Anurag Batra is a serial entrepreneur, media mogul, journalist and lifelong optimist. He holds a B. Tech degree in Computer Sciences before joining the Management Development Institute MDGurugram, one of the leading business schools in India. He is a first-generation entrepreneur, after acquiring the iconic business media and magazine brand BW Business World, a 35-year strong media brand as well as the most respected business publication in the country.
Early life
Mr Anurag doesn’t come from a business family. He considers himself an accidental entrepreneur. He feels a lot of things are God’s wish. In that serendipity, one accidental thing leads to another and there is no grand plan. Studying at MDI was one such gift of God.
Anurag met a friend who gave him 63,00,000 to start an exchange for media. He had gone to him for advice on accepting investment from others but he gave the first investment. That’s why Anurag says that life is a series of happy coincidences and then God has a plan for you. He believes that life is the preordained product that is already arranged for you. Thus started exchange for media, a marketplace for B to B e-commerce. In 2001 to start a B to B e-commerce site Anurag was ahead of time. They were pioneers but in media, they were very ahead of time. Because in India it was a very face to face relationship-based business at that time. Anurag and his team tried building 3 years marketplace but the big boys in the industry had their own sales team and they don’t want transparency. The big players don’t want a platform that democratizes. So they started a daily newsletter on media, advertising, marketing and communication. It became the homepage of everyone. Launched the impact which is weekly in the advertising space. Then launched a real estate magazine. Thus they became a media company.
At the age of 18, he would read 3 newspapers, 5 magazines. Anurag Batra considers that his subconscious mind works got him into media and made him a media person. But he feels that it’s all accidental. Once they were in the business then they thought of logical progression of ideas. Other people may ask why don’t you do this and that, it then became a business.
Anurag Batra claims that he is not in the media business in exchange for media. Rather he is in the business of building communities through digital content through magazines, events etc. The point Anurag is trying to convey is that a lot of it is luck, chance or preordained. It is not known to us that the efforts we make show up when it is needed. If you have good intent God makes the example.
Career
Anurag Batra is an entrepreneur of a different flavor. It takes all sorts to make a world, and while most would never confess that entrepreneurship was an all or nothing choice – simply to keep up appearances! – Anurag does the opposite. Unpretentious and sincere, this Dynamic Entrepreneur is a name many will find instantly recognizable, for he is an entrepreneur, media expert and a journalist rolled into one.
Mr Batra has expanded BW Business World into digital, events, and BW communities, and has launched www. Digital market. Asia, a leading digital marketing website, and www.everythingexperiential.com, India’s leading experimental marketing website, and launch BW hotelier in partnership with hotelier international. BW Smart Cities, a 360-degree editorial platform, will be launched in mid-February 2015. Mr Batra is building the BW Business world business aggressively.
Mr. Batra also founded the exchange4media group and he serves as the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com – India’s leading media industry website, PITCH – India’s only Advertising, Marketing and Media Magazine, IMPACT – The Marketing Weekly, Franchisee Plus – Business Opportunity Magazine, Realty Plus – India’s leading monthly real estate magazine and samachar4media.com/ – leading media industry website in Hindi.
The Government of India has also appointed Mr. Batra as the Chairman of the Industrial Committee constituted to formulate a Vocational Training Framework for the Media, Communications and Entertainment Industries.
Anurag is also on the core group of TIE’s (The Indus Entrepreneurs), a special internet group focused on Education and Training. He is also advising the government through his white papers on Internet, Media and Television and their impact on society. He also writes a monthly column on Entrepreneurship, in India’s only Entrepreneurship magazine, Dare. He advises many emerging entrepreneurs and enjoys the reverse mentoring process as he learns from these young entrepreneurs. At BW Business-world, BW Accelerate is an initiative to provide a structured platform for entrepreneurs to guide and grow.
Dr. Batra, a very self driven person, believes in experiences rather than failures. In his opinion, if one learns from their mistakes and moves forward, failure has no room!
He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences on the media, the Internet, television, media policy, and entrepreneurship. As a member of the Sales & Marketing Committee of the Delhi Management Association and President of the Northern Chapter of the Franchising Association of India, he has been instrumental in decision making in industry circles.
He is passionate about Magazines and is on the Executive Committee of the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM). He also wants to give back to the industry and his love for teaching comes into play in his position as the Chairman of the Advisory Board of FMCC (Futuristic Media Communication Centre), a leading Media and Communication School in India.
In 2006, the prestigious Management Development Institute (MDI) and Mr Batra’s Alma mater awarded him the “Most Distinguished Alumni of the Decade Award”.Mr Batra believes if you make your hobby your profession, you don’t have to work and life is a blessing.
Traits
“How many of you are on WhatsApp? 95 to 98% people. So today I’m going to talk to you about something called introduction capital”, says Anurag Batra. The reason he talks about WhatsApp is because the old saying was a family that prays together stays together but the new saying is a family that’s on WhatsApp together stays together. He feels the old saying was those who help themselves God helps them, and he thinks the new saying is people who help others, God helps them.
20 years back, Anurag Batra was in a Business School with his friend Amit Kapoor. Anurag grew up in a middle-class family in Gurgaon. His parents had recognition and then he went to engineering school and to a Business School. When he was in the Business School add very limited ambition. His ambition was to join an IT services company in marketing. He almost did that from campus and got through. He was supposed to join it till he met a friend who introduced Anurag to his brother-in-law who was setting up Colliers Jardine in India. That was a turning point. He went to his dad and met the gentleman who told him about Colliers Jardine.
Anurag Batra’s mind changed and he joined Colliers Jardine. Colliers Jardine is regarding a joint venture between HDFC and Ireland affairs. They do property services. But the traditional mindset of land broking when made his parents think otherwise. As a kid he would always read magazine. He used to read a lot of newspapers and magazines. So, with the help of two of his friends, he started of a company called exchange for media. It was started to build a B-to-B exchange for buying and selling of media time and space. It was a failure for the first 3 years and then it evolved into a daily newsletter for the media advertising communication industry. 18 months back Anurag Batra bought business work.
We are in a culture where all of us want to get ahead, all of us have deadlines, dreams ambitions, goals whether materialistic non materialistic. He thinks the notion of helping others may sound little earlier to some of them who may do it consciously or se who does it unconsciously. It may be a notion that is real but all of us are very individualistic. All of us want to do well in life all of us don’t find time for ourselves when you talk about helping others and you know all of us are struggling.
Anurag Batra even in his busy schedule, whatever little time he gets he spent it on introducing people to people. Some of them ask for introduction and some of them don’t ask for introduction and he does it. It is something that he invests his energy, time and mind. The reason Anurag Batra does it is because he like and believe that it’s his duty to help people in some way. He does it because he knows in the past when he helps people, they help me back. It may not be the same set of people but other people.
Anurag Batra thinks the notion of helping other seems perfect. He believes in the law of karma. He thinks what matters is intent and sincerity. Helping doesn’t mean that it may come in the form of money or in some material way, it may come in a way that is even more valuable than money, concludes Anurag Batra.