Madhuri Dixit-Nene and Dr Shriram Nene: The Business Partners In a chat with Entrepreneur India, the couple open up about their business side-from movies, health venture, production house and more
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Couples who go into business together, give a new meaning to the word partnership. Managing directors of RnM Moving Pictures Pvt. Ltd, Madhuri Dixit-Nene and Dr Shriram Nene are one of those.
During Entrepreneur India's virtual 10th Entrepreneur Awards 2020, the couple discussed the business side of the partnership—from movies, health venture, production house to more current issues and long-term trends likely to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic.
RnM Moving Pictures is a media and platform-agnostic digital content company focusing on creating and disseminating superior content across all platforms and genres. It comprises five verticals: entertainment, health, lifestyle, interactive and gaming, all of which allow for synergy through innovation, interaction and content development.
A changing imperative
"When I came to India, my view was that there is lack of access and it was for various reasons that people can't get to their doctors and to the best masters for teaching or learning and for other things," Dr. Nene reminisces.
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way people consume media and entertainment. Due to strict national lockdowns around the world people have been forced to stay at home, changing consumer behavior on a large scale. As movie theatres, museums, events and other external entertainment consumption models have been banned, social lives have moved online, and entertainment consumption has increased significantly for online gaming and over-the-top (OTT) services.
Traditional media services such as television and newspapers have also been side-lined as drastic cuts in ad spends of large companies have severely dented revenues of traditional media giants.
"The idea was simple that all screens would converge and become one and in the process of doing that the users would decide what they learn, how they learn, what content to take in and to what they get access to. Along that journey, I was building out the health-related entities and we later decided to do it in education sector as well. The kernel of germ of this wasn't just dance. It was to teach in a disseminated fashion using technology, media and brick and mortar come together, and go to the last mile," said Dr Nene.
It is expected that the psychological hangover from the virus could affect behavior as well. Consumers might take more time to embrace previous norms of external consumption once again, especially in areas that have been the worst affected by this crisis.
Further, the projected "digital billion' trajectory of India is set to accelerate significantly by virtue of the lockdown. This is not just due to the addition of new users but also because of the increasing comfort and confidence of existing digital citizenry.
"Our thought in building a platform like this is that we could give people the opportunity to learn with no boundaries. The goal was to create a global village for culture," added Dr Nene.
The current COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown has not just stalled industries and economic activity, but has also led to change in behavioral patterns in people, including that of digital consumption.
"It doesn't matter which screen you are working on whether it's the theatre for a huge screen or its your little iPad, iPhone or any of the smartphones. I think people will choose how they want to get the entertainment and where they want to go look for it," stressed Dixit-Nene.
"It serves to educate the patient, take care of them and give them the building blocks of cloud-based smart services marketplace. It's a feedback loop which continuously monitors you. It's almost like in a car where you have a check-engine light. Just like that, it is something which links and fills the gap between the patient and the medical community because let's face it, in India alone, there's 1.8 million docs (doctors) to 1.33 billion people and not enough medical expertise to go around. That includes the allopathic stocks and only way we can do it is to build something more than that and the pandemic has taught us that more than ever," added Dr Nene.
It is no wonder so many talented, creative people end up together-celebrities or not. And it does not come out as a surprise that couples who are committed to creating art find a way to collaborate.
