Chris George, 31, vice chairman and CEO, EBS Worldwide, used "creative destruction" to reinvent his business after the dot.com bust

At 16, most boys are interested in girls, and find the world of business boring. But Chris George and three of his friends at the Bhavan's Junior College in Mumbai were made of different stuff.

He may have been interested in 'figures,' but the kind that fascinated him were in mind-numbing account books and ledgers. George launched his first business at 16 (it was a formal company, with a proper registration, when he started an events management firm).

"We began organising college events - music festivals, rock shows, fashion shows, etc - but it soon morphed into something bigger," explains the entrepreneur, who now runs a Rs50-crore business, has over 200 people on his payroll, offices in India and the US, and shuttles times between Mumbai, New York and Los Angeles.

For George it has indeed been quite a journey over the last 15 years. The articulate and ambitious entrepreneur has been through the ups and downs of business - and technology cycles - but has figured out how to ride the crest of every wave he found himself on. At 31, he combines a boyish charm with infectious enthusiasm, especially about the prospects of continuing to do business in India.

The success of their venture - in the early 1990s - saw junior college students emerge as consultants to seniors in other institutions in Mumbai. "We were making a lot of money. Much more than pocket money, and we enjoyed it," recalls Chris. Of course, over the years he has changed businesses, but continues making a lot more than pocket money, and still enjoys doing it all.

George wanted to be an engineer, and after his junior college, qualified to get admission in one such institution. However, it was located in interiors of Maharashtra, so he chose to enroll for a BSc (physics) degree course in Mumbai instead. But after his first year, he got bored, and his father - who had a garments export business - persuaded him to opt for a business management programme in the US.

He got admission to a BBA course at the St Mary's University in Texas, and later got into an MBA programme in New York. After completing his management course, about 10 years ago, Chris got a job with Sprint Telecommunications, "where I worked my arse off," he recalls. Those were interesting times in the American telecommunications industry, and Chris switched jobs, which led to a stint at Bell Atlantic.

In 1999, he decided to pioneer an e-commerce business in the music industry. With the backing of Arthur Andersen and ICICI Venture (which came in later in 2001, investing $1.5 million), he launched easybuymusic.com, a mail-order firm that took orders on the phone and through the internet and delivered cassettes and CDs to consumers.

"We emerged among the top 5 music distributors in India, chalking up a turnover of Rs15 crore," says Chris. "By early 2000, we had a nine-city operation, and employed 170 people." The company had built up an infrastructure to ensure direct-to-home reach in over 350 cities.

When the dot.com boom went bust in India, Chris put easybuymusic.com onto "the path of creative destruction." And Phoenix-like, from its ashes emerged EBS Worldwide, of which George is now vice chairman and CEO. "When e-commerce was not happening in India, we wanted to change our business," says Chris. "We found our opportunity in the BPO (business process outsourcing) space, setting up a marketing services BPO."

EBS provides 'marketing process outsourcing' (MPO) to companies in the banking, insurance, retail, media and telecommunications business. It provides mission critical customer relationship management (CRM) and direct marketing (DM) back-office solutions

According to Chris, most banks, insurance firms and other service provider in retail, media and telecom, prefer to focus on their core activity; CRM and DM tasks are outsourced. But traditional mainstream agencies are focussed on providing creative solutions, not the execution aspect.

"This is where we step in, providing our services to clients," he adds. Increasingly, companies with a huge customer base have loyalty programmes, rewards for customers, email marketing, and other such campaigns, which they are unable to take up on their own, as it is not their core business.

EBS, which pioneered MPO in India, has emerged as the largest such player in the country. In March, the company acquired a US major - for an undisclosed amount, but in the sub-$10 million category - and is today a leading player in the MPO space.

Chris points out that the marketing services business has been well entrenched in the US for many years. Some of the leading companies have turnovers in excess of $1 billion. New Jersey-based Interactive Marketing Group (IMG), Inc, has been active in the US for 20 years.

"We researched over 60 companies in the US, and short-listed the firms, before deciding on IMG," says the entrepreneur. The marketing services business in the US is not doing well because of the high costs - labour costs are huge there - and bottomlines are stagnating.

EBS decided to go in for an acquisition to boost efficiencies for both operations, and also to transfer the 'learnings' from the US market. "India is a fantastic laboratory, and the learnings from IMG will prove to be very useful here," notes Chris. IMG had a global client base, including major corporations like IBM, Sony Corporation and Panasonic.

In India, EBS' clients include HSBC Bank, Birla Sun Life Insurance and Reliance Infocomm.

EBS got a second round of funding from ILFS Investment Managers, which helped it acquire IMG. Chris is now bullish about the growth prospects. "In about two years, our turnover will double to Rs100 crore," he predicts. The company provides a portfolio of "niche" products and solutions targeted at a client's stakeholders - customers, employees, and value-chain partners.

These services form part of an overall "solutions" portfolio, that an in-house consulting team develops, in sync with the client's outsourcing objectives. "We cut through the traditional notions of BPO, going beyond just transaction processing to conceptualising, delivering and maintaining highly effective solutions using a combination of 'people', 'processes' and 'technology'," explains George.

With the banking, insurance, retailing and telecommunications sectors growing phenomenally in India, the number of customers handled by each company runs into hundreds of thousands, even millions.

In the past, some of the companies depended on small-time players, including angadias (traditional couriers) to deliver their mailers to customers. But the informal sector would find it difficult to handle mailers that run into a million copies. "You need intelligent processes to churn out a million customised letters in 10 days on behalf of your client," points out George.

With the ongoing boom in consumer-related businesses (including financial services, telecommunications and retailing), EBS hopes to capture a large chunk of the marketing services market in India and in the US.