Sunday, 11 December, 2005
May the outsource be with you
by Anil Bhoyrul
In the money: Arora’s animation project could eventually be worth billions of dollars.
Spend an hour in the company of Akash Arora, and you will probably end up feeling you have been stuck in a time capsule, and transported to the twenty second century. The chairman of Netlink is an ideas man — and passionate about them.
But unlike many dreamers, Arora has a knack of making his ideas happen, and pocketing millions along the way. Be it the master plan to re-locate half of Hollywood to Dubai, or the development of a Radio Frequency Identification System that will be bigger than the internet revolution, Arora is pretty convinced he is on the road to the promised land. “We will get there my friend. Our passion is being pioneers in what we do. And I think that if you are a pioneer, and you know what you are doing, then yes, that equates to wealth.”
It’s hard to put a figure on Arora’s true wealth — some friends suggest his Netlink company, which has in recent years specialised in setting up Indian call centres, is already worth US$200 million after starting from scratch ten years ago. Others say that if Arora pulls off his other plans, Netlink will instantly join the billionaires’ league.
But right now, Arora isn’t counting his money — he is far too busy making it. His biggest project on the table is to launch an ‘Animation City’ — a venture that will see over 200 of the world’s top movie producers and animators, largely brought in from Hollywood, re-locate to Dubai.
He explains: “This is the most exciting thing we are working on right now — something called Netlink Animations Studios. It’s the next level of outsourcing. We are basically working with a major movie company to create an outsourcing centre in Dubai for animations.
“We bring in talent from the US for this — we’re talking about Oscar winning animators — who will re-locate to Dubai and be able to produce 3-D animations. These will be movie quality, so for example a lot of the production for a movie like Star Wars could be outsourced. Our first phase team is 250 people.”
He adds: “Take a movie like Kill Bill, where a chunk of the movie was done as an animation, largely because the cost was rising so fast. What we want to assemble is the best possible animation talent in the world, here in Dubai. It’s a great environment to live and work in, and we have the capability as such to attract almost anyone in the world.”
It’s a pretty big concept, but can it work? Animation City is effectively a major outsourcing project, and outsourcing is hardly anything new. Given that most big corporations are going to cheaper places, especially in India, why Dubai? But Arora is sure they will come.
He says: “You have to understand that the technology costs the same anywhere in the world. The problem I face with my outsourcing talent is that 60% of the people leave within the first year. And it’s not only me, everybody else in the market is facing the same issues. In India, there are now 3000 outsourcing companies. Well, how can you compete with that? You can’t.”
He adds: “I am not saying that competition is not healthy but I want to stay away from the onslaught. I mean, you can spend six months and a lot of money training your staff in a call centre in Mumbai, and then some big corporation sets up a call centre a mile down the road from you, offering them more money.
“They all leave, obviously. Why should I go through that? In fact, often the same recruitment company goes after the people they initially hired, saying come on, let’s go to a big boy. We can’t survive that. I think Dubai will give us the capability to protect that.”
Arora is working to create high-class office space and living space. Workers will have a campus style environment, so even their food is taken care of. Staff will also be attracted by the cosmopolitan nature of Dubai and the stability of the city. He explains: “You can have your family lying on the beach while you discuss business on the golf course.”
The whole Animation City project could eventually be worth several billion dollars, especially if major Hollywood companies decide to outsource much of their production work. Sources suggest some of the biggest names in animation production have already signed up for Dubai, with the initial staff level at 250 by late next year. Many Hollywood movie-makers now devote over 50% of “blockbuster productions”, particularly sci-fi films, to animation studios.
Arora says: “A lot of what happens now in Hollywood is production work on animations. That makes up the bulk of many movies, and we can show the big companies that they can save themselves a lot of cash by outsourcing all of this to Dubai.”
While sci-fi movies such as Star Wars rely heavily on animation, many Disney classics are 100% animated — including five massive Disney animations set for release in 2006.
And while Arora’s team put together detailed plans for the venture, the Indian born entrepreneur already has his drawing board filled with ideas for the “next big one.” Despite his obvious passion and commitment to the Dubai animation project, it is his next venture could really bring in the big bucks — radio frequency identification (RFID).
It is essentially time tracking of assets, using radio frequencies rather than satellite systems. Arora explains: “This is the next big thing, the next internet. You could do it to cargo tracking, people tracking, asset tracking, and even vehicle tracking – it’s far cheaper than using satellite systems. Say you go to a supermarket like Spinneys. Well, one day in the near future it is possible that every item in there will be tagged with RFID. So as you’re checking through it makes a record of everything in your trolley. MasterCard are working on a system where as you walk out of the shop, it automatically debits stuff from your credit card. It’s pretty amazing stuff!
“You just throw what you want in the shopping trolley and go home, no queuing up or anything!”
He adds: “The applications are endless: you’re in the airport and your boarding pass will have RFID. Then you are wondering around Duty Free, they can track exactly where you are.”
RFID works at long and short range frequency, depending on the applications. Several “real time tracking” pilot projects are being developed, and Netlink is thought to have one of the most prestigious: it is working on a special hospital system which will allow medical staff to track medical equipment.
He says: “We are creating a back end which will connect to the system. Say I am a hospital manager trying to look for a specific type of equipment. I can find in real time exactly where that piece of equipment is, and then in real time track exactly where the person I want is. For example, I need a dialysis machine, I know exactly where one is and can get it instantly. I can also see where all the patients are at any given time. This whole thing is becoming more focused towards procurement and tracking of individuals in real time.”
He adds: “Many new applications have come up, ones that were not thought of before. The technology is moving ahead fast on this. It can be very useful in the military, not just to know exactly where your people are but if you want a spare part for equipment, you don’t have to wait 28 days to find it. If you go to a warehouse in Cargo, there is no way that you can know exactly what is lying where.
With RFID you just press a button, a screen lights up and tells you exactly what is where.”
Arora continues: “The American government is currently working on an RFID system for passports – so rather than you giving it to them to scan, you just take it out and point it at the right place and it will verify your passport.”
It is understood that some RFID projects are less than a year away from being implemented. Netlink already has 100 different partners it is working is some capacity with. And if RFID and the animation venture kicks off for Netlink, the company is likely to be worth billions within the next few years. Which is not a bad thing, considering that Arora wants to take it to the stock market before 2009.
If he manages to do so, it will be a remarkable success story for the Indian entrepreneur, who started his career in 1995 with nothing more than a passion for the internet. During an exhibition in Canada in June that year, he met Jim Clarke and Mark Anderson of Netscape fame. Two months later Netlink was formed from Arora’s house.
He says: “I was the only employee, working from the guest room of my apartment in India. I was basically selling websites and helping design websites. I got hold of loads of faxed numbers and just sent them all flyers, and I would get about 10 calls a day as a result. Within a month I had ten people working for me, and we moved into an office — and became 20 employees. We were expanding fast. By the peak of the internet boom, we were 680 people.”
Arora first came to Dubai in 1999, essentially to present the internet to Emirates’ travel division, Dnata, but had a chance to meet senior executives at the Dubai Economic Department as a result.
He ended up creating the Dubai Shopping Festival online, and once Dubai’s Internet City was launched, Arora was back in demand, and has now worked with over 250 global brands.
“It is has been tough, but it has been fun,” he says. And soon, it could be very, very lucrative.
