AI, IOT, Machine Learning are the buzzwords today. Attend any discussion, take any tech or digital lecture at the B-School, and you will find everyone discussing about these fancy jargons.
It’s become so important that research shows 70% of businesses are going to adopt AI in their day to day work
The Yes Bank case study on Bookmyshow also mentions AI several times, thereby making it clearly known that they are relying on tech to drive their next business.
But what is that business going to be is the challenge that they have left us with. Let’s have a look at how to approach this case study.
Also read: Yes Bank Transformation – Microsoft Case Study (2018)
Identify the Core Proposition
What is Book My Show best known for? A lot of people would say it is into selling tickets, whereas some others would say it’s a part of the entertainment industry.
Personally, I’d say it’s in the business of making entertainment more accessible to the masses. You can have your own interpretation too. Before getting into where they should diversify, identify the core proposition of the Yes Bank case study on Bookmyshow, and justify it.
This practice will help you in keeping their core in your mind and ensure that whatever business you choose, you can tie it back to what BMS stands for.
Choose the Diversification Model
There are various kinds of diversification strategies. The most common ones are –
Concentric / Related Diversification – Here, the company ventures into a related industry so that it can leverage its technological assets for getting a head start and sustaining its business.
Horizontal / Unrelated Diversification – At times, a company sees potential in totally unrelated markets and an unrelated field of work, and ventures into it.
A tie-up, merger or acquisition is a good way to do this if you want to minimize your risk and rely on an already established player.
Doing this alone can prove to be quite a task since it’s like starting from scratch and making your way up.
My article on the Ansoff Matrix might be a good read for this context.
Create a List (of Businesses)
If you consider the core proposition of Book My Show as a platform that makes entertainment more accessible to the masses, then there are a lot of things you can consider as the next step.
In India, OTT services are becoming huge. Producing original content is the way that’s everyone is choosing.
Another business that’s doing well is music streaming, but BMS has already ventured into it by acquiring a music streaming service (see how well it fits into the ‘making entertainment more accessible’ story).
Similarly, providing curated music for entertainment venues like restaurants, pubs, bars is a great upcoming business.
Want to consider something in the gaming arena?
It’s entertainment after all! Gaming opens up a whole new avenue with VR/AR as one option, and a fully-fledged entertainment park as another.
Long things cut short – in the tech-powered entertainment arena, there is a whole lot of things that you can consider. These are just some of the suggestions, but ones that you may want to realistically consider.
Market Sizing and Market Research!
We’re back to market research again because the importance of market research cannot be emphasized enough upon.
Market research not only provides a solid basis to defend your plan but also gives you insights about things that you’d have never thought of.
For this purpose, you must read my article on conducting a Secondary Market Research.
Out of the 2-3 businesses that you shortlist, here’s what you should do –
- Market Sizing: Determine the market for that particular service. A guestimate will work perfectly fine, provided there’s some sort of logic behind it.
Want to venture into OTT services? Find out the cumulative audience of the top 2-3 OTT services, and discount the number by a factor to remove the overlapping audience.
Or want to enter into the curated music for pubs and restaurant business?
Your market can be determined by – No. of restaurants in a particular area of a city X No. of such happening areas in the city X No. of such cities (Just a random formula that can be refined)
- Primary Research: Do a primary research of your expected target audience, and ask questions that delve deeper into their psyche rather than just asking the typical ‘which service would you prefer out of the 3’ type questions.
Study their life patterns, see what kind of content attracts them, what is their lifestyle, what kind of places they frequent, what are their motivations and aspirations in life.
Not only will this help you in narrowing down to the business you should venture into, but also help a lot in designing the kind of content, brand name etc. for this particular business.
- Financials: At the end of the day, Book My Show wants business, and business means revenues.
After you are done with market sizing, show a computation of expected revenues, and expected expenditure.
If you are venturing into the OTT video content service, give a proper model (freemium, free, subscription-based), show the expected number of users who will try, the number that will drop off, and the eventual number that will subscribe.
Show revenues from in-film advertising, and other avenues like online advertising.
Research a list of Start-ups
This Yes Bank case study would definitely require some research. There are some incredible start-ups that are doing phenomenally well in the field of AI and entertainment. Researching this list will give you an idea about the way this industry is headed.
It will also give you some possible names whose technology can be licensed, or if possible, those businesses are acquired.
After all, BMS has recently acquired another start-up in the music streaming business, among various other small start-ups. Looking at their trend, it seems like mergers and acquisitions are the routes that they are comfortable with, for reasons best known to them.
Business Plan =/= Profits
In this Yes Bank case study, Book My Show is asking for a financial plan, but you don’t have to show profits in the first year itself. Businesses have capital expenditure that’s hard to recover in the first year unless you are selling construction material or plastic.
You can make a yearly projection for the next 5/10 years and show how long do you really think it will take to start making profits from this venture.
Be honest, because even the panelists will figure out if you are showing some fake numbers.
Yes Bank Case Study – Conclusion
At the end of the day, Book My Show is looking for a financial plan, but your entire approach of showing that you understand their core proposition, then proceeding with the kind of businesses that are suitable, and then doing the market sizing and finally showing them hard numbers is what will make the difference. Happy solving!
