Media Operations Outsourcing. mmedia solutions. switch save & deliver: media operations outsourcing. Your business technologists.

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1 Media Operations Outsourcing mmedia solutions switch save & deliver: media operations outsourcing Your business technologists. Powering progress

2 Whether you create, commission or buy content - your success as a media company is built on the delight you give your audience. No matter how vital the mechanics of delivery, nobody is ever going to notice it unless something goes wrong. Choosing the right Media Operations Outsourcing partner must deliver complete reliability and drive out cost. It s time to liberate cash, so you can invest it where it makes a difference: putting smiles on faces. 2

3 Digital diversion Everybody knows how the digital revolution is transforming media. Just think about your own digital positioning even five years ago and compare it with where you are today. But there is a dilemma. You need to feed content to audiences who use multiple devices and build their own schedules. You need to achieve this, however, without allowing the cost and effort of managing digital diversity divert you from the true objective: wowing viewers with content, brand and experience. Is the digital revolution killing broadcast? No it s the opposite. Interaction and social media increasingly drive audiences back towards the fixed-time broadcast. Whether watching talent shows or major sporting events, upwards of 80% of viewers now do so with a second device on hand. Viewers don t wait for the next day s water cooler moment to share their comments either. It happens right now: during the last Super Bowl final, the American football game was generating a staggering 4000 tweets a second. Program life extends on either side of a scheduled broadcast, with spoilers in advance and play-on-demand long into the future. Add to this entirely new spheres of contentrelated social networking, interaction and merchandising. All of this takes the broadcasters and media companies into new territory, especially with regard to advertising strategy, partnership and payback. This continuous and exciting digital turbulence raises four fundamental questions about the way you manage media operations even though these traditionally lie outside the creative and business spotlight: Ownership and control Perhaps more than for any other sector, media companies understand that you do not need to own something to control it. This is true for skills, services and technologies. Even within public service broadcast organizations, with their highly sought-after longterm employment contracts, there has always been a strong reliance on third party providers. Media companies have got the most creative and dynamic networks of independent collaborators of any sector from actors and camera crews to caterers and outside broadcast service providers. This ability to exploit diversity now becomes even more important as digital reshapes operational practices. Gartner estimate that broadcast companies already spend around 20% of their IT budget on outsourced service. The practice is well-established. It works and you are comfortable with it. Operational outsourcing is nothing new for media companies and broadcasters: For many, outside broadcast services have been outsourced for twenty years and more. Outsourced linear play-out through centralized play-out centers already delivers well-known economies of scale But maybe now is the time to broaden this perspective taking a hard look at the full catalog of media operations services and thinking about the immediate and practical benefits of control over ownership. 1 Innovation 2 Budgeting 3 Agility 4 Quality How do you sustain access to innovation in terms of both skills and technology, while minimizing the risk of making poor choices? Can you minimize budget allocation without endangering the quality, scope and availability of operational services? Do you have the means and processes needed to anticipate and respond to significant fluctuations in demand across traditional and emerging channels? Are you able to establish relevant quality benchmarks for broadcast and online operations, and to ensure that they are monitored and met? 3

4 Time for a new outsourcing battle plan? Look across your own media operations landscape and ask where skills and experience add tangible and differentiating value. Everything to do with brand, content and commercial strategy must be protected and developed to establish and sustain market position. Broadcasters and media companies rightly protect and retain ownership of these areas. But what about the rest? There is a spectrum of operational activities which although essential, do not add differentiating value. It s a bit of an oversimplification, but you can more or less categorize all operational activities in terms of Value Where ingenuity, experience and market awareness allow you to build profile and open new revenue opportunities. Cost Where essential functions must be delivered at best cost and with minimum risk of failure or performance degradation. All media companies can now benefit from choosing an outsourced approach to these cost-driven functions. This has now become a viable option for two clear reasons: Industrialization: In the relatively recent past, broadcasters were obliged either commission or build their own systems for these factory functions. It was necessary, but it did not add value. This has changed with the emergence of robust and affordable third party tools. Industrialization now becomes a business imperative as, for the first time, does integration. Experience: There are now service providers with the appropriate mix of technology and media experience. Partnership now becomes a viable alternative to ownership but only if you are able to establish a model without risk and with quantifiable and transparent cost-benefit. Who cares? In recent Atos discussions with clients, the topic of rethinking operational models has attracted interest from a wide range of professional broadcast and media companies. With established broadcast companies, we have had inspiring and productive initial discussions with experts and influencers from operations, technical and IT services, procurement and HR: the bigger the mix, the better the outcome. We have been talking with new media players too - and with established broadcasters looking to extend their effective presence through new media ventures. The focus is slightly different when all-ip distribution becomes the business back-drop. And finally, we have begun to talk to non-media players who realize just how important video communication is for client and employee relationships: football clubs, fashion houses and automotive companies now become broadcasters too. 4

