According to Frost and Sullivan the revenue for the Media Asset Management (MAM) market in India stood at $3.5 million in 2012 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15 per cent till 2018.
According to the research firm, the Indian media and entertainment industry has started accepting the concept of media asset management, and is slowly, but gradually increasing its adoption. There are about 18 strong vendors which offer solutions to meet MAM requirements of broadcast, production, and other media companies.
Frost & Sullivan points out that as the magnitude of media files which broadcasters have to manage on a regular basis is increasing. Further, the need for applications that enable the management, acquisition, authoring and editing, deep indexing, meta tagging, querying and retrieving, manipulation, annotation and display, and repurposing of media assets is also increasing. Going forward, this is going to be the key driver for MAM solutions.
Further, Indian broadcasters who have implemented MAM solutions believe that new adopters would be attracted to simplified and standardised solutions which would reduce complexity and enhance reliability. Increasing awareness for MAM among key decision-makers in the broadcasting segment will also drive the demand for such solutions. However, the laborious process of digitising tape-based workflow that has to be done prior to MAM deployment is emerging as the key challenge to market advancement. However, the challenge not withstanding, the digitisation of tape-based archive content is on the priority list of the Indian broadcasters? agenda and will continue to be so for the next 24 months.
As per the analysis by Frost & Sullivan, digitisation of a tape-based ecosystem in the Indian television industry has encouraged broadcasters to adopt file-based workflows in their production-supply ecosystem. As a result, broadcasters and content creators have an expanding file-based repository of video content. To manage, streamline, and repurpose such content, solutions such as MAM are essential. And this represents a significant business opportunity for MAM players.
However, the high costs associated with international MAM products, together with the heightened price sensitivity of Indian consumers, has encouraged local vendors to develop low-cost, customised MAM solutions. These frequently do not conform to standards used by international vendors and, moreover, lead to high industry fragmentation.
Frost & Sullivan analysis reveals that while there are several local vendors to cater to MAM requirements among broadcasters, there continues to be a higher demand for tried and tested solutions.
In order to tap the potential of the Indian MAM market to the fullest, international vendors will need to collaborate with Indian system integrators to ramp up marketing and training on MAM benefits, without which end users will not be convinced of its value proposition. The research firm points out while international vendors stand to gain with critical partnerships with companies which can help identify specific client requirements, local vendors will have to increase their brand equity with an expanded product portfolio as well as customer enlightenment.
