Hi ! pl check out my interview on ifaonline if you have the patience !! ifainsights/INSIGHTS/SuccessStories/#Kiran Shifali Satsangee Funds Vedaa, Agra fundsvedaa No. of years in business and how did the journey start I always had a latent entrepreneurial streak in me since I hail from a business family. So one day when my husband, Sahib, a chartered accountant, who had been providing accounting and legal services through his firm contemplated diversification, we realized thatcreation of wealth is happening rapidly, especially in second-tier cities and the proportion of the wealth believed to be in organized wealth management was less than 5%.Also there was hardly any formal wealth management landscape and expertise,the advisory component of wealth management only really being minimal. We then took a far sighted approach andafter foreseeing the need and the lacunae in this domain, we decided to completely focus our energies on one investment avenue - Mutual funds. Thus, Funds Ve’daa was born.We consider ourselvesa niche Mutual Fund Consultancy and Portfolio Management Services firm where our core work is to provide Mutual funds consultancy and portfolio management services and our parallel work was to provide accounting and taxation services which was our USP. After much deliberation, the firm took two key decisions- One was to focus on HNIs and the other was to create a USP that was to provide taxation and accounting as parallel services along with the core business. Our business model is that of an entrepreneur rather than that of an advisor. We follow a customer centric approach by aligning ourselves to our customer requirements and needs.We are based out of Agra but have a pan India footprint. Instead of looking for new markets, we decided that it would be logical for us to start by catering to the existing clientele, who were HNIs, and later broaden the ambit by venturing into unfamiliar territories. We have focused our energies on delivering value added services so that we are perceived as different from the rest of the market. Changes to the business made in the last 5-6 years To keep in tune with changing times we have created our online presence by creating our website fundsvedaa. Also, we have invested in innovative technology solutions for our back office operations to keep up and cater to our expanding client base. We have incorporated in our processes, certain practices like supplementary documentation of data via Investment Policy Statement (wherein Scope of services that we offer are explicitly spelt out. Limitations of the firm are pre defined.),Risk profile questionnaires(wherein the client clearly states which portfolio he is comfortable with), Treating customers fairly questionnaires (wherein we review our work in progress and plug any loopholes after customer feedback). Over the years we were focusing on HNI clientele but for the past two years we have started to focus on retail customer base as well since that’s a segment grossly underpenetrated. The firm plans to go retail in a big way and is looking to one or two more branches. The time has come when one needs to create a brand name, market it, earn goodwill and credibility and make sure that one has created a presence in the market today. The logic is-Unless the potential market knows that you exist, they wouldn’t come to you. The retail strategy of the firm is to organize many customer awareness programs and reach out to clients from different geographies by utilizing the digital technology. We would make our presence felt by sponsoring events that support good causes. In future we would leverage the power of social media as a key medium to engage & connect with our customer base since most of them are today present in that space. Future of financial advisory business or 3 focus areas in the next 4-5 years for the financial advisory business. Post the 2008 financial crisis, the industry has shifted from being opaque in terms of the pricing and products offered to a new paradigm in terms of more transparency and more of an open-architecture approach.The present scenario unfolds that out of 8 lac 39thousand crore of MF investment, 80% is held by investors belonging to top 15 cities which led the authorities at SEBI to divide the country into two parts, namely T-15 and B-15. Such is the huge untapped market in front of us in B-15. We at Funds Ve’daa, are optimistic even while the regulatory changes are ongoing, by firmly believing that India being an emerging economy,wherein the investible surplus still are routed to traditional instruments (like bank FDs),huge potential lies before us to channelize investor funds to mutual fund investments since the household savings have exposure to the tune of less than 4% in mutual funds, despite great strength of mutual fund products. We also believe that dual incomes, rising disposable incomes, favorable demographics, increasing urbanization would further open up new vistas to us. Message to the new comers or to the existing ifas Charge up your business momentum-think Big, get Big on ideas, Big on energy, Big on entrepreneurial values. Decode your business model: Which gap do you fill/which need do you cater to? Asking yourself this question would give you a clear vision of what you have set for yourself. Create a USP and decide what value addition you would like to offer. Make in-house lists, segmented analysis of customers on lines of high, normal and low profitability. The aim is to find out who your customers are and prioritize. Reality check - It helps to ruthlessly review the combined metric of Price, Service, Consumer friendliness, uniqueness and scalability of service you are offering. It helps in identifying and fixing loopholes and assist inproviding a better package of services to our clients. Focusing on your social graph online,reaching audience via Facebook,Twitter, Linkedin. Create an online presence. The more people you know the more the chances of getting business.You will be surprised to hear that: To reach 50 million users the radio took 38 years, the tv took 14 years, internet took 4 years and Facebook added 100 million users within 9months. Never underestimate an order or a client. There are opportunities available which we think never exist. First impression lasts. Your customer will do business with you again or not sometimes also depends upon how much time you take to resolve their first query or inquiry and with how much interest. Remember, it is the small steps and actions we take that make us grow in a big way.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 05:48:13 +0000
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