Mumbai – Day Six

My last full day in Mumbai, the day is one to catch up and reflect and try to make sense of what Mumbai and the UK can do together. There are opportunities, but also problems:-

• Prime Focus, a major player here has already purchased a London facility. Another deal seems to be nearing completion, rumours abound of a major Indian company looking for a purchase in Soho. We have heard how a lot of these massive corporations look for “trophies” to demonstrate wealth and power – perhaps a Soho facility would give the required cache.
• Work can be done here, from call centres to Business Process Outsourcing. Animation and VFX work has been done here (one VFX house has 600 seats, another 450!), but there are still some concerns over the quality. This is not, though, a one-way street – the US, Far East and Australia seem to be benefiting from effects work from Bollywood – but not so much in the UK.
• Film is the dominant force. The star system, the producers, the tie-ins, these are key to the ecology of the entertainment industry. The Film London Tournament has however demonstrated that the industry here is keen to learn new ways of working, and sell itself to the world as a film making talent.
• The sheer number of people combined with the low wage costs means that it is a very different market model – even a different workflow model. The animators work 12 plus hours a day for 6 days a week. We have seen elaborate event staging go up in the hotel overnight, only to be gone the next day. The film makers I have met talk of armies of people creating the sets – but all of this seems to happen at the last moment. I hear of a lack of project management skills, or even really an understanding of it.
• The infrastructure needs to change. From the roads (getting anywhere in this massive city on time is much more a case of hope than judgement) to technology (no secure connections). One colleague spent 6 hours on a flight from Delhi – a trip that should have taken less than three.
• There are talented and skilled people here, but I am still not sure how they are found. The lack of work laws mean that costs are super low, however it sits uneasily in an increasingly mindful world economy – what company wants to be branded in the UK as one which exploits the workforce? Training is ad hoc at best, with very little provision for new entrant or even workforce development.
• The industry seems fragmented and unclear as to where it is heading. Little if no credible data seems to exist on the wider size and growth of the audio visual industry in terms of workforce, with little common voice to counter the major obstacles, not strategic vision to ensure the industry continues to grow.
• There are some seriously wealthy companies here, with massive reserves of cash. Companies such as Percept and Reliance have already invested in the media industry here and abroad. Deep pockets can soon cause great threats to the UK market.

More visits today; this is not a Soho model of wowing the customer. That is, all except Pixion, which has all the baubles to compete with the best of Dean Street.

As the day comes to a close, many of us feel that after 6 days, we have only really just begun to understand this place. We have been exposed to an industry dominated by film, but there is a thriving TV and Advertising sector here too – I realise that I haven’t been to visit one of the broadcasters. We have focused on Mumbai, but other regions have just as important an industry. Chennai and Delhi would be necessary additions to gain an accurate overview. Others in the group can see the value for a future trip, and are starting to plan a strategy for it.

Our last meal together also highlights another positive for the trip. As Simon (Evolutions) puts it, we have all come away with a deeper understanding of our own sector, as well as some fantastic new friends.