Skillset Blog

My word, it’s cold after 35 degrees! A bit of a shock to the system, but once the washing has been done, the gifts distributed, the body clock back to normal, what has it meant?

In order to make a little sense, I have been thinking along the lines of a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) of the Mumbai facilities sector. Big caveat on all of this; it is only the humble opinion of this commentator, after only a week in India. But…

Strengths

• There is a skilled, educated and talented workforce out there.
• The cost of wages are much less, allowing for much bigger studios.
• The workforce seems hungry, and willing to work 24/7.
• The kit is as good as any we have in the UK.
• There is a huge film market and a growing animation one.
• There is a large domestic (and Indian-born, international) audience - last month saw over 8 million new mobile phone handsets bought in India.
• There are already strong links between India and the US, the far east and Australasia.
• There are a large number of companies that seem to have deep pockets and cash to spend
• Timezone - this one has been puzzling me - as London has a time zone advantage for the US/Far East money market, is there an equivalent for Mumbai and Europe / Australasia in post production work?

Weaknesses

• There is very little professional training given, or even available. Even the crème de la crème here (Whistling Woods) will only produce cohorts of 12 for each discipline - and when we look at the size of the industry this simply is not enough.
• The standard of project management is very low.
• There is little connectivity between facilities, with a lot of material still physically transported - which apart from the time scales raises significant security issues.
• Parts of the industry still seem quite evolutionarily juvenile - with resulting consolidation, merging, and a lack of stability.
• It takes time to build the relationships in order to make good any collaboration/joint venture.
• Complex and confusing tax and intellectual property structures.
• There is no accurate picture of the size and scale of the media industry in India, making investment choices particularly hard to gauge
• Whilst labour costs may be low, space is not - a two-bedroom apartment in the posh parts of Mumbai (and where a number of facilities are based) is reputed to be in the millions (pounds, not rupees!)
• Working practices border on immoral

Opportunities

• New markets - mobile, gaming, re-purposing of content - all of this seems not yet to be easily available to the Indian media industry.
• supply of low cost work, such as restoration or some fx work
• provision of work flow/project management and key talent
• training, both pre/new-entrant and continual professional development
• We can provide a “grand entrance” to the world (i.e. an Indian company purchasing a London one)
• Connectivity
• With a growing number of Indian productions being filmed in the UK, the provision of seamless UK and Indian post services

Threats

• Too late? Has the bubble burst? There are already a number of international companies and individuals working in Mumbai.
• In many respects the Indian sector doesn’t need us - and I have seen many companies simply wanting to pitch for work.
• IP protection is minimal at best - with court cases taking over 10 years to decide.
• India seems to look to the US more than the UK - it is Harvard rather than Oxbridge that the elite send their sons and daughters to.
• It was hard to see how meritocratic India is, which means not always having the best person for the job
• Middle management is pretty rife here
• Will the massive conglomerates of India simply buy up the UK post industry?

I am sure I will add to this list as I go through my notes, remember the contacts met, the presentations given and the conversations had. Mumbai is not an easy opportunity for “outsourcing”. Any profitable work will be collaborative and done in partnership. And is just as likely to be India using the UK as us using them.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 23rd, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Facilities. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but we reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.