Myths and Facts about Launching Corporate Office in India

With the growing number of customers in a particular country or region you couldn’t but think of launching a corporate office there. The benefits of having your local team, especially in APAC countries, are obvious: the mentality of people differs from country to country, and if you want to maintain the standards of your service and support this question becomes critical. But speaking from the firsthand experience of running such an office in India for more than a year, we can say that it can turn out pretty great.

Since Affise launched an Indian office in the beginning of 2017 we see the uprising interest to our product. The numbers speak for themselves: we have witnessed a 1500% increase in our business partnerships in India over the last 12 months. What’s more, the leading Indian digital journals, such as Techpcvipers.com, regularly include Affise in the lists of TOP affiliate marketing platforms in India. All these indicate Affise’s leadership position as the preferred partner for marketers and ad networks in India.

The number of Affise’s clients increased by 1500% over the last 12 months

How it all began

Seeing the interest to our product among Indian clients, we decided to test the waters first. That’s why in September 2016, we came to Gurgaon to attend India Affiliate Summit in order to check things out. The market was quite new to us, that’s why we didn’t expect so much out of this trip. But eventually, the conference was a real blast for us. We never saw such interest anywhere else and we got back home with the biggest number of contacts than we ever gathered at any other conference. And by the way, we attend more than 30 conferences yearly.

Hack №1

Whenever you’re asked at the Indian conferences whether you have an office in India or not, always say “Yes”. It will result in higher conversion rate of your potential customers.

In December 2016, we had a regular strategic session, when we came to the conclusion that India is a key market for Affise. Local mentality and rules left no choice but to open an office in India. Besides, Indian customers really love personal approach and communication. And as Affise has always been proud of our high service standards, we’ve decided that it’s critical for us to provide local and personalized Support and Customer Success teams in the same time zone to help our clients scale much faster.

Myth 1: There are no qualified professionals in India

First things first, this is probably the most popular myth there is about Indian labour market. Along with the growth of the market is increasing the professionalism of people who want to work in the industry. For example, when you are communicating with our team, you will never hear any accent, and their background in the industry helps them to support our clients efficiently, and advise on the latest affiliate trends.

As for us, it took one month to open the office in Gurgaon and find a great Head of office who started to assemble the team. And in just seven months we managed to put together a rockstar team of professionals with solid background in affiliate marketing.

Hack №2

The sign “We are hiring!” at your booth space at the affiliate conferences is a very efficient way to get a big pool of potential employees from the industry.

Affise at India Affiliate Summit 2016

Myth 2: Indian people are lazy and don’t want to work

Like in every country, the answer is case-specific and highly depends on the industry you are working in. As performance marketing is the industry where you just need to work hard to make success, the probability that someone unmotivated will come to the interview is very low.

Myth 3: India is teaming with Fraud, bots and low-quality traffic

With the growth of the market and the industry, the share of fraudulent traffic is getting down. More and more companies and services are coming to India aspiring to work with huge advertisers and professionals. That is why the quality of services delivered and the traffic itself is on the rise.

Instead of Conclusion

The Indian market is still developing and developing very fast. It’s without any doubts the fastest growing region in terms of digital and affiliate industry. And we’re so glad that we entered this market and are now able to serve the needs of the Indian market and help it grow.

Written by

Anastasia Zaichko

Head of PR and Marketing Communications

Anastasia Zaichko is a creative B2B marketer, passionate about helping companies achieve their sales, growth and visibility objectives. Weekdays she's all about identifying new opportunities for marketers to grow and get more value from affiliate channel. Weekends include traveling, partying and instagramming about all of the above. She strongly believes in the power of content, networking and the Universe.

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