Driving Business Evolution: Vineet Trakroo’s entrepreneurial journey was driven by a desire to create a broader impact beyond the confines of individual companies. With extensive corporate experience, including roles as Chief Marketing Officer for Usha International and Head of Marketing for CavinKare and Pidilite-Fevicol, Trakroo gained valuable insights into business operations and the intricacies of turning around large operations. He realized that he could contribute more significantly by sharing his expertise across multiple organizations, igniting his entrepreneurial spirit and leading to the establishment of Evolution Strategy Advisors LLP.
Journey and Pivotal Moments
Trakroo’s career trajectory has been marked by several pivotal moments that have shaped his growth as a business leader. Starting in B2B electrical engineering product and project sales, he eventually headed sales and marketing for India’s oldest food company, Postman Oils, reviving their brands and expanding operations. As Head of Marketing for Fevicol, he spearheaded a complete relaunch, giving the brand a new image and extensive portfolio that revitalized its future. Later, as Head of Sales and Marketing for Beiersdorf and CavinKare, he significantly increased turnover and growth.
These experiences provided a solid foundation for Trakroo’s entrepreneurial endeavors, honing his skills in creating effective marketing strategies, understanding consumer behavior, and driving sales operations. His ability to reengineer organizations and adapt to the rapidly changing business landscape has been instrumental in achieving sustainable growth. Since founding Evolution Strategy Advisors LLP after his tenure at Usha, Trakroo has spent 11 years providing strategic directions to various brands, evolving the organization from an advisory to a full-service execution partner, including JV and licensing services.
Key Leadership Principles for Success
Trakroo believes that participative leadership is essential for success. A leader must be part of the team, involved in operations, and understand the frontline’s pain points to make informed decisions. Data-savviness is also crucial, as insights hidden in data can determine success or failure. Additionally, the ability to motivate and reward teams, understand changing policy, technology, and economic scenarios, and spot opportunities is vital for future-ready leadership.
Fostering Innovation and Adapting to Change
At Evolution Strategy Advisors LLP, innovation is fostered through the early adoption of technology, such as cloud services and analytics since 2014. By analyzing data that organizations generate but often overlook, they identify insights impacting business. The use of OKR (Objectives and Key Results) techniques, derived from those used by Google and Intel, has helped deliver results for clients over the past five years. Cross-pollinating ideas from different industries, they have improved sales processes by learning from best practices in pharma, industrial, and automotive sectors.
Navigating Challenging Decisions
Choosing the right customers has been a challenging decision for Trakroo, aiming to build focus and value in their offerings. By selecting clients who value their work the most and where they can offer better service, they have had to refuse business to grow in their chosen direction. This strategic decision, though difficult, has enabled them to offer tailored and high-quality services.
Risk Assessment and Management
For Trakroo, strategy is partly about risk mitigation. Their recommendations are designed to create systems where errors or failures can be easily identified. By analyzing data and pinpointing the right causes that create the desired effect, they convert these causes into action points or key performance parameters, keeping potential risks in full view.
Shaping a Positive Corporate Culture
Understanding a client’s corporate culture is critical to the success of any execution. When running business transformation projects, Trakroo delves deep to understand an organization’s competencies and decision-making criteria. Bringing future issues to the forefront often requires cultural change and the ability to stay ahead of the curve. Innovation, for instance, is a cultural aspect that should permeate across functions, not just confined to products.
Embracing Digital Transformation
Advising companies on digital transformation, Evolution Strategy Advisors LLP integrates these processes into overall business transformation. By digitizing sales processes, they gather valuable data to understand customer buying processes and journeys. This data, combined with other business performance metrics, helps monitor and diagnose challenges regularly. Teaching frontline employees to self-analyze performance with data is a key aspect of their approach.
Advice for Entrepreneurs in the Digital Age
Trakroo advises entrepreneurs to seek long-term sustainable advantages while being prepared for technological upgrades. In the age of generative AI, evaluating its impact on solutions offered is crucial.
Legacy and Future Goals
Trakroo’s journey began with the goal of enabling organizations to perform better and compete globally. Aspiring to touch at least 1,000 brands and help them grow exponentially, they are currently working with 60 companies and 105 brands. These high-performance companies will contribute to industry growth and generate wealth for employees and the nation.
In essence, Vineet Trakroo’s insights reflect a profound understanding of the evolving business landscape, emphasizing the importance of adaptability, data-driven decision-making, and fostering a culture of innovation for sustainable success.
