The November issue of The Economist may have dubbed India as the “Vulnerable Elephant” highlighting its crumbling infrastructure, weak mechanisms to counter terror, reform-ridden political system and the recent implications of the global financial crisis, but amidst all this StrategiCom perceives that there exists a golden opportunity to be tapped on. It recently announced the opening of its 12th office in Mumbai, India to further expand its operations in Asia. It believes that despite the perennial challenges that the Indian government has been criticized about, the Indian business community has time and again proved that it is decoupled from the political system and have successfully managed to sustain their growth over the last decade - the GDP growth of 8.8% over the last five years speaks volume about the economic fundamentals of the country.

StrategiCom CEO and Group Principal Consultant, Dr Wilson Chew reaffirmed the company’s faith in India and said, “As an economy India has shown immense potential since its liberalization sixteen years ago. It was the land where Thomas Friedman, eminent American journalist, columnist and author “realized that the world is flat”. India Inc. is not only leveraging on this flat world but also living up to its potential; whether it is pioneering research and development in the domains of IT services, rural mobile telephony, manufacturing the world's cheapest passenger vehicle or redefining business models through micro-finance, India has come alive and is making a strong mark on the global economy. The latest Business Week Asia Top 50 ranking attests to this story – not only is the top company from India but Indian companies also occupy 10 positions (China occupies 8 and Singapore occupies 4) in the list.” The company has appointed Mr. Prantik Mazumdar as its country manager for India.

Facilitating corporate growth and international expansion has been a matter of passion to Prantik since the early days of his career. He commenced as a Senior Officer at the Infocomm Technology division at International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore), Singapore Government’s trade development and promotion agency, assisting a cluster of 40 Singapore based SMEs to internationalize, realizing projects worth S$1.6B over three years. He was also tasked to market and lobby on behalf of Singapore’s infrastructure, manufacturing and retail industries to help them penetrate into Eastern India. He also played a significant role in promoting Singapore’s water & waste management industry at a national platform organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), which was reported in a few Indian national dailies. Prantik majored in Computer Engineering and pursued a minor in Technopreneurship and graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Computing in Computer Engineering (Honours) from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

On his appointment as country manager for StrategiCom in India, Prantik said that “Brand India has thus far been very successful in promoting and attracting FDI into India over the last three to five years. Now its evolution and success depends on the internationalization of the millions of SMEs and family owned enterprises that have been successfully operating domestically. In India our mission would be to work closely with B2B SMEs to help transform their successful businesses into strong, differentiated and valuable brands that help them compete and succeed in the global arena.”

StrategiCom is currently in discussions with numerous national and regional partners in India to roll out research initiatives to better understand the Indian market and educate the Indian business community about the significance and benefits of branding in the B2B sector. It has also commenced serving some mid-sized family owned enterprises in the western city of Pune. The company plans to establish a full-fledged presence in India by first quarter of 2009.