Like all stories in the history of innovation, the story of Manoj Matthai is also unique in its own unique way. Matthai is a visionary who blended two extremely diverse roles – the role of the strategist and the role of the Chief Creative Officer – into one unique role to create success for his client businesses. He combined what is usually not combined in the business and management industry worldwide, especially in the niche area in management consulting called strategy consulting. He has been formulating Strategies and directing creatives as a part of implementing his strategies for client businesses for close to 30 years now. All strategies of Manoj Matthai are focused on creating exponential growth for client businesses and brands. He remains a unique phenomenon in the strategy consulting industry as he combines strategy formulation along with strategy implementation and creative direction.
Manoj Matthai is the Founder, Strategist and Chief Creative Officer of The Breakthrough Group, which he founded in Bangalore 28 years ago. Today, The Breakthrough Group is an entity that consolidates 12 independent super-specialized brands including its flagship strategy consulting brand &Matthai Strategy Consulting. The Breakthrough Group delivers 360-degree business success in a way clients want to associate with them through the 12 super specialized brands. If some businesses require only the Strategy Formulation or the Strategy Consulting part, &Matthai Strategy Consulting associates with the business on the mandate and if some businesses are looking only for strategy implementation, Breakthrough Brand & Business Consulting works on the given strategy to implement them. Similarly, there are 10 other brands under The Breakthrough Group offering highly specialized success solutions according to the client needs. For example, the BiblioBuddha brand offers the foundational fundamentals of a business including naming, brand identity design, brand packaging and high-profile domain naming consultancy and the brand Onebrand.ing offers exclusive Brand Communication and Design following strict brand frameworks and guidelines. He has worked hands on with over 300 brands and 7000 engagements in his long career spanning over 30 years as listed in The Breakthrough Group website www.tbgsuccess.com.
When the key players in the strategy consulting industry in the world like McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co. focus on strategy consulting and formulation only, the strategy consulting brand of The Breakthrough Group, &Matthai Strategy Consulting offers strategy formulation, strategy consulting and total assistance in strategy implementation including creative direction of corporate brand and product brand communication. This is because his fast-growing client businesses require these services for their exponential growth in the fast-changing modern business landscape.
The ‘India can’ strategy
As a strategist, Matthai firmly believes that India can be a new prosperous country, being the country with the largest population in the world and in having one-sixth of the world’s population. India has the world's largest youth population, with roughly 65-66% of its population being under 35 years old. India can be a new power in the world if all these young strong hands are given genuine jobs to work on and these young minds are provided ideas and direction to grow up in their career and lives. It is possible if we can offer the right hands, the right jobs at the right time, near their homes. So, creating new jobs near their homes in the villages is important because it is not about people migrating for jobs but about jobs migrating for people in the villages and rural suburbs. It is not about the usual migration concepts like migration or reverse migration. It is about organic-zero migration achieved by the transformation in our thinking and not through policies. This can only be achieved by creating good modern entrepreneurs for the modern world at the grassroots level in the length and breadth of the country and by empowering them to create jobs at the grassroots. Matthai believes this can only be done by creating highly successful entrepreneurs and business visionaries at the grassroots level. Matthai calls this vision of his the ‘India can strategy’. Matthai hand picks his clients and formulates his strategies for client businesses with this vision in mind. He has also structured The Breakthrough Group with 12 super-specialised brands under 5 solutions verticals keeping this vision in mind.
Transformation and Transcendence
Manoj Matthai operates as the principal strategist of &Matthai Strategy Consulting under three niche areas. One, in the transformation of Traditional Business Group into a Corporate House with a bouquet of well-structured brands that celebrate the legacy of the new corporate house. Two, in the transformation of Traditional Businesses into Modern businesses that holds power brands focusing on contemporary markets and more precisely future markets. Three, in partnering with startups for their exponential growth in quick time. Matthai leverages the businesses and the corporates using the modern science of scaling on all three of his favourite niche business subjects. However, The Breakthrough Group with all its 12 diverse brands work on every topic that delivers Business Success Solutions for client businesses. The group brands primarily focus on two pathways. One, the transformation of every business into a future focused business. And two, the transcendence of brands beyond the physical plane into a spiritual dimension.
