Bridging The Cultural Gap Times Bridge is the global investment and partnership arm of The Times of India Group
By S Shanthi
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Times Bridge is the global investment and partnership arm of The Times of India Group. It serves as the venture, consulting and operating partner for global organizations across sectors.
"Our expertise is built on the back of an unmatched market understanding of the country, drawing on the accumulated wisdom of the 200 years of The Times Group. For our portfolio companies, we deliver a nuanced immersion strategy in India's zeitgeist that hinges on deep consumer insights and uncommon cultural sensitivities," said Viral Jani, EVP and India Country Head, Times Bridge.
Times Bridge has been the strategic launch and growth partner for leading global consumer tech businesses and global non-profits including Uber, Airbnb, Coursera, Wattpad, Smule, Malaria No More and Headspace, among others in India.
"We are proud to have enabled numerous successes for our portfolio organizations, all of which are global category leaders in their respective industries. For all our consumer tech and global non-profits, India continues to be a key market and is part of their international growth strategy," added Jani.
To fuel its global partners' ambitions of winning in India, Times Bridge supports meaningful and multi-dimensional localization strategy (including product, brand voice, content, go-to-market strategy, etc) while keeping the global roots intact to enable at-scale market adoption. As an effort to bridge the cultural gap, it helps forge meaningful partnerships for its investee organizations across relevant Governments authorities, policymakers and industry bodies, to build distribution, program influence and ensure cultural alignment.
It also works extensively with influencers and recruits advisors, general managers and scouts for its portfolio organizations. "Besides strengthening the product connectivity across banks, digital communities, etc., we build valuable corporate alliances and help with brand building keeping Indian sensitivities in mind," added Jani.
The company has a focused growth strategy that is built across two core pillars. One, strengthening its existing business and SaaS play. The first includes building on its existing core value proposition of identifying, partnering with and advancing the missions of pioneering global tech businesses in India and the latter is a natural extension of its core business expertise. "In the coming years, we will continue to double-down on the enterprise tech/SaaS space to complement our strengths and portfolio in the consumer tech space," said Jani.
