Corporate: M&A - ORG-MARG unbound

M&A
ORG-MARG Unbound

With its new Dutch owners hatching big plans, the future looks great for the ace market researcher.

By Nita Jatar Kulkarni

All it took to bring the smiles back on the faces of ORG-MARG brass was for Business India to shed its controlling stake in it. In May, 2000, Dutch communications major VNU, which held a 26 per cent stake in the firm, bought out Business India's 50.2 per cent. ORG-MARG is counting on its global white knight to provide access to next-generation technologies and the expertise needed to succeed in the new economy. Beams a confident K.M.S. 'Titoo' Ahluwalia, Chairman, ORG-MARG: ''Now, we can face any competition.''

It isn't all one-way. VNU is certain to benefit from ORG-MARG's base in audience measurement and ad-spend monitoring. Agrees Peter Tordoir, 46, Chairman, Business Information (Europe & Asia), VNU: ''ORG-MARG represents a great fit with VNU's global interests. And ORG-MARG will now also have access to new services and technology.''

The timing of the VNU-deal is perfect from ORG's perspective. Its television ratings service INTAM will now benefit from VNU's access to cutting-edge people-meter technology, courtesy the latter's acquisition of Nielsen Media Research.

Making deeper inroads

That apart, the inflow of funds from VNU will enable ORG-MARG to expand its INTAM network from 29 cities to 49 to combat rival service tam's expansion from 27 cities to 56. However, neither tam nor INTAM turn in profits. Points out Sandip Tarkas, 37, Director (Media Services), Fulcrum (HTA's media arm): ''The funny thing about market research in India is that few people want to pay for research. This has restricted the industry's growth.''

ORG-MARG's other VNU-inspired plans include a slew of Net-based tools ranging from the net monitor-a tool used to estimate the number of Net users and profiling them on demographic basis; to the Cyber(e)valuator-a service, which, in addition to the usual parameters, reports on the frequency of visits to a site, the time spent, click-path as well as entry and exit. These couldn't have come sooner. Says Ramesh Thadani, 52, President, IMRB: ''We are launching a range of Net audience measurement surveys.'' IMRB already has research tools like the Net Monitor.

Perhaps the most significant service ORG-MARG will offer as a result of the VNU deal is deodemographics-a domain that combines databases to generate intelligence at the neighbourhood-level. Explains Anirudh Bannerjee, 34, Associate Vice-President, Chaitra Leo-Burnett: ''The more micro-level the data, the better it is for communication with specific audiences.''

The ascent of VNU seems to have revived ORG-MARG's ambitions: Ahluwalia lists to-dos ranging from operations outside South Asia, to a back-end marketing applications software developer in India. That may work. Avers Pratima Shrivastava, 25, Management Consultant at Fixed Assets: ''With transnationals targeting India in droves, there is a lot of scope for Indian outfits to target the global market.''

Although the leader in India's market research industry, ORG-MARG seemed to have lost its way over the last few years. The ownership change and the VNU's ascent may mark its second coming.

Issue Contents Write to us Subscriptions Syndication