Recently, a global terrorist organisation announced it was opening an offshoot in India, which is not quite what our business newspapers had in mind when they said this new government would be bringing in foreign investment. However, our crack investigative team has now found out that Al Qaeda isn’t working alone. They’re working with an organisation that is even more unscrupulous: a management consultancy. So we made like Edward Snowden and hacked the consultancy’s computers and found the minutes of a pitch meeting with the terrorist organisation in question.

We have reproduced the meeting’s minutes in its entirety.

I’d like to begin by thanking all of you for the opportunity to give this presentation. We’re a company that loves challenges and there is nothing more challenging than helping a deadbeat organisation that purports to wage a holy war. We’d also like to thank you for picking us up from the airport. The ride over here in an unmarked car with our eyes blindfolded and our hands tied behind our back was...interesting? Anyway, if you could ask the nice man standing at the back pointing an AK-47 at us to stand down, we can stop wetting our pants and begin the presentation.

Now, we understand your organisation has been facing a lot of problems lately. Not only has growth stagnated, you’ve been rudderless since you lost your founder chairman to umm…extenuating circumstances. Recruitment is down, government regulations are eating into your business and other, younger competitors have seized a large portion of your territory. This is a problem that many institutions your size face from time to time. That is why they hire us to turn things around.

Let’s begin with the low recruitment rate. You have to make the job openings in your organisation more attractive. Start with changing the designations. No one wants to be the new “No. 3". Accepting that position is like signing your own death warrant. You’ve had more Number Threes than George Clooney had girlfriends. And that name is so inelegant. Instead of referring to the person you hire as the “al-Qaeda No. 3”, call him the “Vice-President of Global Operations”.

If you want to have a future, you need to capture the Web 2.0 crowd. Jazz up your brand a little. Right now, you’re the Blackberry of terrorist organisations. The only people who join your network are those who aren’t aware of better options. ISIS has been around for less than a year and it already has better brand recall than you do. The only thing less popular than you is the Microsoft Zune.

To begin with, why do you even have such a big name? It’s 2014. Lose the hyphen and start calling yourselves alq from now on. Uppercase names are for uptight adults. All the cools kids are shunning vowels these days.

Do you even have a social media strategy? I didn’t think so! Now, we’re going to create a Twitter account for you, and for your first tweet, we’re going to post a picture of all of us. Here, everyone stand behind me. Yes, like that. Here, Ahmed, you take the picture. Hey, Mujib, come up front. That’s better. Now, say cheese. What a Kodak moment!

@alq: Help us get more RTs than infidel lesbian Ellen DeGeneres. #SelfieJihad #BringBackOurCaliphate

Gird your loins, gentlemen. You’re about to go viral.

While we wait, I want to ask why you’re still releasing videotapes. No one has VCRs anymore. Sending people videotapes sounds like something HBO’s marketing department would do to promote a niche television show. Just release your videos on YouTube like a normal person. People use that website for recruitment and distribution of propaganda all the time!

If you really want to brainwash the masses though, put up a video of a cat doing something fun while a voiceover regurgitates your bile. And hire a narrator for cripes sake! No offence, Mr Zawahri, but you sound like an asthma patient scratching a blackboard. Have you thought of getting that checked? I know a great doctor. Remind me later to give you his number. He performed Joan Rivers’ throat surgery.

According to our market research, today’s young jihadi wants access to the same material things that their non-murderous peers want. They have the same needs and desires. They want to wear branded clothes and live in huge mansions. They want to ride SUVs and play tennis on the Wii.

While your competitors give them gold-plated iPhones, the best phone you offer is a Samsung Galaxy S5? These people are blowing themselves up for you and you won’t give them a device made of something other than cheap plastic? And don’t you think about giving them a Nexus. That battery. You don’t want to attach one to a nuclear bomb and find out later that the phone lost juice before you even made the activation call.

And while we’re glad you’re considering venturing into newer markets, we aren’t sure you got the right country. We saw your video calling for jihad against the Indian government. But there is a full on jihad going on there already. Have you been to any of their Papa John’s? That company’s jihad against edible pizza is scarier than anything you guys have ever done.

And if you’re talking about religious nuts, oh boy, this country has a few. There is already a massive group of people who have been brainwashed into worshipping a shirtless god. They call this god Salman Khan.

That said, if you go against our advice and decide to take the plunge anyway, your timing couldn’t be better. If you’d decided to do this a few months ago, the guys who are in charge right now would have been accusing the last government of secretly making a deal with you. And though everyone knows you’re a shady terrorist organisation that has caused the deaths of millions of innocent people throughout the world, even you can’t afford the bad press that comes from being associated with the Congress Party.

We understand all this change can only come about if you generate enough cash. We have some great ideas for that too! How about a Kickstarter page? Those guys will fund anything. They gave thousands of dollars to a guy who wanted to make a potato salad. Potato salad! They’ll be throwing hard-earned money at you to finance your holy war against the imperialist western infidels.

You could invest in your own app. That would make it easier for people to donate money directly to you. You can even have your own store, where you can print your logo on coffee mugs, mobile phone covers, suicide bombing vests, you name it. You can sell t-shirts with popular slogans like Do You Even Jihad, Bro?

Merchandising is not only a good source of extra funds but also a great way to keep your name out there during the dry years.

Or you could raise some cash by auctioning off unused items. I bet there’s a creepy Russian oligarch who’d love to get his hands on your old Handycam, or your dead boss’ dialysis machine.

You should eBay that sh…wait. What’s that sound?

Ahmed, did you turn off the location identifier before you tweeted that picture out?

You didn’t?

Uh-oh.

I think we’re done here.