 Also coming forward is our next speaker session, so I hope all of you are geared up and ready for it. As I welcome Ms. Richa Arora, managing partner and CEO, ESG Stewardship Services, eCube Investment Advisors. Ms. Richa has recently joined investment advisors as managing partner and CEO ESG Stewardship Services in this entrepreneurial venture and it is to drive the strategy and implementation of environmental, social governance, assessment and engagement. Prior to eCube, Richa was with the Tata Group where as a COO, she led the transformation of the consumer business of Tata Chemicals, launching Tata Sampan and building the food portfolio beyond salt. In her last role at the Tata Group as President Packaged Foods, Tata Consumer Products Limited, she was responsible for driving the packaged foods business in India. Today here on this forum, she will be speaking on the topic of new frontiers, how in-housing is changing digital marketplace. So a very warm welcome to Richa and I welcome you on screen. Thank you so much for that introduction, Khyati and good evening to all and a pleasure to be here at Exchange for Media's E-Tech Munch. My sincere compliments first to the team at Exchange for Media for keeping the attention and learning on digital as an ongoing agenda. It is much required in the ever-changing digital landscape which I caught the tail end of the previous panel discussion. So this is something which is not constant and I think everyone is trying to learn from everybody and this forum is a great place to do that. So happy to share my thoughts. So when we talk about in-housing, for me it was interesting to see some of the data there. Globally 70 to 80% of the firms have moved to in-housing, the technology that really serves digital marketing. There's no kind of really published data in India but I would imagine that it will be lower than 70 to 80%. But the trend towards it is I would say in some ways unmistakable. Certainly many of the large players have already moved in this direction or in the process of doing so in the coming months and years and I think many will follow suit. And I think this is happening because as organisations go up the learning curve on digital and want to connect more emphatically and empathetically with consumers, in-housing in some sense comes into play. So when we say how in-housing is changing digital marketing, all the reasons why in-housing is gathering momentum are also pointers to the impact of in-housing on digital marketing on how it's really changing digital marketing. And as I see it, there are five distinct advantages there of in-housing. The first one is what I call one data. It is in a lot of ways imperative for all the technologies used in digital marketing whether it's the ad servers, the DSP, the DMVs to talk to each other. If data is sitting separately, the utility of that data is severely limited. We know we live in an era of information and data explosion. It's very easy to generate vast streams of data today, but different data sources need to talk to each other and they need to be well integrated in order to maximise the utility of the data and the impact therefore that the data can create. So data integration and that one view on data is prime and I think in-housing enables that to happen more effectively and efficiently. The second part is also a data-related aspect and that is of course the access to first party data which in-housing in a lot of ways and of cements and you know with the way, virtual ways of living and working and increasing number of companies going the direct consumer way and setting up their own online platforms for purchase beyond availability in e-commerce platforms. This ownership of first party data becomes even more vital. So it's really about you know being very sharply in tune with the marketing funnel at every stage of the consumer cycle and journey which becomes therefore more efficient when you have the first party data because your targeting is much sharper and much focused. I think there's a bit of a softer aspect here if I may call it that, but it's critical because I believe that having the data in-hounds also encourages more experimentation with data because you know the creativity of exploration, the slicing and dicing of the data to understand drivers of behavior and buying will happen a lot more when you have the data sitting there and given the fact that consumer behavior and buying is so dynamic today and digital how they interact with it and kind of consume that medium is evolving every day. So data immersion will lead to data mining which will lead to more creative solutions I believe more impactful solutions and more efficient solutions. So this whole aspect of access to first party data, this whole softer aspect of you know immersion and data which is there in-hounds is the way forward with it leading to a lot more impactful and efficient solutions. The third aspect you know and data you know as I said there's lots of data available but when you marry that data immersion with brand immersion you get sharper more meaningful messaging you get greater brand impact which will over a period of time lead to better ROI. So really the third area is about brand integration and how we are able to boost that data when you have you know with in-housing that becomes a lot more integral to the brand and a lot more integral to the brand and marketing teams and again here I think whether to call it a software aspect or not while we talk a lot about artificial intelligence and machine learning there is a lot to be said about human learning and when you have an in-house team which has to begin with a shared vision of the brand and then the custodians of the brand and their understanding of what is what are the kind of key buttons on the brand is very very sharp and then you have the constant flow of integrated data. I think the ability of the marketing teams to sharpen messages for a wide range of cohorts will improve dramatically over time and so you know it's not three segments or four segments there are four hots I mean really a market of one is what is going to be there for many categories. So human learning will be sharper and faster with in-housing and people who are ahead on this journey do testify to the fact that yes they do find a qualitative difference in the quality of insights and the quality of therefore connects which are designed when there is in-housing. I would say these are primary and big benefits in a lot of ways and the other benefits are what are unsaid in some ways in what I have shared till now it's if you read between the lines the benefits will pop out at you and one of them is the speed of response right so when you have brand custodians who are steep in the brand when you have data on tap when you kind of build that along with the machine learning the human learning then you know there is a synergy and a seamless understanding in teams with respect to data brand market connections things are bound