NDTV and Genpact join hands for India’s first MPO

Riding on the huge potential for growth in the media and entertainment industry across the world, NDTV and Genpact have entered into an alliance to offer media outsourcing services to enterprises worldwide. This alliance can be termed as India’s first foray into media process outsourcing (MPO).

Under the terms of the agreement, Genpact and NDTV will form a joint venture to provide cost-effective, high quality media services to global and regional media and entertainment companies in areas including editing, digitisation and closed captioning.

According to NDTV executives, there is huge demand for archiving content in a digitised format both in the international and home markets. Currently, 70 per cent of all media work is digital and virtually 70 per cent of this can be outsourced. In some ways, the media world is currently at an inflection point similar to the Y2K phenomenon, as decades of analog is being converted to digital from major process-based operations to high-end functionality. The newly formed company plans to capitalise on this untapped market.

The executives claim that the company is probably the first of its kind in the world.

The joint venture company will combine NDTV’s brand image, domain knowledge and world class media skill sets with Genpact’s offshore experience, global delivery capabilities, sales and marketing infrastructure and reputation for operational excellence.

Prannoy Roy, chairman, NDTV, says, “There are significant untapped opportunities around the world in this field and we hope to break new frontiers and push India’s media envelope even further.”

Roy said that the venture was something that the media company had been looking at for a while now. Earlier, NDTV had been studying various markets for a year and was looking at generic possibilities in this area.

On the alliance with Genpact (formerly GE Capital International Services), Roy says, “Genpact’s experience and reputation in global business processes, combined with NDTV’s commitment to quality and cutting edge technology, should deliver significant value for media and entertainment players around the world.”

Commenting on the alliance, Pramod Bhasin, president and CEO of Genpact, says, “This is a landmark deal, the first of its kind to offer outsourcing solutions for the media industry. Through our partnership with NDTV, our customers will gain access to customised solutions and be able to further benefit from our global expertise and cost-effective service delivery.

He adds, “With 20 years of experience, NDTV’s domain knowledge will provide this venture a foundation from which to pursue opportunities in the growing media space.”

The entire global media and entertainment industry was estimated at $1,340 billion at the end of 2005 and is expected to grow to $1,777 billion by the end of 2009. In addition, there are a number of drivers that are changing the dynamics for the industry, such as the increasing prevalence of HDTV, digital content and on-demand programming. The changing dynamics have created a need for media companies to ensure that their content is digitised and available for customers to access and use. There is also pressure on media companies globally to cut costs and outsourcing is one of the established means to achieve this.

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