DirectI

Product Manager Case Study

Rachit Kulshrestha

PRODUCT
REQUIREMENT
DOCUMENT
By Rachit Kulshrestha
(61610762)
Indian School of
Business

10/27/2015

Movie tickets on the go for mobile first

markets
The document contains the detailed report on the Product
Design and Market Entry strategy for a mobile only movie
ticketing marketplace.

Product Requirement Document

Product Requirement Document

CURRENT SCENARIO
The movie ticketing business in India is growing at a very fast pace, following are some of the stats.
Total number of tickets booked 500 million (growing at CAGR of 8%)
Total number of movie booked online 20 % (~100 million), 80 % still book offline (FY 16)
Average ticket price $2 in top-4 metros (v/s $ 8 in US)
Total Addressable market size = $1 billion (growing at 8% CAGR + inflation rate)
Estimating market size for mobile ticket bookings users
No. of Indians in the age group 18 and above 65% of total population which
is ~750 million users.
No of Indians in the urban market (we ignore the rural market now) = 1/3 *
750 million = 250 million
Due to limited internet and smartphone penetration the market has not realized
its full potential, but with enhances infrastructure and ability of 3G services
smartphones will lead the internet penetration in India and most users will first
access internet on their smartphones.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
BookMyShow.com currently holds the
number one position in online ticket
space in India.
BookMyShow.com was a Web First
portal and also has mobile application
for android, IOS and other platforms.
25% of their bookings come from the
mobile devices.
They are also into event bookings apart
from movie ticketing business.
The charge a convenience fee on every
transaction.
They have 2800 screens in 240 cities as of FY 16 data ( see image)
Currently they have approx. 7 million active users and 17 million app downloads ( which also included
repeat downloads)

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Product Requirement Document

WHAT DO THE CONSUMERS SAY?

To understand and explore about the current scenario I conducted a small Consumer Behavior survey
through group and individual interviews. Some of the open-ended questions that were asked to the
participants are as follows:
a) Which medium do you prefer to book movie tickets?
b) What are some of the issues you face while booking tickets on an online platform?
c) Which website/app first comes to your mind when you plan to book tickets?

Some of the insights and customer pain points that were most prominent are as follows:
a) Its difficult to find the movie that suits my taste and most often I miss good movies and have to
later watch on DVD or Television
b) I dont like booking tickets online as there is no flexibility, once I have booked I cant cancel or
exchange my tickets anywhere
c) I hate when I select a movie and theatre of my choice and in the end the app says not enough
tickets available, complete waste of time!
d) During peak hours, the app becomes unresponsive and payments fails multiple times, my tickets
are gone meanwhile
e) Why do they charge a convenience fee on every ticket, the fee should be based on every
transaction, who books 1 ticket when they watch a movie?
Most of the respondents agreed that booking tickets on mobile is much easier than on a website as it is
more convenient.
BookMyShow.com clearly appeared to be on top of the mind of most respondents while some also
mentioned specific movie theatre brands such as PVR Cinemas, INOX etc.
Below is the list of issues that needs to be addressed if we plan to capture some market share in the
online movie ticketing space.
a) Build a user profile based on his preference and bookings history suggest him movies of his liking
via push notifications or custom messages.
b) Provide some flexibility in terms of cancelling and postponing of tickets.
c) Create a hassle free booking experience for the customer that enhances his experience and gives
him a Wow moment!

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Product Requirement Document

MARKET ENTRY STRATEGY

As a new player in the movie tickets booking industry, our platform has to attract the audience through
smart innovation and improve service quality.
BookMysShow.com currently books around 4.5
million tickets per month and this is expected to
grow due to increased disposable income and
changing preferences of the urban customer base.
BookMyshow.com has single handedly enjoyed
market leadership and has not seen significant
competition from any player for many years. They
were early to launch their mobile application 3
years ago and have already established a good
user base on the mobile application platform.

WHY MOBILE ONLY?

Looking at the market size of the movie going audience in the country from before, we can safely say
that there is a significant share of the pie that is yet to be captured in the mobile devices space. Assuming
smart phone and internet penetration to reach approx. 75% of the urban market in next 5 years, we can
see that the total market size comes to about 190 million customers.
BookMyShow currently has 17 million downloads of their mobile application and which is just ~7% of the
total potential market size, this also included repeat downloads on multiple devices by same user. The
current active user base is 7 million which is less the 5% of the total potential market in the next 5 years.
We can at least grab 25% market share and hope to get at least 50 million active users in the few
years.
We have the option of either designing a mobile first or mobile only service for the user base.
Going Mobile Only has the following advantages:
Most customers in India would access internet for the first time through their mobile devices
On average, consumers only keep 1 or 2 mobile application for specific services such as cab
bookings or shopping and thus it gives Our Application a head start on the consumers device
space.
Mobile Only provided a personalized experience to the customer and can also capture
location based information for any assistance.
We can also venture into new interaction devises such as smart watch and new range of tablets
to increase user base.