5 Inside the factory Atos offers a complete catalog of Media Operations Outsourcing services, along with an extended range of distribution management functions. In addition to these five factory functions Atos also offers valuable support as a broker and service interface with the increasingly rich mix of platform operators on which media companies rely for both broadcast and online delivery. These include cable and satellite companies, WAN providers and ISPs, and specialist Content Delivery Network companies. This activity is particularly valued at a time when media and telecommunications companies are seeking to co-exist amicably in the face of already dwindling 4G bandwidth. 1 Ingest and Manage Factory focus Ingest contents supporting all formats Content cataloging and metadata management Encoding supporting all standard formats Media Asset Management Test, quality control and monitoring 2 Assign to schedule Program scheduling and traffic control Inserting advertising, promos and trailers 3 Prepare for distribution Transcoding, watermarking and integrity control 4 Play-out and monitor 5 Online management and monitoring Managing all video and audio servers Running insertion of graphics and subtitling Aspect ratio conversion Master Control Room operation Content management and publishing Journeys and destinations Atos is an IT services company with deep experience as a specialist provider of media services. We are keenly aware that for any established broadcaster, the idea of carving out a major area of operations can be daunting. This reticence is not a surprise What you have in place today may be costing more than you would like it may make it difficult to capitalize on the value of media assets across an increasingly varied range of delivery channels... and it may be a struggle to keep up with innovation, integrating new technology solutions into your legacy landscape... Because of our background and experience, we pay as much attention to the journey as we do to the destination. From a technology perspective, we know how to plan and manage complex integration and rationalization programs and this is critical. From a personnel perspective, we understand that the goodwill and professional commitment of your own operations team is immensely valuable. And from a commercial perspective, we understand in any shift to an outsourced operational model must deliver incontrovertible and self-evident costjustification. but despite these challenges what you have in place today works. (more or less). 5

6 Real numbers hard benefits Entrusting Atos with any of these cost-driven media operations services will deliver quantifiable savings. As we consider possible scenarios, we will explore precise cost-reduction targets in detail. These will naturally differ according to your current practice and investment. Even taking the very real differences between individual media companies into account, as an overall savings target, we d suggest aiming for at least a modest 20% minimum reduction. When we are exploring Media Operations Outsourcing scenarios together, we can use a detailed set of benchmarks based on Atos extensive experience. These will allow you to build up a granular portrait of realistic savings expectations. This granularity is important. It will help you to set priorities and plan the most worthwhile adoption sequence. Here are just three indicative examples condensed from the complete toolset our specialists use for detailed analysis of savings calculation across every Media Operations Outsourcing function.in addition to the specific savings to be made in individual media What Media Asset Management Master Control Room Services Resource and program scheduling operations areas, Atos is well-positioned to review and action savings initiatives focused on IT consolidation and centralization, increased automation and technology transformation. Everybody likes to save money but don t let the immediate attraction of savings obscure the wider benefits. When media companies are striving to exploit the digital redefinition of their industry, the ability to streamline operational process does a lot more than save money. You establish an environment which welcomes experimentation delivering new viewer experiences with new opportunities for revenue. You allow bright and experienced people to stop spending their days performing repetitive and mindless tasks empowering them through automation to achieve more. You break down artificial barriers between people, programs, processes and devices. (Media companies are not alone here just look at the more advanced financial services providers they set the standard for a unified client experience even if variable interest rate mortgages are not nearly as exciting as World Cup finals). Partnership in practice How Historical models have left many media companies using different teams and processes for different media types. Rationalizing resource boosts efficiency and saves money. For many, MCR has evolved incrementally without any real unity of design. This is not a criticism it s the reality. Standardization now allows some serious consolidation. Centralization now allows you to bring together program, advertising and promo scheduling in a single operation offering cloud-based access and delivery. Savings Expectation 20 30% 30% 20-25% People First Whenever an outsourcing contract involves staff transfer, continuity and wellbeing rightly become priorities. Continuity Wellbeing Not only must service continue without disruption. The skills and experience of those who make the move must continue to benefit their original employer. Treating those who make the move with respect at every level. One the one hand this means not having to worry about pension rights, travel, terms and conditions. On the other, it means being assured of rich opportunities for continued professional development. Atos understands continuity and wellbeing. Of our worldwide team of 76,300 business technologists, around 40% have joined us through outsourcing contracts and their continuing contribution points to one of the highest retention rates in the business. Many members of our specialist media team have also joined directly from the sector, often as a result of major outsourcing partnerships with client companies. 6

