Creating a successful cultural product: Interview with Raju Hirani

In seeking to track the elusive causes of the success of cultural goods, where creativity is the key to competitive advantage and managers have to balance the creative, market and organisational dimensions, J. Ramachandran and Sourav Mukherjee spoke to Raju Hirani, the director of three blockbuster Hindi movies, to understand the personal journey of this maker of ‘entertainment products’, and how he juggles the challenges of following his creative urges, co-ordinating a film production team consisting of people with varied skills and differing aesthetic values, and the business aspects of budgeting and estimating returns in an uncertain market.