Grapes has come a long way ahead and there are still many milestones that need to be achieved. today we have a good team of around 250 employees across different offices.
Prittle Prattle News in conversation with Ms.Shradha Agarwal, CEO, and Co-Founder of Grapes
Grapes will manage the brand’s digital presence in its entirety, from social media creatives to digital promotions. As per the mandate, the agency will be in response to carry out the brand’s digital tasks, such as media planning and procurement, creative and digital branding and strategy, and SEO.
Being elevated to the position of CEO comes with great responsibility. Taking things forward from here, at Grapes we are focused on strategically adding value to our clients with pathbreaking end-to-end solutions.
While expanding business will be at the core of our existence, our remarkable work will echo our niche in the industry. Along with bringing laurels to our clients, I also want to create a workspace portraying progressive culture.
Understanding that employees are the biggest asset, we work towards aligning their strengths with the vision of the organization. For which proper KPI and KRA mapping are done to bring out the best in the individual at the work forefront.
This helps us in understanding what expectations they have from their career, the kind of work more suitable for them, the types of brands they aspire to work with, etc. so that we are able to provide them with a conducive environment where they are able to outshine with a remarkable performance.
What are the practices you promote at Grapes?
At Grapes, we inculcate a culture of success with new set of beliefs. We promote more inclusivity by revolutionizing the way we work with the bottom to the top-down approach. For this, internal training is conducted at frequent intervals that help employees acquire new skill sets.
It helps them become more resilient and actively be a part of decision-making. While result-oriented leadership is appreciated, Grapes promotes retaining talented staff as they are the biggest asset in the workforce.
How have Grapes changed in the past five years, and what are your future scenarios?
Grapes has come a long way ahead and there are still many milestones that need to be achieved. We started with a handful number of employees, but today we have a good team of around 250 employees across different offices. Further, we want to make it a 500+ member organization. Our ethos lies in evolving with time, for example; last year we expanded into the Southern market with the opening of our office in Bangalore.
This was followed by the rebranding of Grapes Digital to Grapes for repositioning ourselves as the strategic partners for brands. It was a step toward strengthening our integrated portfolio for expanding our offerings to serve the clients better. At the same time, there was expansion in varied team with the hiring process. We onboarded some remarkable talents at the senior management for taking the company to new heights of success with their valuable experience and insights.
What role did Grapes play in the evolution of society?
We want to make Grapes an organization that encourages empathy. Work will always be important but as a responsible organization, we believe in paying back to society. To strengthen society, education is very important. Therefore, at Grapes, we contribute to educating the underprivileged. Especially during the pandemic, the students suffered a lot. There were many who could not take classes due to the unavailability of devices. To ensure continuity in learning we provided them with smartphones and laptops so that their education does not suffer.
What challenges did you face while running Grapes during the Covid-19 era?
As the entire industry across the sectors was hit by the pandemic, even we found it difficult in the initial months. As everyone was being frugal with their budget given the economic slowdown, there were some financial constraints. Apart from that, adapting to the new work-from-home culture was even more challenging as our profession requires a lot of brainstorming, planning, conceptualizing, and strategizing. But given the cooperative and empathetic work culture, we were able to sail through the tough times.
Soon the market realized the importance of digital media to maintain continuity in work and also ensure their presence in the market. Hence, we picked up pace in our work. Initially, due to the unforeseen situation, we had a salary cut for those beyond the salary of 50,000. But from the month of August, we were able to pay full salary to each and every employee. In fact, we ensured arrears for each employee. This year also, we have already done the appraisals as we always believe that employees should be rewarded, and as a company, it is our responsibility to think about them. The business has grown significantly in the last two years. We have bagged multiple accounts in different categories.
Grapes wins the Digital AOR mandate for CP Plus. What are your opinions?
With the collaboration, we want to bring cohesive value to the brand. Through the digital AOR mandate, Grapes will be managing all the digital duties of CP Plus from media planning and buying to creativity, digital branding, strategy, and SEO. All the initiatives will be aimed at amplifying the media outreach. Given that the security and surveillance product market has a lot of potential, we focus on increasing brand visibility with a 360-degree digital presence. Having a good understanding of digital media, we are determined to create top-of-the-mind recall value amongst consumers and take the brand across geographies from urban to rural terrain.
This article is drafted by Prittle Prattle News in the form of an Interview.
