Thinking global, acting local

With over seven decades of experience across several markets globally, we bring rich experience in investment management. This vintage is demonstrated by our performance track record that spans across two decades, approximately, in equity and fixed-income products in India.

Being part of a global company provides us insights into the best business practices worldwide.

A stable and experienced investment management team is at the heart of our value proposition.

An area of improvement for us is to work on brand recall in lower-tier towns and cities. We have invested in investor education campaigns and reached out to our distributors in smaller locations. We are also leveraging technology and social media to connect and communicate effectively to a wider audience.

Challenges ahead

The biggest challenge is to understand what will make mutual funds more acceptable to the masses. There are different facets of this issue - intuitive (and not just simple) communication, bespoke engagement capabilities, and hassle-free transactions and reporting. Last but not the least, all this needs to be accomplished without an adverse impact on profitability.

We need more advisors with a value proposition beyond product selection and operational assistance. The expansion has to be through physical as well as online channels.

From the investment perspective, we just need to ensure that investors don't let go of their long-term commitments due to short-term noise.

Competition

The real question is not how many AMCs can participate, but how many can consistently do the right things and withstand market cycles that are an inherent part of our business. It is not about more products but relevant products. It is not about more assets but quality assets. Most importantly, it is about constantly investing in the people and processes, and a customer-centric mindset.

So consolidation will remain an ongoing process as fitter AMCs dig their heels deeper and look to strengthen their value proposition. It is not that more AMCs will automatically help us penetrate more. But I acknowledge that as market grows and our capital markets gain more depth and complexity, niche players will keep coming and some of them may even do well.

Retail reach

Largely our business is focused around the Indian retail investor and that will continue. Broadly our approach has been to segment well, adapt accordingly and talk consistently.

We have explicit targets for growing our retail reach. They also carry far more weightage than mere asset garnering.

This article was originally published on November 18, 2015.