Media asset management: the key to business success By Kevin Usher In todays media environment enterprises are under intense pressure to improve content monetization and maximize operational efficiency. Theyre expected to do moreto create more content for more platforms and deliver it to more peopleso they have to find new ways to secure revenues, differentiate services to earn audience loyalty, and deliver all these services at a lower cost.

One of the key routes to achieving this goal is through media asset management (MAM). Originally, asset management was seen as a low-level function, a means of keeping track of content.

Today, the MAM system is seen as a key strategic investment. It provides wide-scale access to content, and it can take an active role in identifying and promoting content that has a revenue opportunity attached to it. And as the repository of metadata, its seen as the heart of workflow processes and automation. MAM should today be seen as the workflow engine, driving automated processes as much as possible, and thereby reducing costs as well as serving more markets and outlets.

To determine todays attitudes towards MAM, Avid commissioned international research company Ovum Consulting to survey business leaders on their views. Ovum spoke to 125 individuals mainly at C or board level in 21 countries.

Operational efficiency

The ability to increase operational efficiency is highly valued. 66% of respondents felt that their MAM system had lowered their multiplatform distribution costs. 50% said it had improved real-time collaboration between creative media professionals. And a staggering 82% of executives believe that MAM delivers a return on investment of 10% or better.

Integration

It was clear from the survey, though, that MAM cannot deliver benefits on its own. It has to be part of a widely integrated system that provides seamless and, where practical, automated workflows across multiple vendors solutions. MAM may be the heart of the system, but if it doesnt interwork with peripherals, a lot of its value is lost. 67% of respondents identified poor integration with existing broadcasting systems as the most likely reason for MAM implementations to fail to deliver the predicted benefits.

The real benefits of a modern MAM system come in the ability to store, update and maintain comprehensive metadata, and to use this to drive automated workflows. This can only happen in an organization that has reviewed all its processes and considered how best they can be accomplished in the future.

Key findings

There was widespread agreement that MAM streamlines workgroup collaboration and multiplatform distribution two-thirds of respondents stated that as an important factor. Half of the senior executives surveyed stated that MAM facilitates real-time workgroup collaboration across multiple locations.

That can be linked to a second key finding: vital KPIs are not just multiplatform distribution costs, but perhaps even more important, reduced lead time for new digital service launches. If you have a new idea, you want it on air or online as quickly as possible to stay ahead of the competition.

On the other hand, theres a widespread feeling that poor third-party integration, metadata issues and a lack of process improvement impedes the success of MAM systems. 67% stated poor integration with broadcasting systems as an important pain point.

That links into the fourth issue, which is that media enterprises are keen to move towards vertical integration of their management systems, and ultimately a move towards business process outsourcing (BPO). They recognize that the MAM system is a critical link between core activities creating, managing and delivering engaging content and BPO.

The final key finding from the report concerns future content. Half of those surveyed felt that by 2020just five years awaytheir content inventory will have increased in value by a factor of five.

Theres also the consideration that some of that new content will be in new, and perhaps as yet unidentified, formats. Executives surveyed expect around 5% of their total content to be 4K or 8K, but Ultra HD is still being defined.

Conclusions

Today, MAM is widely seen as a fundamental component of any media enterprise, and users are confident about its ability to deliver a return on investment.

MAM is proven to solve key business and operational challenges which many media organizations face today. However, to achieve a successful outcome, MAM should be designed and implemented in close collaboration with the customer. Understanding their needs at every stage, from design through to implementation, and beyond, is imperative.

In conjunction, the MAM system needs to be future proof to meet whatever new challenges in media formats and creativity media organizations will face in the future. Therefore, flexibility, extendibility and the scalability to address specific business or operational needs are paramount requirements of a MAM system, especially if total media enterprise transformation is the ultimate goal.