Critical success factors of recording studio in Indonesia

Abstract

This viewpoint paper is based on consultancy project in developing strategic marketing plan for building a professional recording studio in Bandung, Indonesia. Nonetheless, previous studies that scrutinize the key success factors in music recording studio industry are noticeably lacking, whereas music artists still rely heavily on recording studio providers to record their music and distribute it to the market. Hence, finding out the critical success factors (CSF) can help recording studio to craft strategic marketing plan within effective and efficient budget. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Methods carried out in this study are based on triangulation which comprises of primary observation, interviews to experts in the respective field, and literature reviews regarding CSF, service quality and service excellence. Five years of primary observations took place in five studios on two major cities in Indonesia which are Bandung and Jakarta of which many prominent musicians were originated. The interviews were conducted to six respondents who have more than ten years of experience in music industry, and have produced at least two albums through professional music recording processes in music studios including recording, mixing, and mastering. It is found that by exploiting the conceptual theories of service quality and service excellence as the foundations, there are primarily three critical factors in music recording studio industry in Indonesia which are human resources development in primarily technical aspects, communication skills, and servicescapes which involve the recording facilities and also the studio surroundings. This study only took samples from five studios, two major cities in Indonesia and limited experts opinion. Nevertheless, confirmatory study is expected in the future in order to gain deeper insights or other additional point of view in determining CSF in the recording studio industry. This paper, however, has contributed to the existing literature of service quality, service excellence, and CSF in a narrow scope of industry which is music recording studio. Managers who wish to start a recording studio business must look deeply into these three critical factors to address the budget effectively and efficiently in initial investment of the studio. Through this study it can be observed that music studio as a service firm can still focus on creating critical values to strive even though the music industry landscape has been deteriorated due to piracy and the development of technology. It is expected that through this study, by understanding the CSF, managers in music recording studio can focus on creating value effectively and efficiently in recording studio business. This study contributes to fill the gap of empirical discussion in determining CSF in the music recording studio business in Indonesia in the context of service quality and service excellence, which has not been examined by previous scholars.