Acquisition project | Keka HR

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Acquisition project | Keka HR

Hi there, we'll take this one step at a time!

If you struggle with a blank canvas, use this boilerplate to start. Remember, this is a flexible resource—tweak it as needed. Some sections might not apply to your product and you might come up with great ideas not listed here, don't let be restricted.

This is not the only format, we would love to see you scope out a great format for your product!

Go wild and dive deep—we love well-researched documents that cover all bases with depth and understanding.

Refer to the project brief and the additional resources before you begin this project!
(Go through them at least 3 times or till the time you don’t have a mind map in your brain)

Let’s begin

Elevator Pitch

Hey! I am Ahmed from Keka. We banish boring HR tasks and replace them with automation.

Those month-end nightmares in payroll processing?

We eliminate them too and make payroll foolproof. Less time on tedious tasks means more time for what really matters.

Understand your Product

(Before you begin, you need to know what your product is, what are its features, what is the problem being solved by your product?)

Fundamental need or problem Keka solves:

Automating HR operations and unifying them on one platform that is extremely easy to use with very friendly UI.

Keka is a one-stop HRMS solution that:

Replaces manual tasks with automation.
Ensures all employee data is centrally and securely stored.
Automates, simplifies, and makes payroll error-free.
Helps companies manage hiring, time, attendance, leave, performance, employee exit, assets, and everything in the employee lifecycle.
Equips business leaders with reliable data related to their workforce, in every aspect, so that they can take the right and timely people management decisions.
Enables users (HRs, admins, and employees) with such an easy and simple UI that they find it effortless to configure, use, and manage it.

Problems solved by Keka:

The problem of manual, time-consuming HR tasks and operations, that also cost the company
The problem of errors that occur due to manual handling of data, and duplication
The problem of lack of information and data to business leaders, without which they cannot take right decisions or timely decisions

How else these problems were solved earlier/are solved:

Using Excel sheets or drive to store and manage data - this makes it vulnerable from the perspective of data security
Using different solutions to manage each aspect of HRM - makes it difficult to navigate across multiple systems and there is no data for actionable insights
Manual registers and spreadsheets - prone to errors and manipulation, slow processing

Understanding Core Value Proposition

(Build your core value proposition by exact what your product does and what problem are you solving)

Using the combination of automation, easy UI, and industry best practices to make it possible for business to:

Make their HR function truly strategic
Fuel growth and success by delivering a stellar employee experience

Understanding the Users

(Go and speak to different users of the product and the people in the chain: households buying the product, shopkeeper selling the product, churned users, users using competitors products. In case of B2B products identify the decision makers, the influencer, blocker and the end user)

For the sake of transparency: I have been talking to customers of Keka since some time, in order to optimize our marketing and to build success stories and social proof documents.

Apart from recent calls and research for the product, I will also be drawing inputs from the conversations I have had for this very purpose.

Decision Makers' Priorities:

They comprise mostly of founders, co-founders, and people from the C suite.

A comprehensive HRMS which has everything, all modules related to people management.
A one-stop solution that will sustain scale and future growth of his company.
Pricing - getting more at less is -naturally- the ultimate desire. Also, they want clarity in pricing. No hidden costs.
Swift deployment. Founders hate delays, not just in deployment and also during the exploration stage.

Decision Influencers' Priorities:

Decision influencers include people from the C-suite such as CHRO, CTO, CIO, as well as those who would be driving the adoption on the ground, such as people reporting to any of the above titles.

Their main priority is how would the HRMS make operations more streamlined for them.
Replacing manual tasks with automation for faster, more efficient, and error-free processes.
Adoption among users - HRMS won't succeed unless employees, HRs, and CXOs embrace it along with its automation.
Finding the data, information, they need, without any difficulty in finding it.
Generating reports (compliance related or for internal reporting)

End Users' Priorities

End users comprise of employees and daily users. We can also include HRs in the end users, for example talent acquisition specialists who use Keka daily for hiring.

Ease of use and ease of navigation to quickly access to what action they want to undertake, such as applying for leave (employee), scheduling an interview (talent acquisition specialist)

The above inputs are derived from customers/users I connected with in the last few months:

Athar Hashmi - Founder of Triple (The company helps its clients in building offshore teams and virtual assistance).
Pritam - Sr. HR Associate- Triple. It was on Pritam's advice that Triple went with Keka instead of HROne as Pritam had used Keka before and knew of its capabilities.
Rohan Mankad - Co-lead, People Function, Springworks - Talked about how Keka helped them improve their employee experience, and replaced all manual processes with automation.
Lincy Kurian - Sr. Manager, People Success, Plum - Among many things, talked about the importance of a 100+ employee organization should automate HR operations with an HRMS.
Employees and colleagues at different organizations, to know what they feel from an employee's perspective, using Keka.

