MAM
Bates 141 relocates Dabral to push India growth
MUMBAI: Bates 141 has relocated its top creative person as it presses the accelerator to race past its 20 per cent growth in India.
Bates 141 India chairman and Asia creative head Sonal Dabral will move out of Singapore to nest in Mumbai, being at the centre of a three-year growth plan that aims at doubling India revenues.
“New businesses and growth from existing clients will help us double our revenues,” Dabral tells Indiantelevision.com.
Top executives from rival agencies dismiss this as a tall order and almost impossible to achieve in today‘s tough economic and competitve times.
“Though Dabral is a big name, the targets look too steep to climb,” says the head of a leading creative agency on condition of anonymity.
Dabral will, however, have a few new clients to build revenues on, the most eye-popping of them being Colgate-Palmolive. According to company financials, Colgate-Palmolive India has increased its spend on advertisng and promotions by 16.6 per cent to Rs 3.49 billion for the fiscal ended March 2011.
“We have a strong platform to build our growth on. We service clients ranging from telecom to insurance and automobile, all big ad spenders. We are on a growth path for the last four years in terms of budgets and margins,” says Dabral.
The significant wins during this period include brands such as Tata AIG, TVS, Virgin Mobile and Fiat India.
While Dabral‘s residence will shift in July-end, his designation and role within the network remains unchanged.
Says Bates 141 Asia chairman Tim Isaac, “Clients and colleagues in India have been crying out for Sonal to come amongst them for several years now. This is not surprising as he is an inspirational and charming leader. So I encouraged him to respond to the clarion calls. He will be able to do so much more for India [which is growing at over 20 per cent a year and is a jewel in the Bates network crown] and still maintain an influence over our other offices.”
In his role as creative head for Asia, Dabral will continue travelling to Bates offices in the region. In India, he will work closely with NCD India Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar.
Says Dabral, “Being here 24/7 is different from coming to India once in a month. This move is to focus on our current clients and strengthen our businesses in India. I hope to bring my learning from all the international markets to push Bates 141 in India to the next level.”
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
