The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Peter Drucker
Mr. Aditya Bhamidipaty, the CEO & Founder of FirstHive Corporation.
That pithy statement captures Aditya’s ‘Sense of Purpose’ and remains the fuel that drives him to make a difference to the world we inhabit.
Globalization and Digitization have made physical distance immaterial and technology (ever obedient to Moore’s Law) has forever changed our lives professionally and personally. Technology today drives the world as we know it and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.
Indian entrepreneurs in the digital era are laying stake to their claim by combining a natural aptitude for technology with a keen nose for building scalable businesses. An entrepreneur in this mould is Mr. Aditya Bhamidipaty, the CEO & Founder of FirstHive Corporation.
FIrstHive prides itself in being one amongst a handful of Full-Stack Customer Data Platform companies in the world today . Aditya’s vision and his ability to successfully lead a diverse and talented team remain central to making FirstHive a byword for Excellence in Customer Experience the world over.
Stepping Stones
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Laozi
Graduating from IIM-A in 2003, Aditya started his corporate career with fulfilling stints at P&G and iGate(Europe). This not only gave him an opportunity to understand firsthand, the functioning of enterprises at scale, but also provided him with a lifelong appreciation for building and sustaining customer relationships.
In 2008, Aditya decided to forge his own path as an entrepreneur and launched his first start-up ‘Emart Solutions’. The company focused on Customer Loyalty and Customer Experience building as its core deliverables. Over the next seven years, the firm built an enviable customer base of over 150 clients and made its presence felt both in India and overseas.
FirstHive was registered as an AI-powered CDP platform in 2016, from which time it has grown from strength to strength under Aditya’s leadership to become the global CDP firm it is today.
Personalizing Customer Delight
Aditya and his core team put pen to paper and envisioned a solution to bridge the yawning gap that existed between Customer Data and Customer Experience. As 2016 drew to a close, Team FirstHive went live with the Beta version of their product which promised to usher in a new era in hyper-personalized customer experience.
To understand the importance of Hyper-personalization at scale, one would do well to fall back on Aditya’s oft-quoted parable- “Consider shopping at a store for a shaving kit. The general advertising tendency is to broadcast a generic message along the lines of ‘ I’m a great product- BUY ME’. Imagine instead, the product having a personalized message for each customer as they walked by- ‘It’s your 25th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow- Show your better half you care with the best shave ever’ for instance. That would revolutionize how customers feel about what they choose to buy.”
Apply that principle to digital consumerism at scale across industries and that is precisely what Aditya and Team FirstHive seek to do- Revolutionize customer personalization and delight at scale.
Enabling the enablers: Helping Marketers deliver Great Customer Experience
In order to revolutionize Customer Experience at scale, Aditya believes that Digital Marketers must be handed the keys to the Holy Grail- Great Customer Experience through Personalized Engagement.
Megabrands (FANGMA) target consumers across a variety of channels – Mobile, Web and programmatic to name a few. Consumers interacting with these brands leave a unique footprint and a differentiated breadcrumb of intelligence about their preferences, likes and dislikes and what they are likely to respond to.
For a brand to be able to deliver great Customer Experience therefore (with consumer attention span being what it is), it needs to communicate meaningfully while staying consistent across different channels. To pull off a feat of this nature, an AI-powered CDP solution is imperative- And this is precisely what Aditya brought to fruition through FirstHive.
The Winning Vector
As any successful entrepreneur knows, a company is only as good as the people it recruits and nurtures. Aditya’s belief in cultivating an outstanding work culture at FirstHive has enabled him to gather around him a passionate and dedicated team that seeks to fulfil the company’s vision at every turn.
“I believe that every employee of FirstHive is an entrepreneur in their respective org and a key stakeholder. They are the ones who are owning this dream, driving it and creating legacy”, says Aditya.
That overriding sense of ownership at all levels has made FirstHive what it is today: An agile, rapidly growing entity with over 30 active deployments across 4 continents.
Growth during Adversity: CoVID-19
Reams have been written about Covid19 and its unprecedented impact globally. FirstHive took stock of the situation quickly, built and executed a battle plan to perfection under Aditya’s leadership. CoVID has reinforced the value of data management and the role of digital engagement and customer experience in a rapidly adapting world.
Making India Shine: An Entrepreneur’s thoughts
Entrepreneurs learn a great deal along their journey and through their vision and ruthless determination contribute to making India and Indians shine.
Creating meaningful employment directly and indirectly, being able to mentor a new generation of leaders and being able to establish India and Indians as leaders in the digital world are things that give larger meaning and purpose to the entrepreneurial quest.
I strongly believe that the nation responsible for one-sixth of the world’s population should also be responsible for more than its fair share of technology innovation.
Mr. Aditya Bhamidipaty
