EMM5604 | Industrial Marketing Management

CASE STUDY REPORT

Vista Entertainment Solutions Ltd Market Entry Strategies For India

Group 5 :
1. Mohd Faizal Azrai bin Ab Aziz

GS43608

2. Hazalifah binti Zainal Abidin

GS40673

3. Nur Ain Azman

GS44230

Table of Content
1. Introduction

Page
3

1.1. Company Profile (Vista)

1.2. Company Profile (Bigtree)

2. Case Summary

3. Current Situation

4. Deriving Key Issue From Case Study

4.1. Success Factor
5. Vista Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning
6. SWOT Analysis
7. Recommendation
8. Conclusion

1. Introduction
1.1. Company Profile (Vista)
Vista is a joint venture between a management company owned by
some of the key staff, and Village Sky City Cinemas.

The company

employs 25 staff, and its software is presently sold in 23 countries.

Vista

Entertainment

software

to

the

Solutions

entertainment

develops
industry,

multiplexes and single cinemas.

and

supplies

especially

to

specialized

cinemas,

both

This software enables cinemas to run

virtually all their different business activities, from selling tickets, to

paying

royalties,

software.

The

to

the

sale

of

company

has

been

from

refreshments
completely

one

developed

suite
in

of

New

Zealand, starting from 1995, but is constantly evolving to meet changing

demands, and the requirements of different customers.

Vista received its invitation to Bollywood after being spotted on the

internet by Bigtree in 2000. India is known for its Bollywood film market
and their export of cinema software. But a demand for web ticketing
systems gave Vista a way in. Its cinema management system handles
ticketing, film scheduling and distribution, royalty calculations and staff
rostering.

1.2. Company Profile (Bigtree)

Bigtree
ticketing,

Entertainment
information

Pvt.
and

Ltd.

is

analysis

India's
solutions

premiere
provider.

comprehensive
The

Mumbai

headquartered company founded in 1999 with funds from Chase Capital

Partners JP Morgan, is planning to use the money to expand into tier II
and tier III markets to

grow the

business beyond

movie

ticketing.

Network 18 invested in Bigtree in 2007.

It provides cinemas and event organizers as well as the consumers a

complete range of solution through call centers, Internet ticketing, kiosk
and a mobile ticketing platform. Today Bigtree's tentacles extend across
the entire matrix of the motion picture distribution and exhibition. With a
dedicated team of over 300 people, Bigtree is poised for growth in each
sphere

of

its

operations.

Bigtree

has

also

significantly

attracted

renowned investors like the TV18 group.

2. Case Summary
The company first entered the Indian market in 2000.

The first sale came

about through connections of Village Sky City Cinemas.

But parallel to that

,a new Indian company approached Vista through the companys website.

The Indian company was owned by three young MBA graduates, seeking to
develop their own business, and who believed that automated ticketing
systems for cinemas would be a future growth area.

That company became

Vistas agents in India, and remains so today.

At that time India had some 11,000 cinemas, mostly family owned, and
almost entirely run on a manual basis. However multiplexes were just
starting to develop and they needed more automated systems. Although the
companys

actual

entry

into

the

Indian

market

was

to

some

extent

opportunistic, Vista had already identified it as a huge potential market.

India is essentially the second largest cinema market in the world, after the
USA.

But until that time, Vista had only been selling its product into several

much smaller markets.

upward.

So taking on the Indian market was a huge step

For the company it was a process of discovery, one step at a time.

However Vista has been able to turn this complexity to its advantage by
being ready to adapt its software to the requirements of particular users in
meeting these bureaucratic requirements.

3. Current Situation (Industry Analysis)

Doing business in India has never been easy. New Zealand exporters have
traditionally faced a bewildering bureaucracy and tariffs for their goods that
would take the shine off any profit forecast.
While everyones attention has been focused on China the worlds fastest
growing economy India has been having a furious growth spurt of its own.
GDP is growing at over eight percent a year; last year it was 8.4 percent
with the economy growing to US$650 billion. Salaries are increasing by 15
percent a year and there is a rapidly growing middle class of 250 million
people with money to spend.

Taking on the Indian market was a huge step upward for Vista. All the
cinemas were very manual back in 2000. Vistas software was the first fully
automated ticketing system in India at that time.

The multiplex cinemas were started to growing due to the development of

digital movie format. It is a potential market for both Vista and Bigtree as in
2006, their technology in presents in 90% of the multiplexes cinema in India.
There were about 80 multiplexes cinemas in India and this number was
forecast to grow to 350 to 500 within the following years.

Today any film released in India generates 30% of its revenue from
multiplexes. This is expected to increase to 75% by 2010. According to a
study, in 2012 the revenues grow from by 21% generating close to US $1.9
billion. It mainly came from cinema ticket sales (83%), followed by cable and
satellites rights (11%) and ancillary revenues (5%) while 8% of theoretical
revenues come from abroad.

It is a good business opportunity for both Vista and Bigtree providing that
they

could

maintain

this

good

relationship

and

further

enhanced

their

products to suit the industrial needs.

4. Deriving Key Issues From Case Study

4.1. Success Factors
According to Vistas CEO, they have to agree to some of the unusual
things to do included setting up ticket numbering system to help the
government collect its entertainment tax.

