By: Faisal Niusha Pantea

Introduction

• ASTRO (All-Asian Sat TV and Radio Operator) is the south East Asia’s top cross-media worker by means of Direct-To-Home satellite TV services in Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia and other parts of south East Asia. Being the only dealer of Direct-To-Home satellite TV services in Malaysia.

• The Astro service is accessible in Indonesia under a brand license agreement

• It is also the most important commercial radio broadcaster in Malaysia and the main publisher of TV guides and lifestyle magazines.

• ASTRO supplementary, Celestial Pictures, have the ownership of the world’s biggest Chinese film library and its digitally premastered movies are released globally by means of dramatic, videotapes, TV and latest media distribution, along with the Celestial Movies channels.

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• Operations of this organization are done in All Asia Broadcast Centre, which is a complete digital broadcasting and production center in Kuala Lumpur.

• Six out of the ten best known channels in Malaysia operate on the platform of Astro.

• Majority of the organizations revenue comes from the subscription of its pay-tv service and others from the television and radio advertisements and the allocation of its content assets. It also has its investments in a disburse TV and radio channels in India

• The organization runs eight FM terrestrial radio stations in Malaysia in Malay, Chinese, English and one of the local Indian languages.

• Astro is also the owner of some of the popular brands in Malaysia and many other places in Asia. The figure below shows some of the brands owned by this organization

Astro’s Background• Astro started in 1996 with the launch of the satellite called

MEASAT-1, originally comprising of twenty two televisions and eight radio platforms.

• During the year 2001 the organization commenced its showcase as a free-to-see platform showcasing Asian movies following the launch of Season Pass (currently paid channels) in the same year.

• During the year 2003 Astro had a role in the market as both the pay-TV provider and a media brand in south East Asia. Different brands were created for programs and events and were handled by different managers making both a different identity in the same association.

• During the year 2006 Astro launched the Astro max system containing a digital video recording facility allowing its customers to record programs into the hard disk.

Astro’s Background• In mid 2007, Astro established Astro on Demand, a new video on

their platform the demand channel showing the newest TVB drama series from Hong Kong on 6 channels.

• On 1st July, 2007 onwards, Astro On-Demand sample was commenced, and was completely dedicated to inform the customers about the new platform.

• In July 2007 the introductory price of Rm 0.99 was introduced for 31 channels to the customers.

• . During the year 2008 the organization bought in the Australian channels into their network.

• “Astro is owned by MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems, which is a subsidiary of Astro All Asia Networks plc.” Currently the association provides the subscriber with 809 Channels which includes Fox News Channel, Fox Crime and FX.

Objective of Organization

• The objective of Astro is to make best use of its shareholders worth by means of increasing the size of its business by devoting and providing new opportunities in the media production internationally in order to get sustained growth in revenues with a view of early cash flow generation.

• organization is currently in search of the new ways to boost its contribution mostly in the under-penetrated economies which would have an advantage from the estimated liberalization in the media production industries and has the fast phase in the customer increase section, especially in case of the developing countries where the demand for media production is increasing at the enormous rate.

• its own operational and monetary aims which are different in terms of diverse business units which the organization is running in order to make sure that every business focuses and works in order to achieve the major objectives and goal of the organization as a whole.

Structure of Organization

•The organization structure consists of board of directors who are the top authority and are responsible for planning and corresponding the strategic direction and taking care of its affairs to make sure the organizations success to have the proper control over risk and go on with the rules and regulations of the territory and the company.

Structure of Organization

• The body of board of directors consists of three directors who are non executive with one executive chairman and one non executive director.

• The Next level comes the management group who are responsible for managing their departmental activities related to different brands and sections. This level is the link between the lowest level and the board and mostly comprises of managers and senior managers who implement the plans made by the top levels.

• The next level is the lowest level comprising of normal workers who are directly into the activities and are only linked with the management groups.

Information Technology

• According to the oxford dictionary Information technology is "the branch of technology concerned with the dissemination, processing, and storage of information, esp. by means of computers".

• Astro an organization which is completely dependent on IT and makes mass usage of it. We can see the usage of IT in almost all the business activities of this corporation.

• The massive usage of IT however is made for the digital channel service which the organization provides to its subscriber.

Information Technology• For associations like Astro where the service is based on

subscription, IT helps the group to keep the track of its subscriber in terms of:

Type of service pack undertaken Time period of the subscription Outstanding bills of the subscribers Details of the customers requiring services

• the works of digital media production itself requires different software’s in its workplace. As we know that Astro works in the digital media production it is the field where IT is required in:

Editing and combining the movies Digital production 3D and graphic works

Problem Statement• From our research analysis we have come out with the result that

though the company is running in the multinational zone, there are still some defects which are still being faced by their customers with the view of payment in many locations. Currently the company’s system of subscription payment is manual and there is a limited usage of IT in this phase. The current system of Astros subscription payment gives out the following major problems which are:

•

a. Inaccessibility

b. Long Queue

c. Timing

Solution With the Analysis

• Electronic Voucher Recharge System: Customers will have better access to service. Company also will be able to provide better service to the

customer with on time services. The system works in a similar sense as to the previous system of

encryption, the only distinction from the previous system is in terms of payment of service bills.

Rather than paying bills going to the Astro service centers the payment is made on the recharge basis either by an online or by a normal recharge voucher

Yet utilizing Astro’s Satellite services.

Technical Aspects

Adopt a new technology architecture. Payments have to be tracked by Astro using an intelligent client interface.

The interface’s role is to allow the customers to key in the electronic code purchased.

Additionally the client program must adhere to a secure transmission of the reactivation code

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• On the other side of the transaction, Astro must successfully authenticate the received reactivation request. Thus, the main modules that needs to be added to the existing system would be:

Electronic vouchers generation Electronic voucher authentication End user account management – the client program running on

the decoder

Benefits

• Beneficial to both organization as well as customers

• To customers:Accessibility Convenience

To organizationMore customersLess employeesSave costs