Leadership is a driving factor in the success of a business, particularly in this era of innovations.

The pace of change means that today’s leaders need to be reactive and proactive in the face of challenges. A successful digital leader also must bear in mind that while technology is essential, the people part of the transformation is just as crucial.

Leadership today is a balancing act and requires a unique set of skills to drive success that reaps the rewards for the leader, organization, and workforce.

Additionally, The ability to convince people to follow you down the yellow brick road is not easy. Still, if you have the vision and can creatively weave a vivid picture that makes people believe what you believe, then the chance of success is significantly greater.

Successful business leaders will have a clear vision for the future of their company and be willing to commit the resources and implement the changes needed to make that vision happen. This is where Harsh Pareek succeeds as a business leader.

Harsh is the Co-founder of Ibraine Digital LLP. Under his exceptional leadership, Ibraine fulfils all the Digital Marketing requirements starting from Web Design and Development, Search Engine Optimization, Performance Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Data Analytics, Affiliate Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Email Marketing, etc.

In an interview with Insights Success, Harsh Pareek sheds light on his journey in the niche, highlighting the challenges, industry sagacity, and his opinions on the company’s future. 

Harsh, please brief us about your professional tenure at Ibraine Digital and your exciting journey behind becoming an influential business leader.

I Am Harsh Pareek, Co-founder of Ibraine Digital LLP, a bootstrap company founded by Mr Rahul Singh and me in 2012. Rahul and I used to work in the same agency when we started with this exciting journey of Digital Marketing.

After three years of experience, I started freelancing to get in-depth knowledge in handling clients myself.

Spending a few years freelancing and working for clients from all over the globe gave me an exposure of a lifetime, which further interested me in starting with my agency. The outcome of it is Ibraine, a full-fledged one-stop solution for all your Digital Marketing need.

Until now, Ibraine has handled over 1250 clients from over 20 countries. I have always wanted to start with my own business since college. Like everyone else, it was unclear what to do, so I had to experiment with various fields and worked on different jobs, including HR, Marketing, Finance, Logistics, Events, and IT. After having excellent hands-on into different verticals gave me clarity on what suits me well and what to get into.

What was your inspiration behind venturing into the business arena?

I never looked up to one person for inspiration but had lots of inspiration on the way. Every person who is hardworking and intelligent inspired me throughout my career. I have always looked up to the small player who started a business from scratch and grew it into a profitable venture.

I am not ruling out the giants whom everyone follows, and even I do in some sense, but people around me have chiefly inspired me as I have seen them grow every day in their life with small steps.

Brief us about Ibraine Digital and its overall operations concerning the products and services does it offers?

Ibraine is a one-stop solution for all your Digital Marketing needs. Starting from Web Design and Development, Search Engine Optimization, Performance Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Data Analytics, Affiliate Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Email Marketing etc., we deal in end-to-end solutions for our clients.

We have the solution for Small, Medium, and Large-scale clients. No matter your budget, we have the right strategy for your success.

How did you enhance the outreach and development of your reputed organisation? 

Comprehending an experience of over 14 years into hardcore Digital Marketing, I have seen this industry grow and prosper in the markets of India. Initially, when I started with Digital Marketing, the awareness was low in Indian Marketing, and it started growing in a few years.

Being an early adopter, I always had an edge with domain knowledge which has helped me a lot to create the right strategy for my clients. Being in this industry for so long has also helped build relationships with so many companies, which overall helped the success of Ibraine.

What kind of challenges have you faced in your initial stage, and looking at the changing scenario of the industry, what are the challenges now?

I won’t say my journey has been really different for other entrepreneurs as I have faced almost a similar challenge that others do which includes investment, technology, good skill etc.

Overall, it hasn’t been much of a bumpy ride as I always believe in advance planning and execution, so things have been smooth most of the time. I want to highlight that as the industry is growing at such a pace that there are lots of young blood who want to make a career into it, which is a perfect thing, but the overall quality is somewhere compromised in this race to success.

Finding employees with good experience has become a bit of a task lately. Still, it probably can be solved once new entrants understand that quality is the key to success with marketing into the Digital Space.

How would you define a successful career? What would you say is your biggest accomplishment?

Success is different for everyone and cannot be compared. Just growing in life and making lots of money is not success. For me, success is when you make someone successful with your skills. I still remember when one of my clients told me that “Harsh, you made me a millionaire”, which gave me the real taste of success.

He had a start-up tour and travel company in South America. We actually turned that company into a multi-million-dollar company with the help of Digital Marketing. There are many more examples in our journey that I consider my success.

What was the impact of COVID-19 on the industry, and how did you manage to surmount the adversities of the pandemic?

We don’t have to be in one place in the Digital Marketing space—we can work remotely from anywhere. Since the pandemic started, our entire team has been working from home with more efficiency.

One challenge was that we lacked the brainstorming activities we used to do in the office every day. Nevertheless, we were saving more time on travelling and applying the same to work which has improved the productivity.

In terms of technology adaptation, we have subscribed to team management, client management and project management software to keep track of everything we are doing. This also helps the new joiners understand the work efficiently and collaborate with the team.

How do you envision the future of your Ibraine Digital? What are your future prospects?

We want to help as many businesses as we can, so we are registering our business in UAE and USA so that we can have a local footstep there.

Though we have many clients, we are working with from these geographies, having a local presence helps more.