One-on-one With Ramya Chatterjee Director – Sales (Visualization & Entertainment), Barco, India

by  EVENTFAQS Bureau Marketing | July 8, 2019 | Interview

Barco

An industry leader with over 17 years of experience, Ramya Chatterjee is the Director – Sales (Visualization & Entertainment) at Barco Electronic Systems Pvt. Ltd., a 100% owned subsidiary of BARCO NV Belgium. Ramya heads the company’s sales division in the South Asian market with a view to enhancing and streamlining its P&L functions and tapping India’s enormous business potential. 

Before joining Barco, Ramya showcased his dynamism and skills in positioning organizations and products to achieve operational excellence with a strong focus on results and returns and was responsible for building a company from almost scratch to a robust multimillion-dollar enterprise with technology & product penetration in almost 70 countries. Frequently acknowledged and recognized for his ability to successfully propel emerging businesses in new markets, his experience exhibits his self-motivation, entrepreneurial ability, creativity, and initiative to achieve corporate goals.

What are your strategies to cover South Asian market with a view of enhancing and streamlining Barco Electronic Systems India’s P&L functions and tapping India’s enormous business potential?

For our ProAV and Events business, our strategy has been to provide a comprehensive range of products & solutions for different ProAV & Events applications with the right mix of product value and price, given the changing market dynamics. Broadly, Barco is a niche player and does not produce mass products but concentrates on a certain class and segment of customers. Our areas of focus in India for ProAV & Events business could be categorised in the following sub-segments like Convention Centre, Hotel Ball Rooms, Experience Centre, Museum, Planetarium, Visitor’s Attractions & Amusement Parks, Corporate Lobbies, Broadcast Studios, Retail Experience, Higher Education, eCinema, Rental & Staging, 3D Projection Mapping, Auditorium, Stadium and Water Fountain Projects.

Going forward, for ProAV & Events business, our strategy for India market would be majorly around engaging more with AV System Integrators and AV Consultants/Architects; organising product training for them along with getting the right mix of ATL and BTL activities to increase touchpoints for our end-users. In addition to this, we are also increasing focus on digital platforms to expand our reach in the market. 2018 has been a great year for us and we have managed to secure many strategic Fixed Install as well as Rental/Staging project opportunities in India. We are now fully focused on strengthening our partner ecosystem and strong AV/ProAV consultant and architect connect to strengthen our presence in India. 

What are the new/upcoming trends in experience creation, and how do Barco products/services align themselves to achieve these trends?

The experiential Events & ProAV space is a dynamic segment, changing at a rapid pace and technology today has become a major game changer in the process of experience creation. Companies are ready to explore newer avenues and are planning to invest in the technology-led experience. There are a lot of different opportunities in the segments that we cater to and as one of the leading players, we provide a wide range of products and services, to tap the same.  

There is a need & trend of an effective campus-wide and enterprise A/V monitoring and control software solution. That monitors, controls, and manages all AV and other networked devices in multiple locations, and delivers a friendly, highly interactive user interface. Easy to setup, reliable and scalable that requires no programming, only simple configuration. To address it Barco introduced Overture, Enterprise Class AV Control System available on the Cloud and On-Premise. Our latest collaborative learning solution weConnect allows teachers and students to engage in classrooms all over the campus. Using their own devices (BYOD) and connecting to the system via the campus WiFi. Cloud solution is simple, for student, teacher and facility. It supports all BYOD devices through seamless network integration and promotes interaction, both for in-room and remote participants, creating a connected, collaborative campus. All centrally managed and with minimal infrastructure impact. It’s also a great value add in learning experience space from Barco.

How can the Indian experiential industry stay top of the line / with global standards through Barco products? 

The experiential industry is growing in India, as there has been a phenomenal rise in the number of concerts, live performances, music festivals, exhibitions, and trade fairs. It has helped the Events industry to grow exponentially over the past few years. The market is driven by various projects around Convention Centres, Hotel Ball Rooms, Experience Centres, Museum, Planetarium, Visitor’s Attractions & Amusement Parks, Corporate Lobbies, Broadcast Studios, Retail Experiences, Boom in Higher Education space, eCinema upgrade projects, 3D Projection Mapping projects, Auditorium, Stadium and Water Fountain Projects. The industry has been consistently trending upward, demonstrating strong demand for technology solutions that enable a wider reach to the audience. 

At Barco, we make sure that we cater to our clients’ needs and deliver the right products and solutions matching up to global standard across geographies. Last year, we grew by 54% in the ProAV & Event business segment (grew almost 3 times faster than the market growth). We have a complete range of Fixed-Install & Event Projectors designed for simple to extremely complex deployments, Tiled LEDs, UniSee (bezel-less LCD video wall) and Image Processing products (Barco E2, S34K etc.). We have our domain expertise in experiential business; be it in cinema theatres, large events, large venue fixed install projections, meeting rooms, control rooms or classroom learning experience, we are well poised and committed to enabling brighter outcomes for our customers by providing superior product quality and reliability to the ProAV & Event industry.

What are your efforts to create awareness about the products, features and applications of Barco, in the Indian Experiential / Event industry?

For our Events and ProAV business, our strategy has been to provide a comprehensive range of products & solutions for different ProAV & Events applications with the right mix of product value and price, given the changing market dynamics. As mentioned before, our areas of focus in India for ProAV & Event business could be categorised in multiple sub-segments like Convention Centre, Hotel Ball Rooms, Experience Centre, Museum, Planetarium, Visitor’s Attractions & Amusement Parks, Corporate Lobbies, Broadcast Studios, Retail Experience, Higher Education, eCinema, Rental & Staging, 3D Projection Mapping, Auditorium, Stadium and Water Fountain Projects. Barco being a technology company works closely with most of the stakeholders in the ecosystem as a technology partner. We also strengthen engagements & relationships with ProAV System Integrators community and AV Consultants & Architects through training programs, Roadshows etc. We invest a lot in product demo & POC (Proof of Concept) to ensure that the clients are updated with our offering and make sure that products are available in short notice for any urgent requirements. Our new energized Sales & Service team in India is our asset and they collaborate closely with ProAV System Integrators community as well as AV Consultants & Architects with the motive of solving the problems of end users leveraging on our world-class technology products and rock-solid team that ensures and enables execution excellence to bring brighter outcomes for our valued clients.