About Us

Ram has had over 32 years of industry experience primarily in the areas of Marketing, Sales, Corporate Strategy and International operations. He has held a number of leadership positions in industry. His last assignment prior to retirement was as CEO-Battery Business and Director at Amco Batteries a position he held in parallel to his consulting role for 5 years. He guided the business to resolution of legacy issues, built it up to sustained growth with improvement in all business metrics.

S. Ramachandra (little Ram) co-founded “Littler associates”, a consulting firm specialising in the area of Marketing and Strategy in 2005. “Littler associates” works with clients across different industry segments, providing advisory services in the areas of strategy development and formulation of marketing programs. Prior to starting Littler was Chief of International Operations at Pidilite Industries Limited. In this position, Ram over saw the launch of Pidilite's products in various emerging International markets across Africa, the Middle East, SAARC, Russia, and South America.

Prior to this Ram was responsible for conceiving and establishing the Amaron branded battery program at Amara Raja Batteries and saw the business and brand achieving strong industry status. As Executive Vice President, Ram was also responsible for leading the sales and marketing effort for all automotive and industrial products, interacting with the JV partner- Johnson Controls to bring the automotive project to fruition and establishing exports in over 20 countries.

Ram has also had senior level stints as Vice President- Copper at Sterlite Industries guiding the company to market leadership and as General Manager- Replacement sales at Exide Industries, reversing decline in Aftermarket sales to power Exide to 'Superbrand' status. For the year 2004, the Centre for Change Management recognized Ram as one of the “Super Achievers.”

In addition to his work as principal consultant at Littler associates, Ram also lectures at business schools on the topic of brand management and marketing strategy.

Ram has an honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Univ. of Madras and a post-graduate Diploma in Management from IIM, Ahmedabad.

In his consulting role at Littler associates, Tanmay handles a number of assignments in formulating strategic plans and innovative solutions to marketing challenges. His work covers a wide variety of clients covering industry verticals across automotive, and consumer goods sectors. Tanmay brings to bear his rich experience in brand management, channel development and program management to his consulting role at Littler associates.

Tanmay has over 16 years experience of industry primarily in the areas of marketing, sales and corporate strategy. He has held a number of leadership positions in senior management.

In his role as General Manager (Marketing), Exide Industries Ltd. he had responsibility for the aftermarket sales division of the SF brand of automotive and motorcyle batteries with accountability for market share and PBT. Prior to this, Tanmay was Marketing Manager at Linc Pen and Plastics Limited where he was responsible for devising corporate strategy. He was also responsible for increasing brand health and market share of Linc and Uniball brands in India improving the bottom line of the company.

His earlier assignments include Marketing Manager of the aftermarket program of Amara Raja Batteries Limited and Product Manager at Goodyear Tyres Ltd. At ARBL, Tanmay was responsible for the launch of the brand’s two wheeler range of batteries and also the roll out of Power Zone range of automotive batteries.

Tanmay’s earlier association was with Goodyear Tyres Limited, where he was the Product Manager (Commercial and Farm). Under him, Goodyear farm tyre became a market leader pan-India while the commercial tyre SBU returned to profitability.

Tanmay has a doctorate degree in management from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, a post graduation degree in management from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune and a graduate degree in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry from the University of Kolkata. He has several publications in international journals on brand management and has also presented his papers in several international conferences across the world. He is associated with a few management colleges in Kolkata as a part time faculty where he teaches brand management, consumer behaviour and market research to the third and fourth semester MBA students.

www.catchanba.com

Anba is a Business Generalist who brought in his experience of Business development with Johnson & Johnson and consulting experience with Frost & Sullivan into Littler practice in 2008. His key areas are identification of problem and designing of solutions.

Working in this field for now close to 15 years for well more than a 50 assignments across multiple industries and diverse range of projects enhanced his skills on sharp judgements, problem identification and drawing quick empirical solutions to client’s business problems, which are hypothesized, researched and executed at later stages. He has developed numerous frameworks for decision making, written business plans, developed working models, designed specific marketing programs, institutionalized research studies, drafted competitive benchmarks, concept notes amidst broad business diagnostic notes.

Broad areas of work include:

• Business

Market segmentation, sizing, potential estimations and identification of target market. Identifying critical success factors, Research and analysis and annual budgeting.

• Financials

Business plan development with revenue projections, P&L, balance sheet. Investor pitch deck preparation, Valuations and term sheet preparation

• Branding & Positioning

Pricing and positioning (incl. positioning statements), Communication budgets and plans: ATL & BTL, Digital Marketing; SEO, SEM, campaign, Creative briefs to agencies.

