Acutrack Interview at KPASSA for Zero Inventory On Demand Disc Production

Our Vice president Asheesh Barman was recently interviewed by the producers of KPASSA, a show that spotlights local San Francisco Bay area businesses and their work. The show, “Digital to Disc,” focused on the digital media industry and Acutrack’s new “zero-inventory” on-demand disc production model.

For the last sixteen years or so, traditional DVD and CD publishing required by musicians, filmmakers, trainers and software companies, or other content producers was limited to mass production. Minimum orders of 1000 pieces or more were needed to be profitable. The costs were paid up front, which meant marketing budgets were often slashed in order to cover these production costs prior to sales.

The new trend that Asheesh talks about in the show is the company's zero inventory model, called On Demand Disc Production, which came about after the dot com companies in the Bay area crashed. Software companies used to upgrade versions of their software all the time. Whenever they upgraded to the next version, the inventory still left from the previous version instantly became obsolete – thereby wasting a lot of money. None of these companies were able to forecast the number of sales they would have, so they kept wasting money. And in many cases, independent filmmakers and musicians were in the same boat - only for them it meant that 1000 DVDs were sitting in storage somewhere, and it was time consuming and difficult to ship them out to customers one order at a time.

Acutrack introduced their On Demand CD and DVD publishing model shortly thereafter, allowing business people in need of CD and DVD manufacturing to implement a new system where their customers could order product, one at a time.

This zero inventory model reduces costs of pre-production, storage and the waste of unused product. In other words, it saves people lots of money, which lets these content producers spend it on marketing their products, or creating more content, which is always fresh. For instance, if you are selling download-able content and are not sure how many units to produce and do not want the challenges with inventory, packaging and fulfillment, you can custom brand each CD or DVD disc with your own artwork and add value to your product. And if you are worried about the up-front cost of producing multiple titles, and you would like to deliver personalized or custom content to your customers want it, and eliminate costs associated with inventory or product obsolescence associated with pre-produced inventory, then On Demand Production is ideal for you.

On Demand orders are automatically taken and automatically produced through bar coded robotics and output professionally designed and branded retail packages one at a time, that are then shipped by Acutrack worldwide to directly to your customers. Plus you can individually customize each CD or DVD with bar codes, serial numbers, logos or pictures. And you pay at the end of the month after your customers have paid for their order generating instant positive cash flow from your titles.

Sometimes these days people ask about the fact that it seems like downloadable content is taking over the CD and DVD production industry - however we always want to take a look a the fact that the technologies required for faster downloads of bigger and bigger files such as HD video, are still young. These bandwidth limitations will probably take a few more years to overcome. And often times, people prefer to have a library of DVD or CDs, while companies enjoy the branding ability that the packaging of CD and DVD publishing provides.

As overall costs go, the DVD On Demand publishing model is extreemly cost efficient. On Demand CD and DVD Production is available in three flexible models including Download Archived CD, DVD Production on Demand or Customized Production.