Pranesh Misra: Life after Lowe

After 28 steady years with the company, Lowe’s Pranesh Misra has put in his papers. Misra, who is currently global director, marketing and accountability, Lowe Worldwide is leaving to pursue entrepreneurial interests. He is in the process of setting up a knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) venture to be titled Brandscapes, which has been
registered as a private limited entity in India and is getting registered as Brandscapes Worldwide in USA, UK and Singapore.

Speaking to Campaign India from London, Misra revealed that the broad space that the company would be operating in would be market data analytics and insight mining. The company currently has got Rs 6.5 crores in investments and Misra says that if they are able to meet targets by 2010, they would be looking at further capital infusion of $ 4.5 million to $ 5 million. Former Citibank executive and now entrepreneur Jerry Rao is one of the nine angel investors in this venture. 

“Currently marketing companies have a lot of data in their hands but they need somebody to extract ideas and insights from that mine of information. Initially that’s the space that we will be getting into. As we progress, we expect to get into specialised areas of data analytics including retail, banks and financial services and see how insights can be applied to help marketers increase profitability. The service sector collects a lot of consumer data which can help marketers understand consumer behaviour and even predict it going forward.”

He further added, “This is a nascent industry with a few players and there is no structured agency or supplier who services this segment. We expect this particular segment to grow tremendously in the next 4 to 5 years.”

Misra says it has been a long journey with Lowe, having joined the company in 1977 as a management trainee but insists that his decision to quit is not a rejection of the system. He added, “Lowe has been a great company to work with, with a great professional culture and good people. I have been in and out of the company for the last 31 years and now I am leaving to pursue entrepreneurial interests. This is a buoyant time for the Indian economy. The India brand is doing very well abroad
because it has the right quality of talent to be able to support entrepreneurial interests.”