Ashish Gupta, Co-founder and CEO of Benori Knowledge, Shares Insights on Providing Customized Research and Actionable Solutions

StartupTalky presents Recap'22. This is a series of interviews in which we conduct in-depth discussions with founders & industry leaders to understand their growth in 2022 and their predictions for the future.

Research services companies are utilizing data-driven approaches to offer custom knowledge solutions for specific business problems. These services can include competitive intelligence, business intelligence, data analytics, strategy research, and more. The goal of these custom research services is to provide organizations with insights and recommendations based on data, helping them make informed decisions, improve processes, and achieve desired outcomes.

Market intelligence, business research, and financial services are becoming increasingly data-driven, with organizations seeking custom research and insights to inform their decisions. The growing demand for data-driven decision-making, advancements in technology, and the increasing volume of data generated by businesses have driven the global data analytics market to an expected CAGR of 12% to 15% between 2020 and 2025.

For this Interview, we invited Ashish Gupta, co-founder & CEO of Benori Knowledge, and we talked about the growth, challenges, insights, and future opportunities in the research industry.

StartupTalky: What service does your company provide? What was the motivation/vision with which you started?

Ashish Gupta: We provide customized research and deliver actionable insights across various strategic areas such as market/sector analysis, competitive intelligence, account intelligence, consumer insights, etc. Our custom knowledge solutions and products provide power and flexibility to the insights value chain of our clients enabling them to make intelligent decisions and succeed. Our vision is to reduce the cost of knowledge on the planet and empower our clients with actionable insights.

StartupTalky: What new services have been added in the past year? What is/are the USP/s of your service?

Ashish Gupta: We developed a market intelligence and data visualization tool which provides a 360-degree view of the life insurance industry with all the important KPIs along with competitive intelligence.
The product uses a blend of machine and mind approach to tracking the key indicators of the life insurance industry. We also started with our scouting solutions by identifying innovations and innovators to help our clients stay ahead of the changes and make preemptive/disruptive decisions.

StartupTalky: How has the research industry changed in recent years, and how has your company adapted to these changes?

Ashish Gupta: The research industry has changed drastically over the past few years and technology adoption has been the critical driver of change, be it the changes in conducting surveys, the use of AI, and big data. Further, the industry has become more customer-oriented with a focus on tailor-made solutions.

StartupTalky: How do you stay up to date on the latest trends and developments in the research industry?

Ashish Gupta: Our value of intellectual curiosity ingrained at both individual and company levels always inspires us to learn and stay current. In fact, we occasionally post several thought leadership papers on our website and other platforms to aid in others' learning and development.

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In 2021, the global revenue of the market research industry was over $76.4 billion. Here is how to conduct market research for your startup.

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StartupTalky: What key metrics do you track to check the company's growth and performance?

Ashish Gupta: Clientele, employee count, and revenue are among a few indicators we look at to track our growth and all of them are going quite well. Six of the top eight FMCG companies and the top 10 consulting firms are already served by us, and we have doubled the number of our employees in the past one to one and a half years.

StartupTalky: What were the most significant challenges your company faced in the past year and how did you overcome them?

Ashish Gupta: Being just 2 years old when it struck, Covid was one of the biggest challenges we faced, but being an agile new-age, tech-enabled firm, we took it heads on and came out stronger and our team size has doubled in a year after covid.

StartupTalky: Good service, is something everyone is talking about in the service industry. How do you ensure
that your clients are happy?

Ashish Gupta: Client-centricity has been one of our brand pillars since the beginning. 100% of our solutions are customized as per client needs, and the quality of output that we provide at such pricing has always been a perk for our clients.

StartupTalky: What are the different strategies you use for marketing? Tell us about any growth hack which you pulled off.

Ashish Gupta: Frankly speaking, we haven’t invested much in marketing as of now, we believe providing quality output to our clients and striving for 100% client satisfaction is the only growth hack I can think of. But we do use LinkedIn to share interesting insights at regular intervals as most of our target audience uses the platform.

StartupTalky: Foreign clients- this is what most service-based companies are looking for. What has been your experience?

Ashish Gupta: Although we do have several overseas clients, that number will undoubtedly increase in the years to come, this does not mean that we are concentrating more on or just seeking to engage in the worldwide market. In India, there is a great need for the high-caliber research services we offer at such competitive pricing, and we are working to fill that need.

StartupTalky: What are the important tools and software you use to run your business smoothly?

Ashish Gupta: Up until this February, when we moved into our new office and began using a hybrid model of work, we had all been doing our jobs from home for the previous two years. MS Office especially MS Teams is significantly used to connect and communicate within the team and with clients. We also use various other tools such as Power BI for reporting and dashboarding, and CRM for our sales activities.

StartupTalky: What opportunities do you see for future growth in the research industry in India and the world? What kind of difference in market behavior have you noticed between India and the world?

Ashish Gupta: Given the disruptions happening, the growth opportunity is high as there’s a huge demand for quality research and insights. The uncertainty in the markets has made research a center point for informed decision-making and building strategies.

StartupTalky: What lessons did your team learn in the past year and how will these inform your future plans and strategies?

Ashish Gupta: We have been adapting to newer technologies for the heavy lifting so that ample time can be devoted to analytical and strategic thinking.

StartupTalky: How do you plan to expand the Customers, service offering, and team base in the future?

Ashish Gupta: While our clientele is growing globally, given the demand for high-quality research, we are working on a few new productized services that will disrupt the industry. Additionally, as was already mentioned, 100% of our solutions are personalized, and we are constantly prepared to come up with solutions to meet the needs of our clients.

StartupTalky: One tip that you would like to share with another Service company founder?

Ashish Gupta: Put the customer first, always and every time; and do not try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

We thank Ashish Gupta for spending his valuable time and sharing his learnings with all of us.

You can read other Recap'22 Interviews here.