to happen faster programs are likely to be implemented faster there are going to be fewer iterations yes a lot of this is iterative thinking but the iterations which happen I think externally and multiple iterations those are some of the things which in-housing kind of takes away the pain of some of that so I think agility is one of the big benefits so to say open housing especially when the environment companies are operating in are changing very fast today and consumers are changing very fast and technology and digital spaces I don't know how to describe it is changing faster than fast and speed of response becomes therefore a key benefit of in-housing the fifth and the last element I want to touch upon is transparency and costs there usually is a lot of chatter and talk on cost reduction and some of this of that would actually come over a period of time because there are upfront investments which need to be made to get the in-housing system going the equally important change which happens within housing is that the costing becomes transparent and actually the cost reduction happens because of data transparency in an outsourced model there is usually one cost which may not be disaggregated for you because you know there's a data cause the people cause the deployment cause you don't know how much is what when you don't know how much is what you don't know whether when savings will come from and whether there is a potential for savings so greater savings come not just by themselves but they come from the transparency which is inevitable when when you know you move in-house again the other not so apparent advantage not so apparent saving is with respect to the time cost of people you know many of you in in brands and marketing streams would know that a lot of time gets spent in coordinating and chasing things with multiple external partners anyway I'm not I'm not just talking about digital and saying in general you know that's this large part of the brand and marketing things work and the breadth and spread of the digital ecosystem being what it is the pressure on time gets in a lot of ways even more acute here so the opportunity cost of the time of teams there would be you know immense saving and freeing up off time to do a lot more on the marketing front more productively so in some in-housing helps businesses by integrating data better by owning the first party data by being able to integrate that with the brand needs seamlessly and in very quick time there is more human learning that is deeper consumer understanding more creative solutions as team engage with more data and insights on an ongoing business it's like happening in real time you have a thought which comes to your mind you want to explore it and you know there's nothing stopping you from kind of running that in the system and coming up with a solution on a real-time basis and with that of course as I said come host efficiencies and greater transparency but you know when I was kind of reflecting on this kind of putting my thoughts down for the session in many ways I found that the core to in-housing is the idea of communication I don't mean brand communication you know all the benefits which are true to in-housing is because in a lot of ways it's helping improve communications all around it's communication across data sources it's communication across data and teams it's communication with external partners becoming a lot more sharper because there is a you know it's a narrower piece which you are connecting with them on and ultimately this would lead to improvement in communication on brands and communication on digital on brands which is really the goal of all this so a lot a lot of things going for in-housing but I would like to end with two words of caution on in-housing one is when you know companies are getting into in-housing and the second is for you know when you are in the middle of in-housing and what could be the challenges there so one when companies getting into in-housing I think clarity of what is required is critical it's one has heard and experienced also that while there's a lot of talk about in-housing and everyone is keen to get it going but the clarity on the scope of what exactly is required in that particular environment for that particular organization it needs to be there as also how the benefits will be extracted and what will be the investment to be required whether it is the people front or the technology front to be able to do that and that can be a bit of a slippery slope so clarity of purpose right at the beginning is very invaluable to a successful in-housing of the technology program which kind of undertakes that the second caution in in-housing is that once you move towards in-housing doesn't mean that you will not need an external ecosystem you know in housing at its extreme could lead to some kind of tunnel vision because you know you're only kind of interacting with your data and your teams what needs to be in-housed and where independent external council is required could you know vary from organization to organization and that needs to be thought through the arena of digital you know I've kind of struggled to describe it sometimes but it seems like an amoeba which is like changing shape every day and an external ecosystem which one can tap into for ideas trends what early adopters are doing what others in the business are doing will be of immense value even when you know companies are moved towards in-housing it should not get assumed that in-housing will work like a magic form and be the solution to all problems so external council which complements internal machine learning and human learning will help with the sweet spot despite the notes of caution there is a lot going for in-housing as I've just shared I'm actually reminded of the analogy of the law of what is called the law of the unattainable triad which says that we always want the best quality at the lowest cost in the shortest possible time the law of course postulates that it is not possible to have all three things together which is why it's called the law of the unattainable triad and we experience it in everyday life I mean with example of hiring if you if you have a budget constraint and you want the best quality it is going to take you time to find that resource right but but in-housing seems to be the only exception to the law of the unattainable triad because it helps you to reach the customers with the right quality message and reach them faster at more optimal cost so you know a lot going for in-housing just be mindful of a few things along the way so that that's all I had to share thank you so much Richard your anecdotes and allergies I'm sure have been appreciated by all our viewers because such wisdom has to be put across to our viewers when as you said amoeba is something that keeps evolving we don't know where it's going how it is and that is how this entire digital forum in housing is going towards so thank you so much for your insight