The legend of Indian cinema endorses
In 2024, Matthai completed the transformation of the 40-year-old Business Group into a Corporate House. On its 40th anniversary, the VKC Group was transformed into a Corporate House rechristened as ‘India’s VKC’, with multiple varied brands in varied categories under multiple verticals including Product Brands, Retail Brands and Service Brands. This ‘India’s VKC’ corporate house mandate was received in June 2021 and it took three long years for this transformation to be completed with multiple brands under multiple categories being developed under multiple verticals.
Matthai does not believe in the power of celebrity endorsements to transform brands as a standard operation procedure in strategy implementation yet he roped in the legend of Indian cinema Sri. Amitabh Bachchan as it was essential for this strategy. As the brand ambassador, the legendary actor endorsed the thought ‘Celebrate Hard Work’ as Sri. Bachchan was the epitome of hard work in Indian cinema and had crossed the half a century mark in Indian cinema. “As a strategist, I express my sincere gratitude to Mr. VKC Razak, Managing Director, India’s VKC for completely approving the strategy I formulated and taking the lead role and steering the corporate house in implementing the strategy in record time. Mr. VKC Razak’s speed was crucial here, as the best of strategy is only as good as its implementation,” said Manoj Matthai.
The 85-year-old group
An 85-year-old business group named Azad Group was also transformed into a corporate house in 2024 rebranding it as Azad Corporate House with a new corporate identity, a new corporate culture and a new corporate structure. Azad was structured into multiple verticals with multiple brands under each vertical with most of the brands developed from scratch to fit into different contemporary categories. Azad Corporate leads the hotel industry with four power brands under four different categories in hospitality. In 2024, Matthai also launched the most acclaimed India’s first slow food chain brand named 1940 India by Azad for the Azad Corporate House. 1940 India by Azad is placed in a totally new category independently strategized and developed by Matthai.
Happiness is Supreme
Manoj Matthai stepped into transforming Business Groups into Corporate Houses for the first time after getting the mandate to look deep into all the businesses of the Supreme Group, the food division that takes its lineage from the legendary businessman of Kerala, Janab Thangal Kunju Musliar. In 2016, Matthai transformed Supreme Group into a corporate house in food as Supreme Food Company and structured the businesses into different verticals after integrating the corporate with a new strategy and aligning the new corporate identity to the new strategy formulated. Till the day Matthai took up the Supreme Food Co. mandate, he was focusing only on individual businesses and brands from the business strategy perspective and not from the corporate strategy perspective.
The soul of God’s own country
From the year 2000, for more than a decade and a half, Matthai formulated strategies to launch and flourish the most powerful independent brands in the hospitality in almost all the top tourism destinations and cities in south India including Kovalam, Thekkady, Munnar, Pondicherry, Trivandrum and Kochi. At the peak of the tourism boom in south India, he had launched all the international network chains to Kerala including Le Meridien, Hilton, Ginger, Leela Kempinsky, etc. The Breakthrough Group was one of the two companies in India that implemented the strategy for rebranding Taj into Vivanta by Taj. He also did the strategic brand communication exercise for privatizing the prestigious Government of Kerala properties like Kovalam Hotels and the Halcyon Castle. If you count the number of independent hotels and brands launched and made successful by Matthai, you will tend to believe that Manoj Matthai is one among the few people who built the soul of the hospitality in Kerala by strategically curating the independent resorts and hotels into power brands and businesses.
Manoj Matthai believes and espouses in all his strategies that ‘Happy Neighbourhoods is the essence of building a peaceful world.’ His strategies to create modern entrepreneurs and visionary enterprises at the grassroots level is a testimony to his commitment to build happy neighbourhoods. He says, “A peaceful world is easily achievable, if every neighbourhood plans to build a happy neighbourhood and create jobs in the neighbourhood by supporting neighbourhood businesses. As a customer everyone can contribute to create a peaceful world by consciously choosing what to buy and where to buy from, every day. The power of the conscious customer can change our world. You and I can be the King Customer who reigns with the power to choose goodness and we shall usher in peace into our neighbourhoods, now and forever.”
