Pioneers in institutionalizing the area of marketing-led digital business transformation

Ashwin Sivakumar is the co-founder and chief of digital business growth of the JugularSocial Group. JugularSocial helps enterprises build, validate, scale digital business models and revenue streams.

In a career spanning more than 15 years in digital business transformation and marketing, Ashwin has helped 50+ clients to tap into new digital business models and positioning opportunities. He has made strategic contributions to leading enterprises in areas like Healthtech, SAAS, enterprise software, and e-commerce who have successfully prototyped, launched, and expanded their digital businesses under his guidance.

Ashwin’s unique background and career journey in converging areas like informatics, clustering science, creativity, and design give a strong competitive depth to his Digital Marketing and Business Practice.  His interests are in leading transformational digital marketing roadmaps and digital business innovations for Enterprises. He uses his vast experience in Creative Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing Techniques, and Social Media to create new Digital Business Models and New Digital Consumer Experiences.

JugularSocial was cited in the league of top global startups (TiE 50) in 2015 by TiE Silicon Valley. JugularSocial is recognized as a 'Greenlight company with Exceptional Potential' by UK Trade & Investment Agency (UKTI) and is a part of the UKTI Global Entrepreneur Programme.  Ashwin Sivakumar was selected as a fellow of prestigious organizations like the World Life Science Forum in 2004 and the Startup leadership program in 2011. He was also a finalist at the coveted British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur Awards back in 2010.

We caught up with Ashwin Sivakumar, in context to JugularSocial Group’s expansion and launch plans in Chennai.

Tell us about JugularSocial Group's journey over the years?

Since 2010, we have done some pioneering work in the area of marketing-led digital transformation. This approach to digital transformation is associated with our practice over the years to use marketing campaigns, communication, and data insights as the central business decision support tool to drive larger digital transformation priorities. This approach puts revenues and customer needs at the core of transform priorities.

We have been credited for enabling some iconic digital firsts for Enterprises in India including the first online home buying framework and the first chatbots for Hospitals.

JugularSocial Group, over the years, has specialized in leading the core digital business transformation and growth blueprints for many incumbents and digital-first start-ups. The company's capabilities include proprietary sector-specific frameworks for programmatic advertising, customer acquisition, and engagement.

What are your key business offerings?

For sectors like healthcare and real estate, we provide an integrated approach to digital transformation. This is led by customer needs and prioritized based on what would drive customer acquisition, loyalty, and new business models. These are areas that need deep domain expertise and understanding of complicated customer journeys.

In another important business line, we operate a portfolio of digital agencies with strong functional depth for supporting digital business growth, monetisation, marketing, advertising, creativity, and content needs of new-age start-ups operating in E-commerce, Fintech, B to B tech, EdTech, and Food tech.

What are the new initiatives linked to your Chennai expansion?

Our new offering, a unique solution for digital skilling and hiring will be headquartered in Chennai. This vertical aims to solve some key business challenges in identifying talents with deep and niche skills in core areas of digital business.

Chennai will also be the home to our new content marketing portfolio agency.  We are currently closing in on a couple of key leadership roles.

Our portfolio of agencies is groomed to offer deep expertise across essential digital growth areas like performance marketing, digital assets, interactive content, and inbound marketing.

What were the key driving factors to choose Chennai for a digital business like yours?

Chennai is home to a range of important incumbents and promising start-ups that have huge potential to create new digital business models and customer experiences.

The e-commerce industry's growth rate in India, for each of the next four years, is expected to be 27%. So, Chennai is an important location for our agency-line of business.

Chennai is also home to some of the finest educational institutes and research centres. We look forward to working closely with them through our new EdTech offerings.  

Especially with Covid changing the business landscape, what are your business priorities?

We are evolving from a decade-long bootstrapping journey. So, sustainability and profitability have been our only choices. This attitude and approach have definitely helped us through these Covidien phases.

Core to the next phase of any business growth is digital business model innovation. Since we are one of the front runners in enabling that for enterprises, it makes us optimistic about our growth journey ahead.

We are looking to achieve the next 5x growth in the next two years without taking the focus away from basics like cash flows, sustainability, and profitability. Our new verticals, quality of talent, expanded range of solutions, service delivery innovation and partners are central to these growth plans.