LS Digital’s Prasad Shejale on what drove group-level profitability in H1

In an industry defined by rapid and consistent change, the strategies for digital marketing and business transformation are in a constant state of recalibration. Since 2006, when digital was a nascent channel, the ecosystem has expanded to include a complex array of technologies and consumer behaviors, forcing agencies to adapt or become obsolete. This evolution forms the backdrop for the trajectory of LS Digital and its founder and CEO, Prasad Shejale.

In this interview, Shejale discusses the founding vision of his agency and how it has navigated the industry's significant inflection points. He outlines the strategic shift from a marketing firm to what he terms a "digital business transformation" firm, a move accomplished through the acquisition and integration of companies specialising in six key verticals: media, UI/UX, creative, customer experience (CX), data, and technology. Shejale details the rationale behind this integrated model, the challenges of international expansion into culturally diverse markets, and the process of aligning different company cultures under a unified purpose.

Looking at the current landscape, Shejale provides his assessment of the digital industry's performance in the first half of the 2025 financial year, touching upon macroeconomic trends like industry-wide consolidation and the evolving demands of clients. He explains how LS Digital is positioning itself in response to these trends, with a focus on its data and consulting divisions, global expansion, and the integration of AI. The conversation also covers the firm's financial health, leadership development, and offers practical advice for entrepreneurs on navigating growth while maintaining financial prudence. 

Edited excerpts: 

Could you tell us what the founding vision was behind LS Digital, and how that vision has evolved as the digital ecosystem itself has transformed a lot?

The company was formed in 2006, and our vision back then was simple: to help brands grow using digital as a catalyst. That core vision has remained the same. As technologies, opportunities, and consumer behaviour evolved, many new elements were added to the digital ecosystem.

In 2006, digital growth was very nascent. Most big brands focused on physical distribution and retail networks. Brands were established through non-digital channels. When digital started becoming a primary channel for consuming information, a critical question arose: how do I reach the consumer who has a browser, mainly on their computer, as mobile wasn't as prevalent? Clients would ask, "Prasad, where should I buy inventory? How do I do the bidding?" That was the early stage.

As we fast-forward, the digital space has evolved significantly. We saw the rise of programmatic advertising, OTT platforms, and the concept of "card cutters." This created enormous opportunities for brands to innovate in how they reach consumers through various media channels.

What we later realised is that the media alone isn't enough. Our business is about using digital for a company's growth, whether it's acquiring new customers, retaining existing ones, or increasing customer satisfaction. To achieve this, a critical part was ensuring frictionless consumer journeys on digital assets, which led us to add UI/UX services. The basic vision, however, remained the same: how can digital be used for a company's or brand's growth?

We also understood that with new formats emerging, a brand's storytelling needs to align with how consumers consume content. For example, Instagram content has to be vertical, even if the underlying positioning is different. GP ads or OTT ads would require different creative approaches. Now we're talking about AI-led approaches, which I'll get to. So, while the vision remained constant, we started expanding into different services.

We brought many companies under the LS Digital Group with the vision of providing an integrated approach for brand growth. Then, of course, came Langoor, and we realised it's not just about acquiring new customers. We needed to address customer experience (CX). How do we create journeys so a customer remains a customer and becomes an advocate? So, the CX part was added. Technology has always been our backbone, as most of these things are driven by it. Recently, we formalised our strong data capabilities by creating a vertical called Dataquark.

These six areas—media, UI/UX, creative, CX, data, and technology—all serve the same core vision: how digital can be effectively used for a brand's growth. That will remain our focus. Now, we're heavily focused on incorporating AI, as there are many relevant use cases for it. I'm confident that as years pass, technology, concepts, customer expectations, and even customers' customers will change, but our guiding principle will remain: "How do I use digital for the growth of the brand?" We are still sticking to our early vision from 2006: "We will help brands grow using digital as a catalyst."

How did you navigate the early inflection points of growth in India? And if you could point out some pivotal moments that set LS Digital on its current trajectory?

That's a very interesting question. We strongly believe in challenging the status quo. My background, as an independent agency fighting against big global companies and growing to this level, shows our critical factor: challenging existing, established thinking and doing something different. This remains intact; we always say, "Challenge now." How do we challenge to drive innovation?

One important aspect of this journey was my realisation that we needed to evolve from just a marketing firm to a digital business transformation firm. If that was to happen, we either had to build all six skills in-house or acquire companies with those vertical skills and integrate them. The day I realised we couldn't build everything, but needed to acquire, was pivotal.

So, one of the most important pivotal points for me was acquiring Langoor, a CX company; F1Studioz, a UI/UX company; and Social Panga, a creative agency. And recently, we launched Dataquark, which focuses on data. Now we have all the skills in place.

The second pivotal moment was structurally aligning these six verticals. The integration took time, but it was crucial. While we have skill sets across all six verticals, clients' problems can be solved by one, two, or all six. Our ability to understand, devise a strategy, and execute across all six verticals requires a tremendous amount of integration and teamwork.

