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Australian independent Versa expands into India

Australian independent digital and experience agency, Versa, is expanding into India to capitalise on demand for the agency’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)  and voice expertise services in the region.

Versa India will be a joint venture with Mogae Consultants, owned by advertising veteran Dr Sandeep Goyal and Tanya Goyal. Tanya Goyal will be the chairperson of the Indian branch.

Melbourne-based Versa was founded by Kath Blackham in 2009, and also has a US operation in Seattle which was launched a year ago.

Versa founder and CEO Kath Blackham

Blackham identified India as a region with high potential for growth due to the increased adoption of smart speakers such as Google Assistants and Amazon Alexa.

“Many tech companies in India have the experience to build platforms such as websites, chatbots and apps but lack expertise in conversational strategy and design. We will leverage our established relationships with Amazon, Microsoft and Google to improve customer experience and make lives better by giving the Indian community access to information they traditionally would not have had,” she said.

“This partnership will give our Australian operation access to a much bigger market, including the ability to trial projects at scale. We look forward to working with Mogae’s experienced team to support our global clients and partners.”

The Versa India team will also be led by CEO Ashish Dabral, business director Adi Sharma and Sunando Bannerji who will head revenue out of Mumbai.

Versa India will outsource tech development and specialist consulting to the Australian and US teams.

“Versa India will focus on creating conversational experiences that help streamline customer experience teams and developing solutions such as contact centre AI bots, websites and apps that have a foundation of conversational AI built in. We will be working closely with big brands in India to help them realise the potential of conversational AI and voice and how they can best infuse the technology within their organisation,” Goyal said.

“It is an exciting time for voice and conversational AI in India, and we look forward to helping established and well-known Indian brands embrace these emerging technologies for the Indian market.”

Versa USA president, Russ Whitman, looked forward to the collaboration between the three offices.

“Since we launched Versa into the US market, we have been experiencing great success working with well known organisations and brands including American Red Cross and Pampers, both of which recognise the power of conversational AI as part of their overall marketing strategies. Our expansion into India is testament to Versa’s exceptional capabilities and we couldn’t be more excited about the partnership with the Mogae,” Whitman said.

Versa India launched just after recent Diwali celebrations and will go commercial live in early 2021.

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