NewTek on an expansion mode; Rohan Tadke to lead the charge in India/SAARC
Broadcast & Film had a chance to interact with Rohan where he highlighted the role of NewTek and how his primary focus will be to enhance existing partner relationships and further grow the partner footprint in the region.
Tell us about your new role and responsibilities at NewTek
India/SAARC presents a huge opportunity for NewTek and I am very excited to be leading the region. At NewTek, we use innovation and technology to fundamentally change the way video is created and used, allowing more people to share their stories, experiences, and ideas with the world and enjoy doing it. As the new Regional Manager, my goals are to further develop the existing partner relationships whilst looking to further strengthen NewTek’s presence in the market via new partner relationships to better serve our existing customers, and gain new ones.
Given that NewTek is 100% indirect globally, all our focus and investment goes into supporting and developing our partners – distribution is key however, NewTek distributors effectively act on behalf of NewTek in region providing value added services such as sales, pre-sales, training, support, repairs etc. As a result, recruiting a new partner is a major consideration given the levels of support an investment we make in new partner relationship if they are to support broadcasters. We would also love to target new markets like Pro AV wherein we see a lot of interest for our products especially Corporate Houses, Education and House of Worship.
What is your assessment of the state of the broadcast industry in India post the pandemic? How does NewTek plan to drive the business in India forward?
NewTek has a long history in the broadcast industry however, a key driver of success has been our success in new markets such as corporate, worship and education enabling these markets to provide broadcast quality video to their employees and customers. We noted this trend way before the pandemic as the amount of online video traffic was growing exponentially – after all in an online world, they only way you can differentiate is via video – the pandemic accelerated this trend and we find ourselves in a world where we can pretty much find a business case for Newtek products for any organisation for example hospital, hotels, casinos, corporate clients that need to improve communications with their employees and customers. The broadcast industry has experienced rapid change before and during the pandemic with the need for smaller more agile studios that can accommodate the fact that their customers are accessing video content via multiple devices and want locally based information that is relevant to them. NewTek technology is ideally positioned both in terms of cost and functionality and flexibility to accommodate their new media studios and locally based content. Another big factor is the fact that NewTek was the creator of NDI, NDI is an IP protocol and all Newtek products have been designed with NDI in mind, this move to online/IP enabling broadcaster to share their content seamlessly in the new world is a big consideration for broadcasters who are competing for market share with the likes of YouTube and Facebook
Remote production, Cloud and Hybrid Cloud solutions have been increasingly used; this has been dramatically accelerated by the pandemic. Your comments and NewTek’s strategy on this development.
We do see an upward trend in these solutions & thanks to NDI being very lite, its playing a huge part in enabling such workflow. NewTek is a software driven solution, it can easily adopt to changes according to requirement. As hardware and infrastructure becoming more capable, it will promote the use of collaborative workflow through NDI and NewTek has just started and is unstoppable.
What are the new range of products which NewTek is planning to launch in 2021?
We launched our most successful product ever in 2020 – the Tricaster 2 Elite (given the pandemic and the need for organisations to improve their comms to customers and employees) Given the combination of cost, broadcast quality functionality and NDI compatibility has been a game changer for NewTek and our partners and customers – Broadcasters have recognised this and opted to buy TC2E over more traditional broadcast vendor products particularly in their growing number of new media suites. The TC2E is effectively an out of the box product enabling a broadcaster to pop up a studio almost anywhere – during the pandemic we have examples of major broadcasters where presenters have set a studio up in their home basement and have been able to provide broadcast quality video. We have just launched 3Play2 this month, NewTek 3Play® 3P2 is an unmatched sports replay solution; sports broadcasters never miss an angle or unforgettable sporting moment with unparalleled connectivity and efficiency across the whole production workflow. It’s 10-channel replay solution, offering and mix of 8 inputs via NDI ®, 4 inputs of SDI, and 2 outputs of SDI or NDI ®. In addition, a single quadlink SDI output is available for 2160p UHD output. 3Play 3P2 gives championship-level connection with any workflow.
How has the growth been for NewTek in emerging markets like India over the last few years? How do you compare the growth with markets in other parts of Asia?
2020 was a record year for Newtek in terms of growth and we have been operating for over 2O years! A key driver of that success has been international markets particularly Asia Pacific. Newtek is a US based company and has a big footprint in USCA and with the acquisition by Vizrt a few years ago, came additional investment and leverage in Asia Pacific. There has been a significant investment in headcount – leadership, sales, pre-sales, technical support, customer service and marketing with the objective of Asia Pacific becoming an autonomous region in its own right. With the backing of Vizrt, additional highly qualified head count, broadcasters have reacted with a new level of confidence in Newtek. I think it is fair to say that NewTek has not fully invested in India, despite having great local partners. There has never been NewTek headcount in India. What really excited me was NewTek recognised that recruiting a senior person to build that footprint is absolutely essential for the Indian market and to channel further significant investments in India/SAARC.
What is your assessment of the growth of the OTT & Pay TV markets in India?
OTT & Pay TV will continue to grow especially when people are spending more time on TV, they want selective choices. This will increase the need to create more content as priority despite current moments. NewTek will be ready to allow content creators for a quick start without overly focus on investment to meet OTT and Pay TV demand
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