SYMBIOSIS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, PUNE

(A constituent of Symbiosis International University, Pune)

ASHISH HEMARAJINI BookMyShow.com

A report submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of masters in business

administration

Submitted by:
Manish Kumar D-25
Mayank Swarnkar D-26
Neha Singh D-29

Submitted to:

Dr. Amit Kr. Agarwal

SIMS, Pune

January, 2017
Ashish Hemarajani: BookMyShow

Introduction

I took the road less travelled these were the words of Ashish Hemarajani in an Interview for CNN News
18.

It was near in millennium, nearly 17 years before when Ashish Hemarajani started BookMyShow.com
which is now largest online movies and event ticketing brand. He completed his MBA in marketing from
Sydenham college of Economics and Commerce. He was born on 1975. His first job was in JW Thomson
as an Account Manager where he worked for two years till 1999. He started Big tree Entertainment with
two of his friends in 1999. He is currently CEO of the BookMyShow under Big Tree Entertainment. Ashish
Hemarajani is a down to earth person and doesnt share his personal life on public domain. He doesnt
even have a Facebook profile. He is a great visionary who saw an opportunity in growing entertainment
business. He showed his flexibility and open mindedness during Dot com burst when they start
providing CRM related technological solutions to sustain recession. He is continuously working hard for
Big entertainment from last 18 years which shows his pursuance.

Figure 1: Ashish Hemrajani

Company background
BookMyshow currently operates in four countries having more than 16 million customers. It has access
to more than 3500 screens in more than 350 cities in India. BookMyShow under Big Tree entertainment
was founded by Ashish Hemarajani, Parikshit Dar and Rajesh Balpande in 1999. Vista was the first
product brought by Big Tree Entertainment in India which was a Ticketing software from New Zealand.
This was the first step to be in rising Multiplex and Cinema market in India. In 2002, during DoT com
burst company started providing Customer Relationship Management technological solutions to sail
through the storm. There first investment was in 2007 by TV18. Company launched BookMyshow.com in
August 2007. The name was chosen through a contest among employees.

BookMyShow is official ticketing partner for several IPL teams and Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Today they have 3.5 million Facebook fans with 7.2 million mobile app downloads. They booked more
than 1 lakh tickets in a day which was a record by itself. They have acquired three firms named as Ticket
green, a Chennai based online ticketing company and Eventifier, an Banglore based social media
analytics firm.

BookMyShow has won The Hottest Company of the Year and the company to watch out for award in
2011-12 in CNBC Young Turks.
The Idea
The idea for company like this came in Ashish Mind when he went to South Africa on Vacation with two
of his friends, Prakshit Dar and Rajesh Balpande. While packing back to India, Ashish heard a radio
advertisement for Rugby Ticket, and that was the moment when he thought of Online ticketing system
in India. He convinced both of his friends to be part of it. They became co-founder, now Prakshit Dar
looks after Technical Aspects and Rajesh looks after financials of the company.

The Market
Ashish saw an opportunity in entertainment industry of India. People are crazy about movies in India.
They face major problems in buying tickets. People use to stand in big queue for buying tickets. People
even pay more for black tickets so that they can watch movie. This was a problem identified by Ashish,
and the solution was BookMyShow.com. Initially they sold ticketing software to multiplex which were
rising in numbers. They integrated there ticketing software to an online platform and provided and easy
way of booking tickets.

He was sure about market will grow as India being a Tropical country where indoor entertainment are
more preferred. Cinema has high penetration in all segments. Different cultural and linguistic
orientation of people provided them customers of different taste and hence increasing utility of its
online platform.

Business Model
Revenue model of Bookmyshow.com include convenience fees charged from customers add on
to ticket prices, which aggregate to approximately 85% of revenue. There are turnkey solutions
for organisers of events and programmes which generate interests for customers in that particular
event and in turn generate approximately 10% of revenue for the company. Even software
solutions are provided to cinemas and their maintenance contracts are taken which help in
generating other 5% of revenue. Facilities such as printout of tickets etc are based on these
software solutions. Advertising revenue is also another upcoming major source. Company came
up with plans for m-ticket which save cost of paper and need of kiosk and long queues are
eliminated. Initially cost was reduced by reusing papers and old pins and saving electricity by
keeping AC at 24 degrees. Scale of economy is resulting in reduced cost with tapping majorly all
multiplexes across all tier -1 cities and few tier-2 cities. Hosting sports tickets like Indian
Priemere League, Indian Badminton League which increased customer base by triple fold.
Hosting trailers and promos on website also attract charges

