‘Wealth management’, just the name conjures the image of gleaming offices servicing the uber rich. So what if I were to tell you, Essel Wealth Services, a new entrant in this space has decided not to target this segment in the beginning. Brijesh Parnami, Executive Director & CEO, Essel Wealth Services shares his rationale behind targeting the less penetrated segments and tapping vast customer base of Essel Group of companies in an interview with Cafemutual.
You mentioned that you are not targeting the HNI and UHNIs at this stage, so what will be your target segment?
We aim to target the retail investors particularly the upper middle class segment. Since Essel group has multiple businesses such as media (ZEE) and DTH (Dish TV), we have no dearth of client base.
For instance, Dish TV & D2H put together has 2.9 crore subscribers. Tapping even a portion of this existing database will help us grow the business phenomenally. In fact, we are planning to provide both protection and investments products solutions to these subscribers, without compromising the regulatory compliance. These customers will have to create an account with bimadirect.com (our insurance distribution arm) or with Esselwealth.com (our third party mutual fund distribution arm) to avail this benefit. Even if 5% of the above said subscribers opt for our value added services, we will have access to huge customer base.
What was the logic behind giving the HNI and UHNI segment a miss at this stage?
We are a late entrant in this space. Private Banks and family offices have already captured this segment. In addition, targeting wealthy would require substantial investment such as hiring wealth managers.
Hence, we chose to leverage our existing customer base and instead invest in improving our delivery channels. This strategy has helped us achieve profitability in the second year of business itself.
How do you acquire new clients?
We have five main channels of client acquisition:
Direct sales relationship managers: Through this channel, we plan to acquire both retail and corporate clients. Currently, our retail RMs are spread across the 12 cities while the corporate RM team functions out of four metro locations.
Online portal: We have an online insurance portal called Bimadirect.com. Clients can compare products and purchase policies online. We offer both life and non-life products on the portal. We are also planning to launch another portal to offer mutual fund products. Since this would be a hybrid model, clients will get tele-calling support while transacting on the website.
Cross selling: As mentioned earlier, we are tapping customers from our affiliate companies. To that end, we run campaigns to invite these customers to register with us online. Post that using data analytics, we will try to gauge the customer’s needs and market products accordingly.
Sub-distributor network: Two months back we started working with sub brokers. At present, we have registered 100 advisors. We plan to increase this number going ahead.
On boarding FMCG distributors: These distributors are catering to a large client base. Working with them can help approach their client base.
How to do plan to grow business?
We have a lot to learn from the ecommerce industry. These e-commerce companies may or may not be profitable but they have a deep understanding of their customer base. They do a lot of research on customers to customize solutions for their clients. For instance, if you google for a mobile phone, Amazon and Flipkart would be among the first guys to pitch you a new phone.
Distributors like us have a lot to learn from these players. We already have a lot of information on our clients. We just need to leverage this information to customize solutions to cater to all their needs.
What is your roadmap for the company?
With players like Paytm starting to sell financial products, the competition is only going to intensify going ahead. At this point, we need to focus on attracting and retaining customers. We are doing our bit to devise innovative strategies, cross-sell and build winning synergies with external as well as internal group companies to acquire clients while keeping costs in check. We plan to follow that with robust delivery and servicing platforms to retain them.