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Product Requirement Document

HOW TO DISRUPT THE MOVIE TICKETING BUSINESS IN INDIA?

Based on the consumer survey and market dynamics, few important disruption strategies for Our App
are as follows:
We can broadly classify the stakeholders on our network as Customers, Theatre Owners and
Collaborators. We have to subsidize one side of the network to attract the other sides to capitalize on
the network effects. Due to the power of customers in attracting the other sides of the network, we have
decided to focus on improving their experience to maximum.
The following list covers each module in detail:

Customer Module
Collect user preference in movie watching during onboarding on mobile application and provide
suggestions to the user for increased repeat purchase and retention.
o Ask the customers regarding the number of tickets and preferred time slots to
suggest theatres only where tickets are available based on their preference.
o This will result in reduced time to make a ticket purchase and eventually lead to increased
customer experience.
o Build a profile of our user based on their preference and suggest new and upcoming
movies through push notifications. Also allow them to pre-book tickets on the application.
Create a marketplace for Peer to Peer sharing of tickets on our platform that allows customers
to exchange tickets at their original prices. The money can be transferred to their mobile wallet
from the other customers account.
o This provided increased flexibility to users who either want to book or cancel a last minute
ticket.
o This also reduces the customers apprehension towards booking tickets in advance and will
results in increased customer experience.
o It will result in more user engagement on our application better management of supply
and demand of tickets leading to more bookings eventually.
Provide our customers some flexibility to be able to cancel tickets or postpone them on 2
occasions every year without any extra penalty to provide a differential service.
o The potential losses involved in this operation could be covered by overall customer
lifetime value and acquisition cost.
o The cancelled tickets can be brought to the Peer to Peer market place for any last
minute impromptu purchase
o The added flexibility gives Our app an advantage over the incumbents and could soon
become a hygiene factor for all players.
o Due to a better quality of services and flexibility the customers lifetime value on our
platform will increase.
We can charge a flat convenience fee for our customers over a certain number of tickets booked
(say 3) as against charging the fee for every ticket booked even for group bookings.
o We can provide group booking discounts to customers and provide cashback to their
wallets.

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Product Requirement Document

o This would eventually result in increased topline for our business as the money in wallet
would be used for future bookings.
To ease out the process of ticket purchase and handle increased traffic, we can add the Mobile
Wallet service and allow customers to keep some amount for faster checkouts
o The application should be tested for increased traffic and designed to handle failures by
simulating actual customer behavior through UI Automation.
o The wallet will also increase customer engagement with the portal due to increased
commitment.
o It will also help to manage postponing and peer to peer sharing of movie tickets and easy
transfer of payments.
As movie going is a complete experience, Our App should also focus on integrated services by
partnering with cab booking, food and services to provide our customers a one stop shop for their
movie related activities.
o We can partner with these service providers and give customers discount coupons or deals
to enhance the movie watching experience.
o We can also create a platform on our application to request for food/cab service with
our partners for better customer experience.

Theatre owners Module

Create a smart analytics platform and provide theatre owners a different version of the mobile
or web application that lets them manage their day to day operations.
o We can create a platform that provides detailed information on total bookings, demand
fluctuations and other details so that the theatre owners can plan their pricing and
promotions accordingly.
o Data on customer preferences will also give them a deep insight into which kind of movies
to display in their theatre and manage timings and number of shows in a more informed
fashion.
The theatre owners version could also have facility to update deals and promotions on their
offerings that will be visible to the customer through live feeds. This could attract customers who
are in the vicinity and increase their business.

Collaborators/Par tners Module

The version of the application created for theatre owners can also have an extension for the
collaborators such as Cab Driver, Food Services and other goodies providers. This platform will
allow them to list their services and also manage it live to offer promotions to the customers.
o Based on the demand patterns they can modify their pricing or services to match cater to
fluctuations.
o We can open a market place for other services providers such as movie related goodies,
event bookings to increase user engagement.

