INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - OCTOBER 21^st - NOVEMBER 15^th - 2007

FORMER MARKETING HEAD OF HDFC BANK, AJAY KELKAR LAUNCHES CEQUITY

Ajay Kelkar, former senior vice-president and marketing head of HDFC Bank, who put in his papers a few weeks ago, has teamed up with S Swaminathan, the former head of iContract, the marketing services arm of Contract advertising, to start up a marketing analytics company, Consumer Equity Solutions.

The Hansa Group, which has a variety of marketing services companies in its fold, has invested in Cequity, as the company will be known. Kelkar will be its COO while Swaminathan will be the CEO of this venture.

Cequity, according to Mr Kelkar, is completely IT-driven customer analytics company, and will help companies in customer relationship management. Says Mr Kelkar, "Companies are looking at different ways in which to derive value from their customers. There's lots of data collected, but often companies don't act upon it."

Cequity will look to offer integrated solutions, combining data analyt-ics with complete campaign management solutions with measureable metrics. In retail, for instance, most companies stick to sales per square foot or return on employees, but seldom do they use return on customer as a key metric, says Mr Kelkar. Industry verticals that are rich on consumer data, like retail, insurance, banking and telecom, will be the targets for Cequity. Mr Kelkar says, "We realise that the quality of data is a huge problem with many companies, so we're developing solutions for data capture as well."

Mr Kelkar worked with HDFC Bank for a period of four years. Prior to that, he was marketing head at Shoppers Stop for a period of just under four years, where he was instrumental in driving the hugely popular loyalty programme, First Citizen. Other companies that he has worked with include Procter & Gamble, Pepsi, Marico and Britannia.