changes So dc again In the morning, Mr. Chagraj, you know bluestar was there. He said As the marketers go up the ladder They're mostly based in delhi bangalore Bombay they don't travel to Where the customers are especially they are in tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, tier 5 cities How many times do you travel by new go? End number of times. My last journey was bhopal indore So I'm not gonna name because I'm between delhi and bombay mostly In bangalore, I took a trip And this is recent ones You really don't get the pulse of the consumer till you sit with them and travel Can I also surprise you today? Women as a host in india is not even a concept Today in asia book of records and india book of rewards We have coach captains women who drive these buses these 18 ton 12 and a half meter long bus with 45 people in it within cities And we have 60 women as host in the bus So much so is the change we are bringing and you don't come to the problems till you're in the bus There are small small nuances Like every glass has that hammer that you know something goes wrong you break it But where you place it also people will give you feedback that they can't reach So where do you place it? Only when you talk to people and don't you tend who you are you learn the feedback In the last 16 years, I haven't owned a car. I only travel uber Yeah, I only travel uber So I talk to all of them and learn a lot I I talk to them And whatever's happening in the city or whatever the troubles or what is happening I mean you learn a lot from them. So I think that's how you learn Fantastic, I know again you mentioned about your partnership with the certain team in women's cricket And Chennai NFC also the football team and with the sports Uh to effectively build A mobility plan electron, you know electric mobility as a service brand Why sports and what are your learnings and dividends from it? So this is uh, I don't think this was very planned But it happened with one team which approached us saying that can you give us your ev bus? One of the Big teams said that when our players are going from the hotel to practice every day for the match and when they go for the rail game They want to be sustainable and use the bus and they branded the whole bus with the new go and their own logo And then we realized this is a very big one. So now we've tied up with most of them Even Haryana Hurricanes, Kabaddi team And that's why yeah, so you know that so even they are we have partnered with them So they travel in the buses across when they're going for games and matches And if they're living in Delhi and they're going to Haryana somewhere in a match Then they use the bus and the buses go branded So it's in itself mobility, right? You're moving So it makes a lot of sense DC, uh, you've been in leadership positions for many years What I asked this to mr. Thaag Rajan and asking this to you What is your advice to cmo there? There are lots of cmo's who've spoken in the morning some are speaking post you and in the evening with Cmo awards. What is your advice to cmo's who aspire to become CEOs? So I don't think I'm going to say something which is new. I'm sure you know it I think the the challenge is in executing it. I think be authentic I think it's really it's a very simple word, but it's very difficult to do I think you have to be truly authentic today Whether it's your team Or whether it's your consumer they can see it through Earlier when we started as young or even before our time marketing was also seen as gay like Impress Karnay or like, you know sometimes to stretch the limit, which is not even real like Today there's ascii and there's a lot of things you read about that brands may claim which can be questioned that truly Do you even deliver that you drink this and your height will go two inches dollar? You can't do that anymore So be authentic. I think cmo's have a great chance to become CEOs because The real business comes if you understand the consumer and the consumer is paying for everybody's salary when they pay From their wallet and nobody better can understand the business than a cmo But you need to be authentic and you need to also Where I see a lot of cmo's not putting effort is to understand a pnl like Their best friend is not a cfo They're mostly on cross on Like, you know paying their vendors on time or you know contracts or negotiating I think understanding pnl is very important because that's where you connect When you spend money on marketing or whether it's a customer acquisition cost or your campaign How does it impact the revenue because earlier When digital marketing was not there and performance marketing was not there There was a joke that marketing monies work, which half we don't know but today we know Today we know most and most companies are moving towards digital So I think work with the cfo's and if somebody has understanding of finance And understand understanding of the consumer I see no reason why why all cmo's can't become CEOs. Anurag, that's what I'll say My last question and I'll bring the audience that we have Very little time What are the two three trends that you see in business in future Which impact the job of market here that everybody at a cxO level For example, sustainability is a big movement for at least two decades. We've been talking about brands having a purpose beyond profits top line bottom line What are the Generative is changing the way we look at data the way we are able to look at trends the way are we are able to do certain tasks You know, we can have a separate session on agency of the future because A lot of tools can generate Creative so what is happening in business beyond sustainability beyond generative AI? So I think I think it truly is taking shape that business role is to make money But no more at any cost And the younger generation like my children and I used to test them and I don't want to get into an example But I remember challenging my daughter once because she was doing something on sustainability And I told and I thought you do dochar din ka hai bhoot utar jaayega, you know when she was working on something very hard I said, oh really? She was a teenager and then for a month. She kept working and I thought seriously And then for six months she worked on it And then I sat down with her and saw heard what her friends are doing. This generation is different anurag We've grown up differently. We are inducting ourselves into Sustainable because it's the in thing the generation which is coming now. They truly believe in it So the whole world will have because there's no choice otherwise It's not global warming. It's a global warning actually You see the way climate thing is And somewhere we have to start right the other is I see a lot of senior people Not investing enough time in data analytics and understanding. What is AI? Everybody will know. What is a what is generative AI? But can I ask how many of you have an account On generative AI or chat gpt? How many of you have actually used chat gpt? Not bad. Not bad. That's like 60% and I asked this question in the morning dc At 60% is very no no not this because these are cms you go to other functions How many paid users for chat gpt pro? In the world guess no, I don't know take a guess You'll be wrong. But take a guess must be in millions. How many 10 million 188 million. I haven't Google paid. Wow. That's paid for chat gpt pro. I'm not talking free And Google it It may have moved that's humongous So humongous they're doing billions of dollars of revenue in a month So if people people are paying for it and what's happening to nvidia, the world is moving so quickly You know analysts are saying at current prices also the nvidia chip You know stock is undervalued Yeah, and nvidia is like it's undervalued. So where is it going to go? nvidia's market cap is nearly as big or little near our country's gdp around three three and a half trillion And that's what's the change the change is happening so fast and rag So it's not about whether being AI or digital or analyst or tech or sustainable or esg or evs or whatever or you know hydrogen It is the speed of change. Can you catch up? I think as leaders that is the challenge we all will face. How can we unlearn? How can we let other people do and this unlearning is very difficult You know There is a oxymoronish behavior Now when we talk of let's say blockchain we talk of humongous amounts of you know mining And then mining has issues for environment We're talking of ai jena. I the amount of computing power you to invest in size of football fields now that the amount of consumption of energy again is very also It's a trade-off Andra and I totally get it you have to start somewhere even in evs today the power you draw 80% is Conventional 20% is renewable But it's from outside the city and within city. You're not doing pollution We've tied up and invested in a one megawatt plant where we'll be using solar and wind to even charge our buses But rome was not built in a day. See at a snapshot if you take we say like this that Arey, but you're using this But overnight you can't build end to end everything. It takes billions of years overnight Yeah, so you started at one point and the whole renewable sector is also growing Wind solar and you can't switch off growing so they will connect someday and it'll all but it's going to take time Thank you dc for being honest and candid and authentic