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Product Requirement Document

PRODUCT STRATEGY AND ROADMAP

Based on the above discussions, following is a list of features along with their priority that can be added
to the application. The MVP Features are highlighted with top priority

Version2

Minimum Viable Product

Version

Feature
Market place for booking tickets on a mobile application
Customer onboarding with their preference and demographic information
Ability to view reviews and trailers on the mobile application
Suggested list of theaters based on time and number of tickets
Suggestions on movie bookings to customers via push notifications
Mobile wallet for easy payment transactions
Market place for Peer to Peer sharing of tickets
Ability to cancel or postpone tickets on the mobile application
Marketplace for added services such as Cabs, Food Deliver etc.
Theatre owners version of application for smart analytics
Manage price and promotions on the Theatre owners version
Integrate with Facebook and Gmail Login to enable social connect
Facility to view recommendations and reviews for their social contacts
Integrate with Event bookings and other entertainment avenues

Business
Impact
High
High
High

Customer
Impact
High
High
High

Priority
Top
Top
Top

Average
High
High
High
Average
Average
High
Low
Low
High

High
High
High
High
High
Low
Average
Average
Average
High

Top
Top
Top
Top
Medium
Medium
Low
Low
Low
Low

Among the list of features listed above, the two important features to be considered first are:
Book Movie based on suggested results
o Story Title: As a user, I should be able to get an option to book tickets on the mobile
application and make payment for the same through a payment gateway of my mobile
wallet.
o Acceptance Criteria:
User is shown a list of theatres and movies based on his preferences and he/she
can select one of the given options.
User is able to book the tickets successfully and pay for the same through wallet or
payment gateway.
Peer Sharing of Live Tickets on platform
o Story Title: As a user, I should be able to purchase tickets on the Live Tickets Page where
peer to peer sharing of tickets is available. The payment for the same should be done
only through my wallet.
o Acceptance Criteria:
User is able to select one of the tickets from the list of alternatives and book the
tickets from the list of available option.

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User can see the live status of different entries which can be further filtered by
movies, theatres, number of tickets and availability.

Product Requirement Document

UI MOCKUPS FOR THE SELECTED FEATURES

Let us start with the user flow diagrams:
1- User onboarding on the app we can take his
preferences of movie types and build a recommended
list for same.
a. The choice of user can be changed later by
going to his profile page.
b. The profile page can be accessed through the
button on right corner.
c. The middle button gives the notifications for
promotions or other related information.
d. The first button is to navigate to list of favorite
theatres, actors, or genre of movies.

Two interaction alternatives are feasible here:

1- Simple Screen to have an option of Book Movies or
Go to Live Ticket or a screen that contains suggested
and upcoming movies.

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Product Requirement Document

I will pick the second alternative as it gives us a recommended list of

movies based on my preference and is more interactive in nature. It
also tells me the list of upcoming and block-buster movies currently
available. Both the screens give user the alternative to go to Live
Tickets platform!

2- Next we move to the list of theatres and movies based on our

preferences.
a. This screen also gives us an ability to watch trailers,
read reviews by simple tap on the screen and select a
given movie based on our choice.
b. We have already queried our database to make sure
that only those movies are displayed that is tickets and
timings according to preferences in the first screen.
c. Clicking on any of the listed alternatives will take you
to the booking screen.

3- Now we are on the final stage of selecting the seats and

making payment for the same.
a. At this particular screen the user will be able to
make payment for his selected seats via a
payment gateway or a mobile wallet.
b. Clicking on Pay Now will make him use the
payment gateway
c. Clicking on Use Wallet will finish the transaction
in a single click, thus it will be faster than the first
option.

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Product Requirement Document

4- Next, we take a look at the UI for the Live Sharing of tickets which will enable peer to peer
sharing on the application platform.
a. The screen will show the availability of tickets along with
the information on movie, no of tickets and theatre.
b. The list can be filtered based on any of the above fields
and by clicking on top of any list item the user will be
able to pick tickets of his choice.
c. The payment will happen only through wallet to make
sure there are no issues between user exchanges of
money.

MEASURING AND IMPROVING PERFORMANCE

Measuring the feature that we pick from the above alternatives of home screen can be done as follows:
1- When the user downloads the application in the early phase, ship options of both the screens and
observe which theme the user selects. We can then remove the option which is less preferred by
our users.
2- Number of application downloads and new registrations after the change are made.
3- Number of monthly active users on the platform and their activity.
4- Average booking per customer in a month.
5- No. of tickets exchanged through the Live Ticket Sharing platform.
6- Average amount a user stores in wallet.
7- Cancellation requests to bookings ratio on an annual basis.
8- Average time to complete payment from booking screen.
9- Analyze bugs reported and failures along with their source such as, mobile platform, version of
the application and number of active users. This will help us analyze and focus on the priority
issues. Will also improve each version of the application.
All the above data points will give us an input to measure performance of the selected alternative
and improve based on feedback.

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