BookMyShow CEO sets the ball rolling for a knowledge-packed BMPA-Ricoh Print Summit 2014

The Print Summit, which opened this morning, is one of the popular events on the print calendar. “Rapid changes have taken place, the ecosystem has changed,” said Ashish Hemrajani.

Interspersing his address with examples to an 500+ audience, Hemrajani explained how he started his business, selling movie tickets through telephone and internet in 1999, at the height of the dotcom boom, to selling Bigtree to News Corp, to founding Bigtree Entertainment. The firm employs over 300 people in offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. “Our numbers fell from 150 to 6, and we had to shift offices and reassess all priorities.”

Bookmyshow.com, a part of Bigtree Entertainment was built, around a software that allowed selling tickets for movies. “We built an ecosystem did not sit upon it,” he said.

According to Hemrajani, his company started providing new services that provided consumers with that extra experience in one place. “When a customer buys a ticket, we ensure that he gets the full service, right from the time he enters the event to his seating place,” said Hemrajani. “I am giving that extra experience in one place, and statistics show that people are rushing to use our services.”

Hemrajani also said that there are rapid changes in the way things are happening. “We are entering into a space, where we may be going paperless – paperless entry into theatres.” On a lighter note he asked, “So where does this leave print?” He however, clarified that there are events, where his company cannot go paperless for security reasons.

He mentioned events like IPL, which have huge gathering, need security features embedded in the tickets sold. “Even if I operate in digital, a business that is rival to print, it’s an area which has enabled our company to add security feature in our ticketing document.”

Unlike other countries, the penetration of internet in India is around 10%, and hence it is important for printers to provide solutions that are relevant to print. “Technology will continue to evolve. An alternate to print will become available, and be adopted. If you as printers provide solutions to your customers that are relevant to print, print will be around for a long time to come,” concluded Hemrajani.