Overview of the Indian Animation & VFX Industry

India has come a long way in animation since the 1930’s when DadasahebPhalke made the first stop-motion film. Animation is the creation of moving pictures or images with the help of specialized software. Whereas, VFX refers to the creation of visual effects also referred to as VFX by combining real life images with animation using specialized software. Animation & VFX are used not just in film & television but also in gaming, education & medicine apart from other interesting uses. It is expected that the Indian animation industry will swell to about 60 billion rupees by the year 2015. 

Even though the global market for animation and gaming stands at USD 122 billion dollars the Indian animation industry only has a small portion of this. In recent times, global players such as Disney & Cartoon Network have set up shop in India and major Hollywood production houses constantly outsource work to companies such as Tata Elxsi, Red Chilies & Reliance MediaWorks however still the industry faces challenges. 

The advantages that the Indian animation/VFX industry brings is that of cheap labour and lower costs of production however motion pictures do not generate as much revenue as the films of the west. For example, Disney’s ‘Frozen’ crossed USD 500 million dollars and is still going strong at the global box office whereas India’s top grossing animation film from 2012 ‘ChotaBheem’ could only garner INR 5 crores at the box office. The perception is mostly that in India the mass market doesn’t see animation as a film worth watching on the big screen. That being said a major chunk of revenues for such ‘brands’ come from merchandising deals still the revenue is not even close to a Pixar or DreamWorks production.

India has seen its fair share of animation ‘duds’ as well. Yashraj Films foray into the space with Roadside Romeo in the last decade barely broke even. Disney-UTV’s 2012 30 crore animation magnum opus ‘Arjun: The Warrior Prince’ was another disappointment. So where is the Indian animation industry lacking? Industry insiders feel that firstly, it should be granted industry status and be given SOP’s and grants by the government as they feel that the sector generates a fair share of foreign exchange for the government. Secondly, they feel that taxes & duties should be waived off or reduced on the import of high end computers & equipment that the animators use. Lastly, the quality of animators needs to become better. Even though many institutes have sprung up across the nation however very few of them are a part of a university; they operate as fly-by-night operators in major cities. Therefore quality of curriculum, content and delivery varies from centre to centre. Although a lot of them have international partnerships, very few actually enforce them.

Once these challenges are met the sector can see a surge in revenues as well as becoming an interesting job opportunity for the country’s emerging creative youth.

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Emerging Opportunities in the Indian Hospitality Sector

The global hospitality sector has seen a major shift in recent times with major hotel players starting new chains to cater to an emerging class of traveller, the young and moneyed. As a result of this players have introduced new chains targeting the millennial set as well as providing them with amenities catering to their whims and fancies. What has also changed in recent years is high net worth individuals from emerging nations such as Brazil, Russia, India & China travelling to the west to the extent of replacing the Japanese as the most widely travelled set. As for the avid business traveller, most of the top global chains have also introduced low end budget hotels catering to this dominating segment of the market in every corner of the planet.

So what do these new customers want? They want to be checked in as soon as possible and don’t want to wait to be checked in. Being a highly educated set, they will voice their opinions on social media if there is a small yet avoidable situation. Also as a result of increased competition from both international players as well as local chains in countries, customers are looking to be wowed from the hotel they are staying in, even till date free WiFi is the one of the biggest ‘crowd pullers’ apart from room upgrades and free meals. As mentioned above the number of international travellers has seen a growth especially from emerging markets therefore hotels need to get themselves acclimatized to various cultures as well as offering a variety of services to cater to these clients. For example, a lot of Indian travellers travelling to the west are offered free and sometimes Jain food as a part of their travel packages. It is these small things that make a difference and get the customers coming back for more.

The internet and social media has also changed how the hospitality sector works. Potential customers log into websites such as Tripadvisor and Yelp, look at reviews of different properties before making a sound decision on booking a room on a Makemytrip.com or a Yatra.com. Additionally, the arrival of rent-a-room services such as AirBnb have also changed the market by offering short term lets globally with services at par with full-service hotels. 

So what are the opportunities for the Indian hotel industry then? First of all, the emergence of new cities such as the NCR region around Delhi as well as the cities of Pune, Hyderabad, etc are proving to be boon for the sector. Moreover, allowance of up to 100% of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the sector has given both international as well as domestic chains a reason to smile. Additionally, real estate developers are also seeing the hospitality sector as a means of leverage to sell their unsold commercial inventory by packaging a luxury hotel with a mall. However what needs to be looked in terms of the operational side is the quality of manpower that is coming out of the various hotel management institutes in the country. The hospitality institutes need to provide more career oriented and practical courses that provide more hands-on experience to hotel management graduates. Lastly, they need to take a more internationally recognized view of their training & development. 

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Indian Fashion Industry: Strengths and Opportunities

With the flowering Indian fashion & e-commerce industry growing at an industrious pace, the demand for fashion designers is also growing substantially. The organized retail sector has always seen a demand for fashion designers with companies such as the Future Group and Reliance Retail recruiting for their respective in house brands however exporters have also starting recruiting heavily as competition from other countries such as China & Eastern Europe grows.

In addition to this, the emergence of Indian e-commerce has also seen a heavy demand in fashion design related jobs. Companies such as Snapdeal, Jabong, Myntra, Flipkart, etc require fashion designers, stylists, merchandisers, fashion trend forecasters, fashion bloggers, accessory designers, etc which does at the end of the day require a keen sense fashion and style. However, what lacks till date is the lack of quality fashion design courses and infrastructure to teach such courses. What the market demands as such are job oriented courses that follow international pedagogy so that students get the necessary exposure to meet the challenges of the ever changing job market.

What has also changed globally in the fashion industry is the emergence of new materials, patterns, cuts, designs, colours, etc and our present institutions are not capable of managing such rapid change in the sector.  The National Institute even though has been around for over twenty five years and has seen almost all of the country’s top designers as its alumni such as RituBeri, JJ Valaya, Sabyasachi Mukherjee and noted international names such as PrabalGurung and Manish Arora as well. However, neither them nor the private institutions have been able to play catch up with the catwalks of the west. This is where institutions such as NILA (New College Nottingham India Lifestyles Academy) in Gurgaon come in. Set up as a collaboration between New College Nottingham, UK and BWI Educon Ventures Pvt. Ltd. (a Batra Group promoted enterprise and a sister concern of Batra Hospital), NILA aims to bridge this gap between the west and the east and provide career oriented courses in fashion design. 

The curriculum NILA provides has been designed to provide students interchangeable academic and practical skills that enable them to meet the ever evolving needs of the fashion industry. Moreover, the course demands students to experiment with their imagination and come up with innovative designs. A strong emphasis is placed on practical presentation skills and garment manufacture and that is the reason why the academy has the best in machinery such as sewing machines from JUKI to the state of the art CAD/CAM suite for pattern designing and cutting. Lastly, NILA will also provide students an opportunity to visit and interact with reputed fashion designers, fashion companies, export houses, professional bodies so as to gain the necessary exposure to the latest trends in the fashion industry.

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