The third pivotal point was our thought process: "Why shouldn't we look outside India?" Our ability to enter the UK market, the EMEA market (Middle East and Africa), and the US market through a joint venture with Fearless has opened up new distribution channels for us. These are the more strategic points that are helping us.

But the core remains: Can I sense a trend at least three months earlier than the competition, so we can come up with a solution for it? That's why I travel a lot; 80% of my time is spent with prospects and clients to understand their business problems, so I can come back and try to address them. So, the question "What's your business problem?" becomes the trigger, and everything else percolates down from there. Every milestone we've achieved has been because someone said, "This isn't working," or "I wish one player would have done it." I then check if we can do it, and if we should build it or acquire another company. I think I've answered your question in a longer format.

LS Digital now operates in the UK, US, Dubai, and Australia. What has been the learning curve as you scale into culturally and economically diverse markets? Which of these new markets has surprised you most in terms of demand or digital maturity?

There's no black-and-white answer like one country is better than another. It never happens that way. Relevance and readiness have always been our guiding principles for global expansion. Everywhere we've gone, we've established a local office, hired local people, understood local requirements, and built solutions very specific to that country and location. You can't just try to impose what you've learned or done in one country onto another, like saying, "Since I'm doing it in the US, you should do it in India." It doesn't work because consumers and their operational methods differ in every country.

We always look for some sort of strategic partnership with local players in every country we enter. For example, with Fearless in the US, and in the UK, one of the large system integrators is working with us. I can't disclose their name, but they're a significant one. We essentially help them with their prospecting and project delivery. So, we believe in entering a country in a partnership mode.

Talking about specific learnings: the MEA market grew significantly for us from a media perspective. The proximity to India and our programmatic background really helped. Many people there are familiar with India, its ecosystem, and Indian agencies, which made it easier for us to expand faster. We have some large clients in the media space there.

The UK was a different animal. In the UK, we gained an early foothold in AI-related projects, AI research, and data-driven work, with a particular focus on the intersection of AI and marketing.

The US is all about data—how marketers can use AI for their growth. This is where our Dataquark division is becoming quite significant. Dataquark implements AI models for propensity modelling, consumer segment understanding, and conversational analytics. These areas started building very well, perhaps because the US market views us as technically and analytically enabled. Their propensity to allocate such projects and budgets to us is high.

This has helped tremendously. If we work with the largest life insurance players and largest mutual fund players with massive amounts of data to make sense of, we already have that understanding and infrastructure in place. My job becomes much easier in the US because we've already delivered in India. We have customers across BFSI, life insurance, general insurance, mutual funds, lending (personal, home loan, jewelry), hospitals, and travel, where we dominate here. So, with such a diverse customer base across different industries, our ability to leverage at least some data-related use cases, especially with humongous data, is very strong.

The fact that Santosh Shukla, the CEO of F1studioz, is in Australia and his background is in design means his proximity to the Australian market and his design expertise are very beneficial. I have a strategy to reach all these territories with varied services. You can't just push everything into the basket. You need a clear approach for what comes next, and what after that. You have to have that measured approach of adding things, not just dumping everything in. That's been my global expansion strategy and learnings: relevance in that market, learning from each market, designing something very specific, utilising your existing strengths, and then growing bit by bit.

It's been a few months since you unveiled your AI stack and the restructuring. In terms of reskilling your team, what have been some of the challenges you've faced in aligning the culture and upskilling the teams with the new AI-led mandate you have now?

I strongly believe that every company has its own unique culture, and that's why they've grown and acquired clients. You should never try to force all four entities to have the same culture; you can't, and you shouldn't even attempt to.

But if there's a common purpose that brings all of us together—and that purpose has been joining hands and solving difficult problems that others couldn't have solved—then everything starts falling into place.

When I looked at all four companies, after a lot of brainstorming, I could feel that there were four important aspects that helped each of these entrepreneurs grow their businesses: they've been passionate, agile, courageous, and overall, humane. So, instead of trying to come up with some superficial values, we went deep down and asked, "What are my value systems?" If we align on these value systems, life becomes very easy. Courageous, humane, agile, and passionate. If you look at it that way, integration becomes much easier because all of us are embodied in these. If you talk to Venu or Himanshu, you'll see that passion, and it has percolated down. So, when you weave the four companies together with these four values and the purpose of solving difficult problems, life becomes easier.

Regarding reskilling: the way we're structured, the top management is very hands-on and interacts directly with clients alongside the teams. Of course, we have training sessions and so on, but ultimately, if I'm talking about the importance of AI and conversational commerce, and a senior team member is with me, they listen and learn. When we have 200 customers, and six or seven of us are in the market talking the same language with our team members, it percolates much faster.

The talent we have, everyone understands that this has to be done. They also understand that it's not just about the media vertical; the work we're doing is about solving the difficult problem of how to use digital as a catalyst, not just with media, UX, CX, or whatever. Then, I think everyone falls into place. As they say, "Be the change that you want to see." We talk about it, we do it, we behave along with them, and I think everyone embraces it. It's not just words.

