"I want to leave behind a landmark which my country will remember me by.

"
- Cherukuri Ramoji Rao, Chairman, Ramoji Group.
Introduction
In April 2001, Ramoji Group's Film City, hosted its first English production, 'Quicksand', produced by Ramoji
Rao1 and directed by Sam Firstenberg2. Thus, Ramoji Film City brought international (Hollywood) attention to
Hyderabad. Ramoji Rao incorporated the Ramoji Group in 1962, with Margadarsi Chit Fund Ltd. By 2001, the Rs.
15
billion
Ramoji
Group
became
one
of
the
biggest
business
houses
in
India.
The group had interests in newspapers and magazines, hotels, films and television, investment companies,
condiments and confectioneries, a 1000-acre film city, apparels and handicrafts. (Refer Exhibit I) Over the years,
the Ramoji Group under the entrepreneurship of Ramoji Rao, seemed to have set standards in the print, television
and the film industry. Analysts felt that Ramoji Rao's excellent business acumen, sharp insight and an eye for
spotting out opportunities, made him a successful entrepreneur.
Background Note
Ramoji Rao, started his career in the early 1960s in Delhi with an advertisement agency Ad Crafts. In 1962, he
opened the first branch of Margadarsi a chit fund company in Hyderabad. Realizing the advertising needs of
Margadarsi, Ramoji Rao established an ad agency Kiron Ads named after his eldest son.
Kiron Ads was the first accredited ad agency in Hyderabad. After a few years, the second branch of Margadarsi
was opened in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). This was followed by the setting up of Dolphin Hotel in
Visakhapatnam. In the late 1960s, Ramoji Rao also started a magazine for the farmers called 'Annadata' in Telugu3
Commented Ramoji Rao, "My heritage lies in the soil and my forefathers were all farmers. But I sold off all my
property and to atone for this and to do something special for the farmer community I started a magazine in their
language" In 1974, Ramoji Rao entered the print media by launching Eenadu, a Telugu newspaper in
Visakhapatnam. Ramoji Rao explained, "I focussed on the region which I thought was most relevant to the
people." The Hyderabad edition was launched in 1975, followed by the Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh) edition in
1976. In the early 1980s, Ramoji Group entered the foods business with Priya Pickles. The Priya brand was later
extended to culinary pastes and powders. The Group then made a foray into films with Ushakiron Movies.
The Group established Mayuri Film Distributors to distribute its films and Mayuri Audio to market the audio
cassettes of the films. In the early 1990s, Ushakiron Movies diversified into satellite television with ETV the
Telugu channel. In 1992, the Ramoji Group started a handicrafts division under the name 'Kalanjali'. The division
was set up with a view to promote the sale and export of handicrafts, cottons and textiles of Indian craftsmen.
The Group set up a showroom in Hyderabad. From April 1993, the division started exports of various goods under
the trademark of 'Kalanjali'. On September 9, 1997, The Ramoji Group inaugurated its most innovative creation
The Ramoji Film City based on the maxion "Walk in with your script and walk out with your print".
Spread over 1000 acres, the Film City had gardens, temples, a sprawling countryside, a fort, hotels, city streets,
railway stations, a palace, an airport, a mobile kitchen etc. It had all the technical support to make a film 40
studio floors, a fully-equipped prop shop, a set design and construction division, state-of-the-art equipment,
experienced production staff, and hi-tech digital editing, dubbing and sound-recording facility.
Said Ramoji Rao, "The idea is to save time, energy and resources and focus on creative excellence, executional
quality, economical schedules and meticulous planning." The USP of the Film City was claimed to be its ability to
rebuild any place for a shoot. Producers had choice of flexible locations. For instance, a song could be
choreographed in any or all of the locations.

