Rank 28: Pentamedia Graphics: Close Encounters

Here is a company that digitally cloned movie stars, produced the

world’s first real-time 3D animation movies, digitized anything and

everything, and always caught the fancy of the media. The company went through a

tumultuous phase in 2001-02, when an overall downtrend hit the technology

industry. The going was not easy, and the employees had to face the brunt of the

slowdown. 

Performance Highlights Revenues declined by 20% l Tieup with Eros Multimedia to set up post-production and graphic facility l Massive retrenchment in fiscal 2001-02 l Startup: 1976 l Products & Services: Multimedia services, 2D/3D Animation, special effects for big and small screen l Employees: 752 l BRANCHES: 12 l Address: First Main Road, United India Colony, Kodambakkam, Chennai — 600024 l Tel: 4833067/4840298 l Fax: 4840362 l Website: www.penta-media.com

For instance, the company had 2,122 on the rolls as on March 2001, but an

audit by March 2002 revealed that the company had only 752 employees–the

company retrenched 1,370 employees. Pentamedia also became the first company in

India to get the dubious distinction of sacked employees taking o the streets in

protest. Meanwhile, looking beyond the veil of its woes, 61% of exports came

from the US and the rest came from geographies like Europe, Japan and

Asia-Pacific. A significant move was its tieup with New York-based Eros

Multimedia for setting up a post-production and graphic facility.