|
A Channel to
Shape Tomorrow’s Indonesia
 I
am among friends at the recording studio of Qtv- a cable tv
channel in Jakarta, to record for ‘India
Talks’. XL member Monika Sugiarto and her son Tom
are there while another XL member Ghani has invited me to be
a guest on his new breakfast show “Wake up Wealthy'. We are
all part of Sachin Gopalan's initiative to showcase and
promote entrepreneurs products and brands through Qtv, a
niche TV media, and the quantifiable benefits of this
branding will be featured in his forthcoming book titled
'Building Leverage'. Other XL members involved are KK Ralhan
on Energy Conservation, James Gwee with his sales seminars,
Monika with her clean air lounge business, and several
others.
Talk show production and airtime is an investment by Qtv for
the right few participants who demonstrate their commitment
in making their business successful.
Building Leverage
“Building Leverage is the title of my book in progress” says
Sachin a partner at Qtv, who reveals that this project was
inspired by the Wealth Dynamics Weekend in Jakarta last
year. 'I have always been in the flow ever since I was
studying in school, only I did not know it in that way. This
was my greatest realization during the WDW because now I
know how to control my flow better and guide it in a
direction that I want to go to' says Sachin, with his lop
sided smile reflective of his infectious gung-ho can-do
attitude.
Sachin now uses the profiling system extensively to hire
staff and delegate work among his team. To set an example of
building attraction and leverage for his own business,
Sachin has taken on a company philosophy of “Shaping
Tomorrow’s Indonesia”, a theme that guides all programming
and marketing for his two TV channels. This has paid off
already, as several new clients have been attracted to be
part of this idealism-driven initiative and align themselves
in this direction.
A Jazz festival in Jakarta and a childhood friend’s
invitation brought him to Jakarta where a chance meeting
with James Castle, a prominent business consultant, ended up
in a job as marketing director and Sachin, took to this role
like a duck to water. The company grew exponentially and
Sachin caught the entrepreneurial bug. Just before the
dotcom crash he setup his first venture,
www.indotradezone.com, at that time Indonesia's first online
trade facilitation portal which was fairly successful and
was subsequently sold to another investor.
Meeting a Media Mogul
Kemana.Com a multimedia company was the next venture and
this was reasonably profitable even during the economic
crisis days. This attracted many other companies to partner
with him, one of which was JDI - a media company owned by
Peter Gontha, Indonesia's media mogul. The resulting merger
of the two companies has since transformed the company into
a media business with 2 cable television channels - Swara
Channel which telecasts the uncut, unedited proceedings in
the parliament and Qtv which has predominantly talk show
based or as their tag line says - the channel for decision
makers. “It is strangest co-incidence that Peter Gontha was
the very same person who had organized the Jazz festival
that I attended in 1996 that brought me to Jakarta. It’s
almost like destiny for me to be business partners with the
same two persons who were responsible for me getting here
and then staying on”, says Sachin.
Sachin’s interest in Jazz and music is the reason behind his
other proposed online venture – a music and digital download
portal for Indonesian musicians. This venture is unique, as
the site will be positioned as a common platform for all
types of music from the Indonesian archipelago, and aimed at
an international marketplace. The business promises to be a
win-win for musicians, fans and investors. His other pet
initiative involves the use of 3G network to deliver music
tutorials and digital content to mobile phones.
That’s Cricket
Sachin is also at the helm of the Cricket loving fraternity
in Indonesia. He has been the President of the Jakarta
Cricket Association for three successive years and has
recently been elected as the Chairman of Cricket Indonesia,
the apex body that governs, develops and promotes cricket in
Indonesia - “It is my dream that one day most kids in
Indonesian schools will want to play cricket, because they
would have experienced first-hand how much fun it is to play
cricket. Our job really is to spread the word to them, since
the game by itself is naturally contagious, as already
proven a 100 other countries all over the world. Hopefully I
can help being a catalyst to grow the game in Indonesia” he
says, confidently.
If you would like to learn more about Sachin and his TV
programs, contact him at
sachin@qchannel.tv
By Poonam Sagar
as published in
XL Magazine April 2007
|
