November 2020
Case
HBS Case Collection

Axis My India

By: Ananth Raman, Ann Winslow and Kairavi Dey

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:40

Abstract

Pradeep Gupta founded Axis My India (AMI) as a printing and publishing company in 1998. In 2013, AMI expanded into consumer research and election forecasting. Although a relatively unknown entity, AMI predicted several election results accurately. Gupta describes AMI’s rigorous process of research, primary data collection from each constituency, quality checking of data by auditors and data analysis. AMI partnered with India Today Group to broadcast its forecasts for post-poll studies. For pre-poll studies and market research, its clients now included political parties and corporates.
In 2019, as the Haryana state elections were drawing to a close, Gupta found that his team’s prediction for the election result was distinctly different from all other pollsters. Puzzled by this, he had asked for one more day to verify his data. As Gupta reviewed his team’s analysis (which had been confirmed by another round of interviews during the last 24 hours), he considered whether he should publish these numbers or revise them just enough to avoid controversy.