7 Why Atos? As an established provider of specialist Media Operations Outsourcing services, Atos has resource, depth and history. Until now, these capabilities have been respected but largely hidden behind individual client contracts. It s time to change that. Over the last twenty years, Atos has built a reputation as an operational service provider to the world s best known public service broadcast organization. This activity culminated in the transfer of a highly-skilled team of specialists, nearly all of whom have chosen to continue their careers with Atos. This skill and experience has been gradually carried into new markets over the last five years, and today, broadcast operational outsourcing clients include many of the best-known names in media. Why and why now? Media companies now recognize that standardization has become the key to efficiency and cost-reduction in all cash-driven operational functions. With that recognition of the value of standardization comes the realization that these functions are prime candidates for provision as a service. This shift in market thinking has lead Atos to take this new and more open position as a provider of Media Operations Outsourcing services it is, after all, in everybody s interest to share this best practice as widely as possible. We are not the only provider of these media services, and we respect the capabilities and vision of the few other players in this highly specialized sector. We would stress, however, the degree to which Atos has been able to industrialize these activities making it easier to speed adoption and reduce risk. We would also emphasize the characteristics that Atos inherits as a company with both an IT service and systems integration and media specialist background. It means, for example, that we are especially attuned to the challenges of consolidation and harmonization creating unity from controlled chaos. Managing surges and peaks becomes increasingly challenging for media companies operating over multiple audience channels and devices. With our background in virtualization and real-time data management, dealing with these dramatic fluctuations in demand is the day-to-day business reality for Atos. Team Preview When you engage with Atos as a Media Operations Outsourcing provider, you will get access to an expert team lead by an account executive who will put your priorities first. Major engagements can be supported with dedicated teams of over one hundred highly-specialized staff. These may include broadcast and network engineers, coding, MUX and MCR specialists, together with experienced operations managers. The team will also manage all third party service suppliers and developers. The core team will act as your operational radar too, scanning the business and technology horizon for relevant process and technology innovation. Your team will also dedicate serious intelligence to analytics and reporting revealing trends and continually looking out for opportunities to rationalize and reduce cost. The IT Connection Media Operations Outsourcing services don t sit in isolation. The relationship with extended IT functions is tight and permanent. Opportunities for one, will almost inevitably hold implications for the other. Atos are business technologists, breaking new ground in both operations outsourcing and IT solutions and services. Some benefits of this dual focus are immediately evident. The cost savings targets for operational outsourcing will typically sit at around 20%. Bring IT virtualization and optimization into the mix, and you can pitch those expectations even higher. While managing hardware refresh in the operational area, for example, we have helped media clients achieve savings of over 45% by shifting to virtualized models. Close and continual dialogue between our media operations and IT service teams will ensure you establish a continual cycle of improvement and innovation. Next steps Request a discovery session with the Atos specialist media consultants. Explore the immediate cost and performance benefits of Media Operations Outsourcing. You can also extend the scope to include an extrensive range of IT outsourcing activities. We can craft exploratory half-day workshops on either your own or Atos premises. Accelerated initial high-level consultancy engagements providing a substantiated benefit assessment can normally be successfully completed in as little as four working days. Let s talk right now about how to get started. switch save & deliver: media operations outsourcing 7

8 About Atos Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is an international information technology services company with 2013 annual revenue of 8.6 billion and over 76,000 employees in 52 countries. Serving a global client base, it delivers IT services in 3 domains, Consulting & Technology Services, Systems Integration and Managed Services & BPO, and transactional services through Worldline. With its deep technology expertise and industry knowledge, it works with clients across the following market sectors: Manufacturing, Retail & Services; Public sector, Healthcare & Transports; Financial Services; Telco, Media & Utilities. Atos is focused on business technology that powers progress and helps organizations to create their firm of the future. It is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and is quoted on the NYSE Euronext Paris market. Atos operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting & Technology Services, Worldline and Atos Worldgrid. For more information, visit: atos.net. For more information: Please contact dialogue@atos.net or visit atos.net atos.net Atos, the Atos logo, Atos Consulting, Worldline, Atos Sphere, Atos Cloud and Atos Worldgrid are registered trademarks of Atos SE. June Atos.