Vista has proven to be rather an innovative company. They are capable

of adjusting their products or services according to the requirements and
customer needs. Even though they have faced a lot of hurdles in running
and starting business in India, but these obstacles are ease by their
excellent local agent, Bigtree. The appointment of Bigtree as their agent
in India perhaps the most critical business decision making that has
been made by them.

Vista says it could not imagine how they could have come to their
prominent position in the Indian market without their agent .

They could

not have bridged the huge gulf of understanding with respect to the
intricacies of the market, cultural sensitivities, the numerous regulatory
hurdles, or been able to deal with the associated red tape .

The agent

company has worked hard in lobbying the Federal and State authorities
on relevant matters.

Accordingly, there would have been major cost

issues in trying to deal with such matters with seconded or visiting New
Zealand-based staff.

Bigtree also plays a big part in creating the ecosystem of the cinema
industry in India. The ecosystem didnt exist in 1999. None of the mobile
companies offered the kind of reach they do now. There was no single
number policy, no credit card, debit card and net banking penetration.
Broadband

connectivity

was

very

poor.

None

of

the

cinemas

had

ticketing software. So they had to do everything in offline mode. They

did what the market required them to do. Rather than riding on some
illusionary ecosystem, Bigtree started building it. They started installing
the software at cinemas.

5. Segmentation Targeting Positioning of Vista in India

5.1. Segmentation
The

segmentation

for

business

to

business

market

could

be

done

through various ways. In this case, Vista segmented the market by type
of cinema and product application. Their major sales in Indian cinema
industry are in the multiplexes cinema related product with 95% of these
cinemas installed with their technology.

5.2. Targeting
After doing the market segmentation the firm has to evaluate the
segment of their market potential. Then the company has to decide
which and how many segments to serve and how to serve them. Based
on this case study, at that time Vista was focusing on the market
specialization. They innovate their products special for the requirement
of this market.

5.3. Positioning
With the prominent market share in the multiplexes cinema (95%), Vista at that
time can be considered as the market leader for cinema management software
provider in Indian market.
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6. SWOT Analysis
Based

upon

the

detailed

analysis

of

Vistas

key

issues

Strengths-

Weaknesses-Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis will be carried out

and serve as a comprehensive summary of the above discussion as well as
the

starting

point

for

the

development

of

possible

solutions

and

their

evaluation.
A

SWOT

analysis

represents

tool

that

companies

use

in

order

to

understand what they do well and where they could improve. Furthermore, it
enables them to get insights into the market. Strengths and weaknesses
portray the internal perspective of a company and can be controlled and
influenced. Opportunities and threats on the other hand are concerned with
the market and represent factors that cannot be controlled. However, a
company like Vista needs to be aware of these factors in order to be able to
cope with possible market changes in the future. The table below shows the
Vista SWOT analysis.

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

Strong support from Bigtree.

Too dependent on Bigtree capabilities

Software customized to customers

in India.

need.
Well recognized brand. Strong
position in cinema industry (present
90% in multiplexes cinema in India).
Experienced running business in a
tough market/ nation.

OPPORTUNITY

THREATS

 To expand sales for other modules.

350 to 500 multiplexes in the

Some of multiplex player may have

built their own ticketing system

following 4 years.

platform.

New software for single screen

cinema. ( 12000 single screen

Increasing competition from other

companies.

cinemas in India)
Expand into other areas of
entertainment industry.

Table 6.1 : SWOT Analysis of Vista

7. Recommendation
The discussion of the key issues that Vista currently faces as well as the
SWOT analysis that was conducted based on those issues shows that in
order to achieve its ambitious goals and continue to be the major player in
the cinema industry, Vista must consider a few recommendation.

Considering they have successfully created a market demand for cinema

industry in India by providing a good product to meet the needs of the
customer, they should do the same to other large cinema industry market.
Perhaps, expanding business to other continent is their next main priority.
They should use their success in India as the breakthrough to enter other
market.

This could be done by appointing other agent or business partner that could
do the job as good as what Vista did in the Indian market. As for the current
Indian

market,

they

should

maintain

their

strong

position

by

regularly

interact with their customer to build trust and royalty. Maintaining Vista and
Bigtree relationship is also

another crucial step.

The film and

cinema

industry in India is growing fast with more opportunities to come. They

should continue their product innovation in line with the market change.

For Bigtree, apart from become agent of Vista and as a value added seller
of Vistas product, they must use their strength and experience in the Indian
cinema industry to increase their revenue by strengthen their business
activities. The multiplex market is now being fragmented by other players
like Fame cinemas, Cinemax and PVR. For Bigtree, it seems is playing a
small part in the food chain of entertainment industry, as some of these
multiplex players have built their own ticketing system.

In short, Bigtree needs to expand into businesses beyond movies and get
into events. This is surely big news for event/ticketing industry, which has
mostly been untouched by the technology investment community.

8. Conclusion
Key lessons learnt by Vista in the Indian market focus on the importance of
choosing an excellent agent, and of being flexible in relation to meeting the
particular needs of the market, recognizing that there are many differences
in India that foreign companies need to adjust to.

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