We are halfway through 2025. How do you assess LS Digital's performance so far this year in terms of business metrics and transformational goals?

I'll talk in terms of the financial year. We're just about to finish the first quarter (April, May, June). As of June 19th, the first quarter is almost over. How have we done? We are ahead of the budgets we set in our planning, not by a huge margin, but definitely ahead. We've already started ensuring that Q2 performs well for us too.

What are the parameters? Have we achieved revenue growth better than last year? Yes, we have. Are we still maintaining profitability at the bottom line? Yes, we are. What worked for us is that each of our six services/verticals has its own profitability range. For example, media profitability as an industry might be different from tech or data. Overall, we've managed to maintain good group-level profitability in the range of 20% to 29%, which is strong.

What helped significantly is our common client servicing and consulting team, which effectively cross-sells our different services as a solution. That has been very beneficial. Out of the new revenue, almost 19% to 20% comes from cross-selling, which is good. I'm not saying upselling, but cross-selling.

So far, so good. Our order books are strong. We've won some good accounts. Our US order book is also robust. If that converts, I think we're sorted for the next two quarters.

From your vantage point as a leader who has been in the industry for so many years, how would you characterise the digital marketing and transformation industry's performance in the first half of 2025 from a broader lens? What macro trends have you seen most defining the digital ecosystem so far?

I think it's the same thing we've been covering: the digital shift is definitely happening. That's a big trend, and all of us, all "card cutters," have talked about it. What's happening is a bit early, and it might sound like a product placement, but the vision I have, where brands need all these services from one vendor, was too early when I started talking about it four years ago.

But now, I see brands talking about it. When I say "integrated," I'm not just talking about digital and non-digital media spend. Big global media players often define integrated as traditional and digital spend together. However, that still doesn't solve the problem of frictionless consumer journeys. When I say integrated, I'm defining it as the integration of media, UI/UX, creative, CX, data, and technology all together.

Some of the requirements I'm getting now are asking, "Can you do these three or four things together?" As we go forward, I think brands will understand that "integrated" doesn't mean just media integration, but overall integration across all six areas. So, we are early on this. We educated the market, we're standing firm, we've invested in it, trained our people, created case studies, and have use cases. Now, some early players are asking about it, and it gives me immense satisfaction. There's one RFP we're working on that I was so happy about, as if it had come directly from my website – it asks for all six areas to be handled together.

So far, have you noticed any surprises or shifts in terms of how brands are allocating their digital budgets, especially from performance marketing?

No surprises, absolutely no surprises. This is expected. Digital will grow, and it is growing. It was expected that e-commerce would grow, and it is happening. All those trends we anticipated are indeed happening.

In terms of the industry, we are seeing a flurry of mergers and acquisitions across tech, martech, and digital agencies. What do you think is driving this consolidation, and where do you see this headed?

I think consolidation in this area, especially for B2B services companies where multiple skill sets are required, will continue to happen. It's an ongoing process. You will see bigger, better consolidations. We're talking about two big global players coming together because of the efficiencies of scale, bringing skills together, and clients becoming more demanding, as the end customer is also evolving. Consolidation will definitely continue.

Every industry has seen it, but the key question is: who does the integration well? This isn't just about two companies signing a piece of paper and coming together. It's about two different groups of people coming together and creating something beautiful. That's where the skill lies. It's not an Excel sheet calculation saying, "Add this, remove inefficiencies, and profitability will go up." The amount of friction added can be significant. However, I'm quite sure there are large players who understand this and will execute it well. Having integrated four companies myself, I understand what can go wrong, even at my size. Integration truly is the key. 

As we look forward to the second half of 2025, what does your vision for the remaining half of the year look like, and what are some of the non-negotiables for you as a leader?

My vision for the second half of 2025 includes:

• Global expansion.

• Building our data division really well.

• Building our consulting division well, as that's my differentiator.

• Increased usage of AI, both internally and externally.

• Developing leaders within the organisation, because our strength comes from our leaders. Building a strong leadership culture is crucial.

• Striving for leadership positions in our verticals within whatever market they operate. 

While I may not be a leader in any of those verticals in the US initially, eventually, I believe we'll get there in the long term. My goal is to be in the top three in each vertical.

Lastly, if you could offer a piece of advice to a digital entrepreneur looking to scale globally today, what would it be, and what would you caution against?

For digital entrepreneurs, which is a very wide term, my advice is to stay put and remember that consistency matters. If you believe in something, keep pushing it. Some days will be good, some days will be bad; some quarters will be good, some quarters will be bad. But if you believe in something, keep pushing, stay agile, and don't give up.

I would also caution them to take care of their finances well. You may have a great solution, a great product, and great customers, but if you don't manage your finances, especially your working capital, you're dead. You need money to pay vendors and employees. Your passion is your passion, but your vendors and employees have their own constraints. So, financial prudence is crucial. It may not be your direct job, but your job is to review. Get someone good who can manage it. Very stringent financial systems and a very stringent review mechanism are essential. I think that's quite crucial.

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