He is a second-generation entrepreneur in a company that has been in the business of bringing Hindi cinema to the Indian households for decades. Jai talks to DARE about his entrepreneurial journey, and shares his knowledge about business in entertainment industry.
Can you begin with telling us about Shemaroo in brief?
I would love to talk about it, because lot of people do not know everything about Shemaroo as all of it is not visible.Â
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JAI MAROO |
The company was started by my father Buddhichand H. Maroo way back in 1962 and was later joined by his brothers (my uncles) Atul Maru and Raman Maroo. It was at first a partnership with the Shethia’s. That is how the name Shemaroo came into being. Subsequently, we bought out their interest in the company, but we retained the name because it was already well- known.
Shemaroo was started as a book circulating library, and then moved on to become one of India’s very first video libraries. That was the heyday of VHS. Gradually, my uncle suggested that it is not only about video distribution, but that the real play is in content. Hence, we evolved ourselves as we saw other emerging platforms. For instance, we positioned ourselves for cable when the boom happened, and grew in that. Similarly, we positioned ourselves for satellite and we grew with that. As a result of which we got into the still ongoing joint venture with Sony Entertainment Television, India.
We basically positioned ourselves as the people who can make content available on any platform. We are known mostly for videos as VHS/VCD/DVD have always actually been available to consumers. However, we are also one of the largest suppliers on other platforms – terrestrial television, cable television, satellite television, and so on, which is not obvious or visible to the consumer, but is still a huge business for us. Just for instance, not many people realize that many movies being broadcast on Sony Entertainment Television have actually come from or via Shemaroo. Besides this, we have created our own technical capabilities such as our own post-production facility, where we can manipulate, enhance, digitize, and convert content to master DVDs and more.
Now, of course, we are moving forward to newer platforms such as mobile phones, Internet, IPTV, etc. Also, we have ventured into creation of content in last four years. We have got into films, including mainstream cinema, with movies such as Omkara and Manorama: Six Feet Under, and animated movies such as Bal Ganesh and Ghatotkach.
So that is a gist of where we are at this point in time – creation, aggregation, and distribution of content on multiple platforms.
Why did you work at Citrix when Shemaroo was given?
Well, one strong value distilled by my elders was to not take Shemaroo as the given. Every member of our family has to be educated, has to get their share of work experience, and be capable of standing on their own feet. After achieving all this, Shemaroo was an option that could be looked at.
As I was growing up, my love was in books, movies, and technology. I fell in love with computers at a very young age. I went on to do computer engineering in India, and then went to the United States get my master’s degree in computer science and engineering. It is only after this that I joined Citrix to gain experience in technology. I knew I was in the States only to gain experience, and I came back soon after, as I knew that to start something of my own it has to be back in India. To get acclimatized, I spent time in Shemaroo – from the ground up, learning about our business as well as the Indian business scenario. While I was at this, I realized that the new direction that Shemaroo needed to head, which was highly technology-driven, was a perfect fit with my background. Therefore, it was logical that rather than to create a completely different venture, I should treat it as an extension of Shemaroo. So, that is how it all happened for me.
The entertainment business is full of huge egos and black money. How does an organization do business in such a mix?
The fact that we have been in this business for several decades helps a lot. We are reaping the benefits of the very strong relationships in the industry that our senior had established in their time. As far as handling egos is concerned, it is like any other relationship – trust helps a lot. In an industry that is not known for maintaining transparency, our values have always been maintaining transparency and building trust. Because of our decades of clean dealing, producers not only give us a chance for business, but even come back to do more business. For instance, many producers are skeptical about new platforms that are emerging fast. However, our relationship with them has been strong all the way, and they trust us for not misrepresenting them.
As far as the black money angle is concerned, I think that has changed a lot now in the last decade. For instance, a lot of corporate organizations are entering this business, an industry status has been accorded to it, and banks are also getting involved, etc. We at Shemaroo have always been transparent about the business we do. There was a point in time when we were one of the highest tax payers in our segment. The fact that you are clear of all such activities, such as the black money aspect, helps you a lot in partnering easily with international companies and hence scale up.
Video library, film making, animation, post-production... how much time and effort do you spend on each? Why?
Shemaroo has a strategic business unit kind of a structure, where each vertical has couple of key people heading them. It is not an owner-only company; we have a good team that we believe in. Therefore, we do not micromanage the business. We leave the team to do what they know best, and we only focus on the results. Over a period of time, we have managed to get some really great people, who are pretty much entrepreneurs in their own right, for running their respective businesses with a feeling of ownership. There are a couple of verticals where people have been with us for more than 20 to 25 years now.
From a macro perspective, I focus on new initiatives. Early on, even when I started to take on more responsibilities, it was made very clear to me by my uncles that there were the existing verticals that were well-established. The need of the hour was to have someone look at the plethora of emerging platforms and dig for opportunities in them. It also gets me involved in finding the right people and work with them till they developed a free hand to run the unit, and then I moved on to the next initiative.
New initiatives are not just in platforms, but also in expanding our range. For years we were known for our Hindi content (movies and serials). Over time we have expanded our portfolio by bringing in a lot of regional content. We have one of the largest collections of Gujarati plays, Punjabi telefilms, etc. We have also expanded our category into health and wellness. Our bestselling recent products include Shilpa’s Yoga, Talks of Osho, Deepak Chopra, etc. We have got into edutainment, world cinema, and more. We have, in fact, even expanded from plain content into value-added services for the mobile platform. The way I see it, within content we have expanded our range into many types of content. We have also expanded our range of platforms on which the content goes.
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