Understanding your ICP

(There are separate tables for both B2C and B2B products, put down your your ICP’s in a Table Format, use this as a reference.
This table makes it super clear for anyone to understand who your users are and what differentiates them)

B2B Table:

Criteria	ICP1	ICP2
Name	Triple
Company Size	30
Location	Gurgaon
Funding Raised	Not yet
Industry Domain	Staffing
Stage of the company	Pre PMF
Organization Structure	Flat hierarchy
Decision Maker	Founder
Decision Blocker
Frequency of use case	Daily
Products used	Excel. Considered Zoho and HROne but didn't go ahead with them.
in workplace
Organisational
Goals	To automate HR operations with Keka
Preferred Outreach Channels	Emails
Conversion Time
GMV
Growth of company
Motivation
Organization Influence
Tools Utilized in workspace	Excel
Decision Time
Note: This is not an exhaustive list, you know your product better, add/remove as per the context!

we have multiple users of a product and not all of them can be our ICP for whom we make our strategies, we need to prioritize.
(use this ICP prioritization table)

Criteria	ICP 1	ICP 2
Adoption Curve	High	High
Appetite to Pay	Low	High
Frequency of Use Case	Medium	Low
Distribution Potential	High	High
TAM

Understand Market

(begin by doing a basic competitor analysis)

Factors	Competitor 1 - Darwinbox		Competitor 3	Competitor 4
What is the core problem being solved by them?	One-stop HRMS, all modules unified, on a single platform for enterprises
What are the products/features/services being offered?	HR process automation in recruitment, Core transactions (Leaves, Attendance, Directory), Payroll, Employee Movement, Employee Engagement, Talent Management, Employee Engagement, and People Analytics
Who are the users?	Enterprise companies, their HRs, admins, and employees
GTM Strategy	building customer trust and confidence in their product. building customer trust and confidence in their product. In the words of Rohit Chennamaneni, “The CFO is trying to save money, the CXO is focusing on improving customer experience, the CIO is ensuring that any new system is integrating with their existing systems; all these interests have to align,”
What channels do they use?	Organic, paid ads, roundtables, events, aggregators, partnerships
What pricing model do they operate on?	SaaS per employee per month + implementation fee
How have they raised funding?	Seed round: $700,000 raised on July 1, 2016 Series A: $4.01 million raised on June 20, 2017 Series B: Raised in September 2019 Series C: Raised in January 2021 Series D: $72 million raised in January 2022, led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and with participation from existing investors Series D3: $8.72 million raised on April 1, 2023
Brand Positioning	Modern HRMS for enterprises, in contrast with legacy systems.
UX Evaluation	The UX leaves a lot to be desired. The product has depth but the navigation, UI and the overall UX is not so great, which means adoption can be a chink in the armor.
What is your product’s Right to Win?	Our UI and UX is way too friendly and cleaner. Configuration is easier as well as adoption.
What can you learn from them?	How to be more comprehensive when showcasing offerings and showing product depth

(then try to understand the market at a macro level and evaluate the trends and tailwinds/headwinds.)

Now it’s time for some math, calculate the size of your market.

TAM = Total no. of potential customers x Average Revenue Per Customer (ARPU)
SAM = TAM x Target Market Segment (percentage of the total market)
SOM = SAM x Market Penetration/Share

Calculating this for the UAE market since that's an area where we are expanding.

TAM is $14,400,000 = $3000 x $4800

(assuming that there are 3000 companies with 100+ employees in UAE, based on Crunchbase data, and we are targeting them for our Strength plan that costs 400 dollars for 100 employees, per month)

SAM - Will target manufacturing and IT services companies among the 3000. Was not able to get the data for the same though.

Designing Acquisition Channel

(keep in mind the stage of your company before choosing your channels for acquisition.)

Channel Name	Cost	Flexibility	Effort	Speed	Scale	Budget
Organic	Low	Medium	High	Low	Medium	Low
Paid Ads	High	High	High	High	High	High
Referral Program	Medium	Low	High	Low	Medium	Medium
Product Integration	Medium	Low	Medium	High	Medium	Medium
Content Loops	Medium	Low	High	Low	Low	Medium

Detailing your Acquisition Channel

Organic and Paid Ads (Google Ads) will be the main channels as they have been working well for us.

Organic Channel

(Understand the existing organic channel strategy for your product and highlight the success and failure thereon.
Provide your suggestions and devise new strategies.)

Step 1 → Conduct keyword research on Google, Amazon, Youtube, Quora etc.
Step 2 → Collate all your insights from all your searches.

Keywords:

HRMS software

HRMS software Dubai

HRMS system

HRMS dashboard

Best HRMS software

UAE payroll software

HRMS payroll software

cloud based HR and payroll

Need to optimize the website with region-specific content that addresses regional HR challenges.