Later changes could be made to the fountain's appearance, the layout of the street or the
facades of the buildings in the streets or the shape of the multi-dimensional pond, to create
a totally different locale. In the late 1990s, the Group started an Internet edition of its
newspaper Eenadu. The Internet version was designed to give the same look as the
original newspaper. Content was designed to provide local news about Andhra Pradesh.
The group claimed that the website received a phenomenal response from the Telugu
populace abroad.
Within three months of its launch, the site achieved the landmark figure of a million hits a
day.
In April 2000, ETV launched ETV Bangla4. The channel telecast a combination of
entertainment and news programs in Bengali. In July 2000, ETV Marathi 5 was started
followed by ETV Kannada6 in December 2000. In mid-2001, the Group entered the world of
fashion with Margadarsi Apparels. The company planned to introduce garments for both
men and women. The garments were segmented as formal wear, work wear, and casual
wear for all the age groups. The company expected to manufacture 30,000 garments per
day.
Ramoji Rao Spotting New Opportunities
Ramoji Rao's vision was to achieve excellence in his every venture he undertook. His biggest coup in the print
industry was the introduction of a color, tabloid sized 'mini-edition' of Eenadu for each of the districts in Andhra
Pradesh and the mini-detailed paper for Hyderabad. In 1998, he bagged the B D Goenka Award, a prestigious
award for excellence in journalism. Some analysts however felt that Ramoji Rao followed 'campaign journalism.'
He was actively involved in promoting the Telugu Desam Party7 (TDP) founded and headed by N.T. Rama Rao8, in
Andhra Pradesh through his Eenadu. However Ramoji Rao defended saying, "The role of the press is not
purposeless. If I believe that it is good for the people, I will do it."
He further said, "The media has to perform without vested interests, I have never sought any favor from the
government ever." One of the main reasons for Ramoji Rao's success was the synergy between his different
ventures. The Film City had become an asset for the TV channels. With Film City's state-of-the-art technical and
non-technical support, the group could make programs for the TV and films at a very low cost. Commented
Ramoji Rao, "If we cannot afford the cost in Film City, we cannot afford it anywhere else."
Ramoji Rao had an eye for spotting opportunities. When he was in Visakhapatnam for opening a new branch of
Margadarsi, he could not find a good hotel to stay. Within a few months, the Group started the Dolphin Chain of
Hotels, with a 3-star hotel in Visakhapatnam, catering to the diverse needs of businessmen and tourists. In 1997,
when the Film City was established, the chain expanded its hotels to cater to different segments 'Sitara' the
luxury hotel with restaurants, pool, gym and business centre was started to cater to film stars, producers and
directors. Tara was a 3-star economy hotel, and a budget accommodation for the rest of the crew was available at
Sahara. During his stay in Visakhapatnam, Ramoji Rao, a newspaper addict, could not get the daily newspapers as
they reached a day later through post.
He discussed this problem with late A.J. Prasad, editor of Andhra Prabha 9. Ramoji Rao suggested that A. J. Prasad
should start a Visakhapatnam edition. When Ramoji Rao failed to convince A. J. Prasad, he started 'Eenadu' in
Visakhapatnam. When Ramoji Rao saw the tremendous success of Hindi movies, with heavy investments, he
planned to enter the film industry, but with creative and thought-provoking low-budget movies. Ramoji Rao
explained, "Convictions make you do things.
With mega-budgets and big names, Mumbai could work magic. But I thought, with some creative effort, lowbudget films could be made." The movies from Ushokiron Movies seemed successful, appealing to all age groups.

There were family dramas, comedies, love stories and social movies to appeal to all kinds of movie-goers.
Analysts felt that Ramoji Rao was a good strategist. The 'mini-editions' concept of Eenadu was a great success.
Eenadu was also one of the first publications to be printed in color. Ramoji Rao also introduced different
supplements like 'Vasundhara' for women and 'Eenadu Cinema' with film gossips for youngsters. Over the years,
Eenadu became the numero uno newspaper in Andhra Pradesh until The Times of India 10 launched its Hyderabad
edition in 2001. The Times of India followed an aggressive price cut policy.

In June 2001, Eenadu formed an alliance with The Hindu11to sell advertising space in each other's publication, to
counter competition from The Times of India. In October 1998, Ramoji Rao launched an aggressive global
marketing campaign for his Film City. This followed the completion of the latest technology color laboratory,
which was certified by Kodak as one among the 10 top processing facilities in the world, and dubbing and setconstruction facilities (Refer Exhibit II). He visited Los Angeles and held meetings with owners of major studios
and independent companies. To penetrate further into the satellite television market, Ramoji Rao planned to extend
ETV to other languages. In March 2000, ETV launched India's first private earth station, to help expand the
satellite TV market.
Apart from ETV-Bangla, ETV-Marathi, and ETV-Kannada, ETV launched the first Urdu channel in India, ETVUrdu in June 2001. By the end of 2001, Eenadu was planning to launch channels in two other niche markets
Gujarati12 and Oriya13. Said an Eenadu official, "The aim of the network is to build a brand and cater to niche
audiences in all major regional languages." Analysts felt that an important characteristic of the Ramoji Group was
that it had always been a family-run organization. The flagship company of the group, Margadarsi Chit Funds, was
managed by one of Ramoji Rao's daughters-in-law. Another daughter-in-law looked after the hotels run by the
Dolphin Hotels chain in the Film City.
The Road Ahead
From one company in 1962, the Ramoji Group became a Rs 15 billion business empire with presence in many
industries by 2001. For future growth, Ramoji Rao planned to concentrate on the group's core businesses like the
print media, satellite television and films. As part of the future plan, Ramoji Rao announced investments in film
industry. In 2001, Eenadu TV planned a Rs.600 million upgradation of its earth station. The project included a
Rs.180 million project to automate its newsroom. The group also planned to launch newspapers in other south
Indian languages. As a first step, Ramoji Rao planned a Kannada daily for Karnataka to be launched by 2002. His
plans included making his Film City the best not only in India but also in the world.
He described the City as "The Last Milestone." He said, "Our immediate concern is to make it the best It is an
open ended project where facilities will continually be upgraded." The group was also focussing on its new venture
Margadarsi Apparels to make it the best in the textile retailing industry.
Exhibits
Exhibit I: The Ramoji Group
Exhibit II: Post-Production Facilities at Ramoji Film City