Bharat Buxani, CMO & Co-Founder, ETAB Technologies
Effective leadership takes certain critical experiences to have clarity of thought and broaden observations to see beyond the obvious. It is the unique and diverse experiences throughout the career that shapes a leader to make more instinctual decisions and lead the team towards success.
With years of extensive experience in the media and advertising industry, Bharat Buxani—Co-Founder & CMO at ETAB Technologies—is one such exemplary business leader who leveraged his years of experience to bring forward a vision and translate it into reality. Prior to establishing ETAB, Bharat spent years working in sales, marketing, communications and advertising agencies wherein he handled various brand promotion and communication strategies across different media platforms. The insights from the various walks of businesses, extensive knowledge, understanding of the industry and the knack for new innovative ideas and strategies further shaped the entrepreneurial journey of the assiduous business leader.
“I consider myself to be a positive person with a hustler attitude and believe that all my experiences have molded me to being this person and also influenced my decision-making process in my entrepreneurial journey,” elucidates Bharat.
The Beginning of ETAB Technologies
While working in the advertising industry, Bharat realized thatnowadays, brands are less likely to choose an advertising platform that provides assumptions as data rather than real number of viewers and audience. Meanwhile, he also discerned that there is a continuous need for entertainment, especially while stuck during the daily commute in major cities like Jakarta. This realization led to the inception of ETAB Technologies, a leading Digital Out of Home Media Platform in Indonesia. Along with his Co-founder, Dalip Kumar Shahri, Bharat founded ETAB Technologies in 2018 to provide an onboard entertainment platform for the passengers inside taxis while enabling advertisers to reach out to the captive audiences.
ETAB is a one-touch platform that combines content and advertisement in tablets, assigns them to taxi fleets and provides the hard-working drivers of Indonesia’s online hailing cabs with the ability to earn extra income via in-cab advertising. Major brands have already started to utilize ETAB as an advertising platform. Having partnerships with different content providers from animation, news, sports, cooking, fashion and many other sectors, the company is well-positioned to provide relevant, fresh and HD content on its ETAB platform.
“Back from the ideation stage this was a solution that I and Dalip Kumar believed in and have worked on for the past 2+ years. Currently, we have more than 500 taxi screens on the streets of Jakarta which entertains approximately around 180.000 passengers a month,” says Bharat.
Bharat’s Take on Leadership
According to Bharat, leadership is all about motivating and empowering the team which can only be achieved through powerful communication and connection. He explains, “As a leader, loyalty, commitment and good communication are very important to me and I strive to incorporate these traits into the business by having a good open trusted relationship with the team.” The avid business leader likes to lead by example and empower employees to make their own decisions.
He feels that the conversation should flow both upriver and downriver in an organization. Thus, a leader needs to be approachable to the team and encourage the team to bring out and express their views and skills.
An Avid Emphasis on Team Building
The visionary entrepreneur believes that having an idea for a new business or product is the easiest part. But executing the idea efficiently is one of the biggest challenges faced by every business leader. For Bharat, execution is a full-time job and commitment which can be obtained only through a competent team. Thus, he stresses upon the importance of hiring the right people to accomplish the business objective.
“I can’t emphasize enough on how crucial it is that the core team has the same vision, hunger and goals for the company similar to what the founders have. I have been blessed with awesome core team members in ETAB as well as my previous businesses that have together led us to this point,” says Bharat.
Aims To Attain Personal And Professional Growth
Delineating his views on success, Bharat elucidates, “Success for me is simple, having a goal, working towards it and achieving it. Success is also to continue having personal growth to be the best version of yourself while at the same time being useful to your surroundings.”
The ardent entrepreneur also emphasizes on the importance of recognizing and adapting to the change to achieve success in the entrepreneurial journey. Looking ahead, Bharat aims to grow as a person and a leader while empowering others within the organization. “As an individual I look forward to having a successful balance life in work and personal life while taking care of everything and everyone that matters to me. While as a leader of the company, business growth is essential but also not forgetting the growth for the individuals that are part of the company,” he shares on a concluding note.