• Product Management

Development of Trade Schemes, sales kits, collaterals, Inbound/ Outbound marketing program development and measurement, Sales funnel development and management

• Program Management

Distribution mapping and program development (incl. criteria, selection, appointment of partners, dealer and trade agreement documents). Retail and distribution metrics development, Loyalty program design (customer & influencer), Promotional program development and measurement metrics, Salesman route planning and incentive program development

• Strategy

Business strategy development: entry, GTM & growth, Market Planning: Coverage & penetration

• Corporate

Organisation strategy including org. design (incl. Defining JD, KRAs, KPIs), Briefs: Creative, PR, research(qualitative), Storyboarding for corporate presentations, company profile, key emails, Draft of key agreements

• Operations

Working capital management, Inventory planning & management

Off late, he has acquired skills on business analytics with exposure to machine learning models with Python and R. Besides a regular Master's degree in business from SOM, Pondicherry university, he has a certification from IIM Bangalore on strategic management and has undergone sales training at IIM Lucknow. Also, as a graduate mechanical engineer, he was a member of ASME (American society of Mechanical Engineers). To sharpen the ‘art’ side of business, he underwent an “Advanced public speaking” course from British council.

Anba’s interests are diversified. As a subject, he has developed fondness to science from childhood, particularly cosmology and physics which made him an avid reader of “Scientific American”. Recently, he acquired a penchant to learning philosophy which drove him to be a vedantic student.

On the lighter side, Anba created and captained a 120-member strong, Chennai based rookie cricket club (Runsnwickets.com), nearly a decade ago. In the last 5 years, he has cycled closed to 4,000 Kms and ran more than 2,000 Kms (goes by “Anba.” in Strava), participating in specific marathons, cycling events and duathlons.

Amidst his multiple interests, arts and charity play a part as well. He played violin at school and part of music club at college as a rhythmist. He paints occasionally and has a moderately active Instagram page on some of his randomn amateur photographs (#catchanba in Instagram). He has taught underprivileged kids and continues to contribute to society in multiple small little ways. He also relished a different role being one of the founding and very active members of his resident owner’s association as well.

You can find out more about anba at his self-created website www.catchanba.com

As a member of the consulting team at Littler associates, Nidhin draws upon his strengths in the area of technology, analytics and business development. His prior background in these areas together with his strong experience in formulating proposals adds huge value to client engagements.

Nidhin has worked on a variety of projects in the areas of –

• Market segmentation
• Data Analytics / Insights
• New market entry
• Market Sizing
• Pricing Strategy
• Distribution management

His exposure to projects covers verticals like Retail, IT, Energy, Manufacturing and Consumer goods. In these projects, Nidhin has brought to bear his skills in leveraging technology to power new innovative initiatives at clients.

As part of his two-year post-graduate program in business management, Nidhin interned at Littler Associates in 2013. In his internship project, he worked on a modernization plan and on developing an e-Commerce entry strategy for one of the leading bookstores in South India. Later, he joined Littler Associates as a full time employee.

Prior to Littler, Nidhin worked for about 4 years in the IT industry with strong exposure to business development processes and technology implementation. His role covered exposure to verticals like Payment Platforms, Banking, Financial Services and Media.

In his previous assignment with Cognizant Technologies, Nidhin has worked as a Business Analyst in the area of SAP Business Development. In this role, he was responsible for end-to-end business development and pre-sales activities for the opportunities in Banking, Financial Services, Information and Media industries across the globe.

Nidhin holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from NIT Calicut and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from T A Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal.

He is an Individual Member at Madras Management Association (IM 3058).

At Littler associates, Hammad brings to bear his skills in analysis of complex data to help the firm organise information from the mass of raw input from client records in our projects.

Hammad has used his skills to help the firm gain insight in a multitude of projects across industries like Automotive, Engineering, IT, BPO, KPO, FMCG, Education and Retail. As a key member of the team at Littler, he has helped accelerate progress on our projects and assist clients in implementation.

Prior to Littler, Hammad’s worked in industry in multiple roles in operations, manufacturing, logistics and business development.

In his previous role with Classle, he worked as a business development manager responsible for generating new leads and converting leads into client for the firm. He was also part of the NPTEL project, an initiative of the IITs, and was responsible for maximizing participation by various institutions across India in the programme.

Prior to Classle, he worked with Shiraco Kid Leather, a Leather tannery. He was responsible for assisting in smooth operation of tannery and following up with existing clients for orders/ payments.

In his first assignment at Maersk Global Service Center Hamamd gained valuable expereince in the area of logistics and operations. As an operations executive, in charge of routing, tracking, management and movement of containers and special cargo, he handled commercial and military cargo. In this role he was was responsible for effective transfer of containers from origin to destination.

Hammad holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce specialising in Corporate Secretaryship from Madras University and is a Management graduate from Chennai. Hammad is an Individual Member at Madras Management Association (IM 2795).

Seminars / Workshops participation:\ "Brand wealth Semina" by Cogito Consulting/ DraftFCB ULKA\ "Workshop on developing Management consulting skills" – IMCI