Gaurav Bhagat Shares How Consortium Gifts Grew Smarter, Led Premiumisation, and Transformed Corporate Gifting in 2025

StartupTalky presents Recap'25, a series of exclusive interviews where we connect with founders and industry leaders to reflect on their journey in 2025 and discuss their vision for the future.

In this edition of Recap’25, StartupTalky features Gaurav Bhagat, Managing Director of Consortium Gifts, on how 2025 became a key year for the company and the corporate gifting industry. Despite a flat market, Consortium Gifts recorded 55% year-on-year growth, driven by a clear strategy, premium offerings, and the use of technology and AI. Bhagat explains how client needs are changing and why corporate gifting is now a strategic brand tool. He also shares his outlook on how the industry is expected to evolve in 2026.

StartupTalky: What made 2025 a defining year for Consortium Gifts, and which business decisions contributed most to this phase of growth?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: 2025 was a defining year for Consortium Gifts because we chose intentional scale over comfortable growth. At a time when the broader industry remained largely flat, we achieved a 55% year-on-year growth, driven by sharper focus, bolder decisions, and disciplined execution.

Key to this phase was our strategic international outreach and becoming a preferred gifting partner for a growing roster of global and Indian enterprises. Rather than chasing volume, we focused on long-term partnerships, high-value contracts, and building credibility through consistency and execution.

Equally important were the foundational decisions, strengthening systems, investing in talent, and future-proofing the business with technology-led processes. For us, 2025 wasn’t just about growing faster; it was about growing smarter, setting the base for sustained impact in the years ahead.

StartupTalky: How has the corporate gifting industry in India evolved in 2025, and what shifts have you observed in client expectations and buying behaviour?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: The corporate gifting industry in India saw a clear maturity shift in 2025, from volume-led buying to expectation-led decision-making. Clients are no longer just asking what to gift, but how fast, how relevant, and how memorable it can be delivered.

Timelines have become sharply compressed, pushing parts of the industry toward hyperlocal and quick-commerce models. At the same time, expectations around personalisation have risen significantly. With AI entering the decision cycle, clients now expect smarter curation, sharper customisation, and greater alignment with their brand narrative, often at speed.

What’s changed most is intent. Gifting is no longer an afterthought or last-minute procurement line item; it’s a strategic expression of brand values and culture. The companies winning in this space are those that can combine speed with intelligence, scale with personalisation, and execution with experience.

StartupTalky: What role has premiumisation played in your product strategy this year, and how do you balance scale with quality and customisation?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: Premiumisation has been a deliberate strategic shift for us, not about higher prices, but higher perception and relevance. In 2025, we saw growing demand for both trusted legacy brands and aspirational, design-led names, brands that are not just used, but proudly showcased. Today, clients are willing to invest more when a gift reflects status, taste, and brand alignment.

Balancing scale with quality comes down to systems and intent. We’ve strengthened our technology backbone with integrated CRM and ERP frameworks that allow us to scale without diluting craftsmanship or customisation. This ensures every gift, whether for ten recipients or ten thousand, feels thoughtfully curated, premium, and personal. For us, true scale is achieved when quality doesn’t feel compromised, and personalisation doesn’t feel forced.

StartupTalky: As a founder, how did your leadership priorities change in 2025 while managing expansion, team growth, and operational excellence?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: In 2025, my leadership priorities shifted from driving growth to scaling clarity. Expansion is easy; alignment is hard. As the team grew, my focus moved toward building systems that think, communicate, and execute consistently, whether through integrated CRM and ERP frameworks or empowering teams with AI-led tools that enhance decision-making, not replace it.

Equally important was creating a leadership rhythm. We introduced structured execution frameworks to ensure focus, accountability, and speed, so strategy didn’t stay in boardrooms but showed up in everyday actions. For me, operational excellence today is less about control and more about enabling people to perform at their best, at scale.

StartupTalky: How do you view corporate gifting today, as a support function or a strategic lever for branding, HR, and customer engagement, and why?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: We view corporate gifting today as no longer a support function, it is a strategic brand and engagement lever. In a digital-first world, a thoughtfully curated gift creates lasting recall, emotional connection, and daily brand presence in ways vouchers or one-time consumables cannot.

For brands, it strengthens positioning; for HR, it reinforces culture and belonging; and for customer engagement, it builds relationships through memory rather than messaging. When done right, corporate gifting doesn’t just represent a brand, it extends it.

StartupTalky: How are technology, data, or AI influencing product curation, personalisation, or demand forecasting within your business?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: Technology, data, and AI are no longer support systems for us; they are strategic partners in decision-making. At Consortium Gifts, we view AI not as a tool, but as an intelligence layer that shapes how we curate, personalise, and forecast demand.

On the curation and personalisation front, AI-driven insights help us understand intent, context, and relevance, not just product preferences. Both our clients and internal teams actively use advanced AI platforms for smarter product discovery, trend sensing, and campaign planning, enabling us to move faster while staying deeply aligned with brand objectives.

We are also building proprietary intelligence in-house, including a Consortium Gifts-led AI model and a future-ready app focused on visualisation, smart product recommendations, and experience-led gifting journeys. This allows brands to preview, customise, and curate gifting solutions with far greater clarity and confidence.

From an operations and scale standpoint, our seamless integration with global procurement ecosystems such as Coupa and Ariba Punchouts ensures efficiency, compliance, and real-time data flow, critical for large enterprises managing complex gifting programs.

Internally, we are becoming a data-first organisation. Our HR and talent systems are powered by advanced tools like HR Perfetto, enabling sharper data segmentation, workforce planning, and performance insights. Our marketing and communications teams leverage specialised AI tools across functions, driving trend forecasting, campaign intelligence, and faster go-to-market strategies.

Our focus is clear: to make corporate gifting smarter, more predictive, and more human at scale.

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StartupTalky: Looking ahead to the coming year, what opportunities and challenges do you foresee for the corporate gifting industry, and where will Consortium Gifts focus next?

Mr. Gaurav Bhagat: Looking ahead to 2026, the corporate gifting industry will operate at the intersection of economic caution and elevated expectations. On one hand, businesses may navigate tighter budgets, evolving compliance norms, and supply-chain recalibrations. On the other hand, the intent behind gifting is becoming far more strategic, moving from obligation to impact-driven brand expression.

At Consortium Gifts, we see this shift as a powerful opportunity. The future of corporate gifting lies in intelligence, relevance, and experience. Brands no longer want just products; they want gifts that tell a story, reflect values, and stay useful long after they are received.

Our focus in 2026 will be on AI-enabled innovation, smart and sustainable product ecosystems, and deeper customisation, allowing brands to gift with purpose and precision. We are investing in future-ready offerings that blend technology, design, and functionality, making corporate gifting more measurable, memorable, and meaningful.

As a one-stop destination for corporate gifting, Consortium Gifts will continue to partner with forward-thinking organisations globally and locally, helping them build stronger relationships through thoughtfully curated, innovation-led gifting solutions. In a world where attention is scarce, we believe the most powerful brands will be the ones that gift smarter, not louder.

Explore more Recap'25 interviews here.