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Vision curates our pathway for nurturing dreams and passions. That is the foundation of the story of Elisha Saigal, Founder and CEO of El Sol Strategic Consultants (ESSC).

A visionary and businesswoman par excellence, Elisha believes in constant evolution and has come a long way in enabling brand equity creation. Mumbai-based ESSC is a full-service brand consultancy and digital marketing company, that serves as the growth factor behind the journey of several ICONIC home-grown brands and international companies seeking to pivot their product and perception or to launch in India.

Building brand equity with a conscious approach

El Sol Strategic Consultants initiates the journey of building brands, banking on the merger of imagination, knowledge, and technology while enabling their digital transformation. “El Sol refers to the Sun in Spanish. Since there is no bigger omnipresent icon on earth than the sun, this is our key attribute. Also, this is what we do for brands — enable in creating brand equity and recall,” adds Elisha.

Working since 2007 as a brand strategy and go-to-market services company, El Sol Strategic Consultantshas been instrumental in growing brands of tomorrow and making them category builders. The service enables in developing new brand and service categories and also enables them to adopt a conscious approach through sourcing, packing, and gifting keeping in mind the ESG norms.

Elisha remembers starting as a PR agency initially and then steadily making a shift to brand strategies within the pilot year itself. “However, data-supported strategies and go-to market services under one umbrella sets us apart from the other agencies,” she adds.

Within the home-grown portfolio, El Sol Strategic Consultants has currently worked with some of the market leaders within their categories.

For instance, Sula, whom El Sol Strategic Consultants has been serving for the longest time. Sula as we all know has amplified the wine culture in India, and ESSC strived hard and integrated with them to designate Nasik as the ‘new wine capital of India’. “With Sula we made Nashik wine capital of India. Other than that, we have also built the premium water category, energy drink, cold brew coffee and many more as we build category first brands within these sectors. ,” adds Elisha.

The biggest challenge for ESSCl was the constant upskilling and training of teams. “People might be good, but since we work in a dynamic sphere, where the industry is constantly evolving, you need to ramp up with the world outside, else tend to get left behind,” says Elisha. Thus, to make sure that the teams were being upskilled constantly, and to have a close watch over the existing team taking on the newest technological changes was the greatest hurdle ESSCl had to overcome.

Why a .in domain works

El Sol Strategic Consultants got an online presence in 2012, and opting for a .in domain was the obvious choice while considering the expansion plans. “We wanted people to know what we did, and of course, acquire more clients. Also, if we ever went overseas, we wanted people to know we are an Indian company,” says Elisha.

Elisha also feels that small businesses should choose a website over social media or e-commerce platforms to establish themselves. Besides, she also feels that the .in domain names extension helps to build credibility while boosting SEO. “With a Spanish-sounding name, it helped root us in India and also demonstrates to the world the kind of work we do. Of course, the latter part is subject to how often we can update,” shares Elisha.

The National Internet Exchange for India (NIXI) is helping many businesses across the country to get a .in or .Bharat domain. Enterprises irrespective of their scale and size can avail a .in domain with the help of NIXI. It is affordable and can be availed in more than 22 languages for businesses coming from all regions of the country.

Growth and future plans

Elisha regards COVID-19 to be a great teacher that placed El Sol Strategic Consultants in a better position than they were in the pre-pandemic era. Even though ESSC has miles to cover, short-term goals for the moment include working with home-grown brands, ensuring them a 360-degree view, and other essentials. The next one would be to work closely with startups and help set up their team of marketing communications, which would enlist a team of 20 in-house experienced players, working with them on creating strategies, and campaign ideas.

Talking about the future roadmap, Elisha feels that they have already created a strong differentiator while building the ICONIC brands. “We have a different lens while looking at the public relations approach, where we adopt different services as an agency, we have brand strategy and communication ideas created by data analysis that set us apart,” she adds.

The crux of setting up a business successfully is by getting the four departments of finance, HR, marketing and sales, and business development in sync with each other. “COVID has allowed us to fine-tune this strategy for us as an organisation. Currently, we are working on a more slightly evolved path,” she says.

Sharing one of her achievements when she decided to turn the lockdown into a productive one, Elisha says, “I enrolled in one of the courses conducted by Stanford Graduate School of Business which they were running in India. This course helped us question a lot of our previous business philosophies, and how we adopted the new. We now feel that we are ready for anything that would cross our path for the next five years.”

The ‘Shaping India Inc’s Online Growth’ series chronicles the journeys of startups and SMEs in India and how creating an online presence on the .in or .Bharat domain powered their success stories.