A case study on DTH in the Time of Recession

‘Economic recession’ has been the biggest buzz word in the recent times. But we see
opportunity in the present economic slowdown instead of looking it as a hurdle for a
new venture. As history is the living proof of the same. Google, CNN, GE to name a
few, all started during the worst times and made it big. In present time Pink slips and
job insecurities are covering the globe so this means the talent is much easier to trap,
real estate is cheap. The entertainment industry was the only boom during the 1930’s
recession, as more people turned to television viewing in order to distract them from the
prevalent gloom. This adds more confidence in us to hit the DTH market, with the Govt
pushing Conditional Access System (CAS) hard on cable operators. Here our main
motto is to avail quality entertainment by DTH to a major part of our people in an
affordable price. We want to make avail our service from a millionaire to a common
man in rural areas.
The existing DTH players like BIZ-TV and Infotainment Communication are using
different spectrum on Ku band but offer pretty much the same set of channels(assuming
that every company is doing same in india ) . so we think they are wasting their
money and people money. For an example … ..the Govt. has made it mandatory to
include Doordarshan(DD) channels for service providers like BIZ and its
contemporaries. In the distribution process signal of DD even comes atleast 3 times in
Cband and 2 times in HITS hence totals 11 times, which amounts to wastage of
bandwidth and hence loss of public money. So sharing of the spectrum or beam could
be a solution.
A shared beam can be used by different operators using a standard set top box with
different codes, or ID cards that would identify the operator, recently a similar view
publicly shared by Dr Nair, chairman ISRO. This technology is already in use in UK
and Australia where a single beam is being shared by 5 venders , without affecting the
picture quality. Therefore by sharing of infrastructure and satellite we would limit our
initial expenditure and save public money to a greater extent. The seed money for a
DTH venture is about 400 cr but we can reduce it to 275crore or can even less than this
by sharing infrastructure .Our main plan at present is to seek common agreement on
standardized set top box and infrastructure sharing with any current DTH players. This
would certainly require changes in (addition of more LNBs ) existing customer-dish of
a vender, from which we will share infrastructure , so companies with large no of
customer will hesitate to our proposal. Hence our approach to the present DTH biggies
like BIZ and Info Comm. is completely ruled out. We clearly intent to target the DTH
players who are new in the business or planning to jump into DTH field. They have
few customers and can make the changes needed in their customer’s set top box.
In the present time DVI technology is the best way to receive video into a LCD TV
however no setup box(STB) in the current market offers the same . So in essence the
cheap STBs from genuine DTH service provider make the digital MPEG2/4 signal
convert to analogue to transmit to the TV, where it converts back digital, leading to a
generation loss. Keeping in view the high customer expectations we plan to launch DVI
enabled STBs along with genuine STBs for the common people. We even plan to install
larger dish and automatic level control system in heavy rain fall prone areas to account
for the complains against signal disruption during rain. Other than this We will be
having all the present technology available in market .
“The winning strategy in the DTH space?” We believe cost leadership is not the
answer. Providing cheaper set-top boxes will not do. the ans we think is reach out and
make the service affordable to a very large section of Indians. So we will look at being
present at places where anybody can get us, be it the grocer or paanwala. After some
research on current market we got that a general person is un known about the fact
about DTH and having the wrong idea about the DTH service is that it is very costly.
So to tackle this we will try to captre the whole market through a chain system. We will
open our centers in major parts of country and then quickly walk out through the whole
country. As In the DTH industry, a credible and well managed first-mover service has a
tremendous advantage over others. In India, a first mover may effectively shut out
competition. From our centers we will organize entertainment shows in different places
through that we will give people idea aboutour service , we will be going to schools to
promot our study pakage ,to tv showrooms even to home . The challenge for cable
exists in the rural areas where installation and application are extremely cost
prohibitive, and nearly three quarters of India is designated as rural territory. This has
created an opportunity for DTH, which serves an immediate threat to the high-end cable
networks. we will look at being present at places where anybody can get us, be it the
grocer or paanwala. In a bid totap rural markets, we will look for potential partnerships
with echaupals , post offices and even fertilizer companies.
Our customers will be our sharukh khan, kajol . we will promote our product through
our customer .if he/she get us a new customer, then we will provide them gift in terms of
our service. We will not going to get a celebrity for our advertisement keeping view on
liquidity trap. We will give simple advertisements in, radio, newspaperand privet
channels including DD. Because there are lot of people in India who do not have cable
connection for example in rural and remote areas. Overall we do not think that people use
the product which a celebrity shows, rather they will be motivated by a person who is
satisfied that product.We will have a cost management board that will manage cost of our
infrastructure and prosess looking at this recession .
Service is not yet satisfactory from exiting DTH players, we get this from current market
research. When we talked to people we found that one of the fears is that once they invest
their money in any of these DTH services, they will be forced to be with that service
forever due to the invested money in set top box(STB). So we thought of an idea to give
our customer freedom from the STBs.we will return our STBs and pay the money back
depending on condition of (STBs) if they are not satisfied with our service. We
will create a set of trained professionals in DTH hardware servicing to support our
distribution , post-sales services, installation and activation teams. As we have invested
less in infrastructure so we will be able to give our customers services in very effordable
price it will be starting from 70 /-.There is a huge demand from customer side customized
tv programe, so we will make them avail any program they want . The main thing that
pushes growth is choice. People like options. So we will try to cover evry possible
channel. There is a regular complain of changing of rules and price of service against
existing players so we will assure people of long term policy and will do it too.for
attracting rural people we will avail them specia l regional channel pakage at attractive
price .there will be a commity for checking services given by our centers they will record
the phone talk between customer and employee . and will be donning the guise of
common customer to investicate on regular basic for perfect service
Concluding we have a bunch of ideas and capability to implement them to make our
company the top and we will make that . Thank you