Various challenges are coming up as few states are insisting on scrapping convenience fees and
new competition is coming up from PayTM.
Initial Difficulties
Past 16 years have been really challenging for Ashish Hemarajani. He struggled in initial phase
of development and came up with hurdles and crossed it with values owned by him.To realize
their mission of achieving whole countrys access to online ticket booking and changing mindset
of people, company worked through various phases. During 2002 dot com bubble, Ashishs
company was wiped out and Bigtree Enterntainment has to cut a deal with News Corp. They shut
down their offices and focused on only two important cities that are Delhi and Mumbai. Number
of employees came down from 150 to 6. With lot of struggle and change in management styles,
company came back with funds and capital from big companies and

Response
Ashish in his interview with a social networking site told that he realized that good and bad time
never persist and we have to be persistent like woodpecker who keeps chipping the tree and
brings whole tree down. Being early in market, it became an easier task for company to gain
market share and position themselves among the Indian crowd. With the advent of digitization,
slowly Indian middle class also adopted the idea of online ticket booking and companys cash
flow increased and presence increased to more than 200 cities. SaaS became popular in India and
with new technologies coming up, softwares for booking were developed by company and
marketed across various multiplexes.

Funding
As per companys management, capital is still intact and no additional amount is required for
operational expenses. However for entering new product lines and going for experiments on new
solutions and for expansion into tier 2 and tier 3 cities. In March 2007, company approached
various investor and eventually Network 18 bought 60% of stake in company (approximately
14.5 crore). Their major funding comes from SAIF partners who pumped in 150 crore of funds to
help company in their planned programmes.

Growth Trajectory
The revenue has grown from Rs 130 crore to Rs 240 crore in 2016. The below graph shows the
growth in BMS revenue since FY2005.
Company CEO Hemrajani claim that they are focusing on vertical growth rather than horizontal.
This means, their core strategy would be to target more number of screens in the domestic market.
At the same time they will also be looking for opening into international market.

BMS is also looking for inorganic growth by acquisitions. They acquired Fantain Sports, which is
a Chennai based Fan management and analytics startup in March 2016.

BMS also bought a majority stake in Eventifier in February 2015. Eventifier is a startup which
brings event organizers to archive event related content.
BMS is also using business intelligence and data analytics to understand its customer needs like
by observing the habits of its customers, it can send notification regarding any movie. They put up
a user review system where customers will provide feedback of the movies and trailers. This data
will help BMS to send notification to their target market.

BMS has also launched cash to up wallets to enable users who are unsure of using digital mode of
payment.

Competition
Book my show so far has enjoyed the monopoly status in the online booking of movie and live
event market. However in the year 2016, Paytm has aggressively launched their online ticketing
platform. They have done partnership with PVR cinemas, Inox, Cinepolis. This partnership will
open the door for Paytm for thousands screens. This will give rise to heated competition between
Paytm and already established Book My Show.

The major source of revenue for Book my show was coming from PVR Cinemas. Apparently,
Paytm has already snatched away a portion of revenue which was coming from PVR.

Future Opportunities
To diversify its risk, BMS is looking forward towards international market. The company has
establish themselves in New Zealand and planning to expand their business to Indonesia which is
a similar market like India.

BMS has also came up with an interesting offering of product built around a movie theme
character. It sold around 600 T-shirts of movie Star Wars.

Challenges
The main challenge BMS will face is that their main source of revenue comes from domestic
cinemas. Around 60 percent of revenue comes from domestic online movie booking platform.
They have to diversify their risk

The deep pocket Paytm has already cut down its internet handling fee charges and forcing BMS
to keep its price competitive in the market. This can ultimately hurt the bottom line of the firm. If
Paytm come up with a strategy of waiving of convenience fee, it can entice lot of customers.

BMS not only has to fight for ticket cost but also for market share with Paytm. Paytm has huge
number of customer base which they can use to convert them into customer for online movie
booking platform. As per the report by business standard, paytm has 120 million of customer base.
In that 40 million are active user and having 90 million transaction every day. In fact, Paytm
provides one single platform for their users to book for or shop for anything and everything.
If we look at the technology aspect also, customers who are not still used to credit cards or debit
cards mobile wallet will be more convenient for them. The penetration of smart phones and internet
will definitely help Paytm to expand their mobile wallet business. The mobile wallet system
provides safety of limited exposure. Thus, the business model of Paytm can make them leading
player in online ticketing business and a big threat to BMS.

Porters Five forces Model

Easiness in
booking Ticket

Multiplex own
New Entrants Hotstar, DTH
1. Paytm
booking company who
2. Freecharge
portals such as provide
entertainment
3. Mobikwick
PVR, Cinemax, at their home
Inox, etc.

Option of
choosing from
Multiple online
booking
portals

References
1. http://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/internet/bookmyshow-reports-rs-3-17-cr-
profit-in-fy16-after-two-loss-making-fiscal-years/54408948
2. https://in.linkedin.com/in/ashishhemrajani
3. https://in.bookmyshow.com/aboutus
Turnitin Report