Editor’s note: In an ongoing series, INMA is profiling our most engaged members — our super fans. We hope this gives members a chance to learn more about each other. Today we profile Utkarsh Arora, senior director/product management for The Economic Times, Times Internet in New Delhi, India.

In 2022, a big source of excitement for Utkarsh Arora has been launching new product initiatives aimed at “significantly elevating our subscribers’ reading experience,” said the senior director/product management for The Economic Times, Times Internet in New Delhi, India.

Arora explained the company’s subscription product has scaled extremely well, with active subscribers increasing over seven times within the last two years: “At the same time, we have significantly slashed advertising spending and reduced the monthly subscription churn rate by 65%.”

When Arora isn’t crunching numbers, he likes to go over for a walk in the garden while listening to harp music and traditional Chinese music on his Spotify mobile app.  

INMA recently caught up with Arora to learn more about him.

INMA: What big lesson have you learned over the past couple of years that helped shape your plans for 2022?

Arora: Think big by applying first principles, without worrying too much about benchmarks or competitors’ activities. One should invest time in visualising the future we want to create with a deep sense of belief and inspire teams to work backwards without making any compromise on the big picture.

This exercise has helped my teams achieve magical outcomes in unexpected timeframes. It has given us the confidence to pursue and achieve truly audacious goals that initially seemed daunting or outrightly impossible.

INMA: If you had your career to do over again, what would you want to know in the beginning?

Arora: The two most important differentiating factors for success are having a business sense and having the ability to sell your vision and ideas to stakeholders. An entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial experience early in the career can really help one build these vital skills from an early age.

INMA: What makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning?

Arora: Looking at my numbers for the previous day.

I like sipping my first cup of coffee in the morning and analysing my daily automated e-mail report that contains an update on all major business and product performance metrics.

INMA: What is the craziest job or project you’ve ever done in the media — and what did you learn from it?

Arora: Launching a nationwide marketing campaign within just 48 hours of ideation to capitalise on an emerging business opportunity.

Learning: Speed and adaptability give your organisation a notable competitive advantage. Build teams that have a mindset of sniffing fresh opportunities and, whenever required, work in a startup mode to roll out initiatives at an express pace.

INMA: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your career?

Arora: Always validate your ideas with data and qualitative feedback before making any significant investments in product development.

Apart from understanding “what works,” it’s equally important to understand from audience research — why something works or doesn’t work for readers. The moment we understand how the product features fit into the readers’ lifestyle or mental model, we can build amazingly sharp and impactful solutions for our readers.

INMA: If you hadn’t gone into the news media, what was your backup plan?

Arora: I would have considered joining an early-stage technology startup in an emerging field such as climate change, or Augmented or Virtual Reality (AR/VR).

INMA: What is your favourite thing to read?

Arora: I tend to follow a lot of blogs and newsletters that are written by leading product and marketing thinkers on Twitter. For instance, posts from @nireyal are highly recommended.

INMA: What do you find the most challenging/interesting about the news media industry right now?

Arora: One of the key challenges is how to ensure that digital news media platforms can deepen their engagement with the younger audiences (Gen Y, Z, and beyond). If the news media does not excel in this area, popular social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snap, etc. will continue to remain their most preferred source of news and insights, and that could make these audiences increasingly vulnerable to propaganda, biased content, and sponsored content disguised as “news.”

Since our younger generations are power users of some of the best gaming, entertainment, and streaming apps from a very early age, they have developed high expectations for online user experiences. They will not stick around for too long on digital news platforms unless our storytelling experiences significantly evolve and become deeply engaging for them.

Therefore, digital news media should aim to be at the forefront of innovation and focus on creating engaging formats for younger audiences.

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