Need to have visuals with regional cultural aspects and landing pages in Arabic language as well.

Need to do on-page SEO for the website, a separate website for the ME region.

Content Loop

(Keep it simple and get the basics right)

Step 1 → Nail down your content creator, content distributor and your channel of distribution
Step 2 → Decide which type of loop you want to build out.
Step 3 → Create a simple flow diagram to represent the content loop.

Paid Ads

(Understand what is already being done, what is working out well and what needs to be stopped)

Step 1 →Define the CAC: LTV ratio. If your product has a healthy CAC:LTV ratio, proceed with paid ads.
Step 2 → What digital channels will you work with?
Step 3 → What will be your audience selection & creative strategy? (What you build in ideal customer profile should reflect here)
Step 4→ Design the Ad Campaign
Step 5 → Frame the Ad Budget

Based on the optimizations we have done, our team usually keeps a target of keeping the spend per demo less than $120 dollars.

We are already running paid ads on Google with successful results, for different regions.

Following are the details and strategy for GCC region.

Location: Focus on GCC countries, with a primary emphasis on the UAE. Target major cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Doha.

Industry: Target HR professionals, business owners, and decision-makers in industries like technology, finance, retail, healthcare, and professional services where HRMS solutions are critical.

Job Titles: HR Managers, HR Directors, CFOs, CEOs, and IT Managers who influence or make decisions on HR technology investments.

Language: English and Arabic ads to cater to the diverse audience in the UAE and broader GCC region.

Behavior & Interests: Focus on users searching for HR software, payroll solutions, employee management tools, or related HR tech.

Creative Strategy:

Ad Copy: Highlighting key pain points such as manual manual HR tasks, payroll complexities, delays in salary disbursement, salary errors, and the need for streamlined HR processes. Emphasizing how Keka automates all of these and makes it possible for businesses to hire and retain top talent.

Visuals: Using clean, professional visuals that resonate with the corporate audience— images of diverse, engaged teams, or sleek, modern offices, a dash of regional and cultural touch. Brand colors and imagery that reflect innovation and simplicity.

Messaging: Play on the theme of "Simplify, Automate, Succeed." Use concise, benefit-driven headlines like "Automate Your HR, Focus on Growth" or "Streamline Payroll with Keka." Another way could be: 'Run payroll in 5 simple steps', or 'Process payroll in half an hour!' Compliance also plays a key role for payroll in GCC countries and could be mentioned.

Call to Action: Use strong CTAs like "Get Started Today," "Request a Demo," or "See Keka in Action." Offer a free trial or demo to entice clicks.

Ad Campaign Design:

Campaign Structure >

Campaign Type: A mix of Search and Display campaigns. Search ads will capture high-intent users actively searching for HR solutions, while Display ads will raise awareness among those who might not be actively looking but fit our target profile.

Ad Groups: Segmenting by audience or industry to tailor ad copy and landing pages to each group. For example, create separate ad groups for industries like tech and finance with messaging specific to their HR needs.

Keywords: Focusing on high-intent keywords like "HR software UAE," "payroll management GCC," "GCC compliant payroll software", "HRMS software Dubai", and more.

Ad Extensions: Using ad extensions like sitelinks to showcase different features (e.g., payroll automation, employee management), call extensions for immediate inquiries, and location extensions if relevant.

Landing pages:

Ensuring landing pages are optimized for the GCC audience, with relevant content, testimonials from local businesses, and an easy-to-use form for lead capture. We already have several GCC based customers whose logos will be showcased.

Budget Allocation:

Total Budget: Allocating a significant portion to Search ads (60-70%) due to the high intent of searchers, with the remainder (30-40%) for Display ads to build brand awareness.

Daily Budget: Setting a daily budget that aligns with the overall monthly budget, starting with higher spending in the first couple of weeks to gather data, then optimizing based on performance.

Bid Strategy: Using a combination of Manual CPC for control over cost-per-click and Target CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) to optimize for conversions as the campaign progresses.

A/B Testing: Allocating a portion of the budget for A/B testing different ad copies, visuals, and CTAs to determine what resonates best with the audience.

Breakdown of the budget:

Search Campaigns: Focusing the majority of budget here for targeting high-intent users actively searching for solutions.

Display Campaigns: Using these for retargeting visitors who didn’t convert on their first visit or for building brand awareness among a broader audience.

Remarketing: Setting aside 10-15% of the budget for remarketing to re-engage users who have shown interest but haven’t converted yet.

Product Integration

(Understand, where does organic intent for your product begin?)

Step 1 → Understand does your product fit in?
Step 2 →Draw a possible flow of how the product will look like inside the integration.
Step 3 → Create a plan of multiple integrations that you could do.