How optimisation is fulfilling the promise of modern media supply chains

When the phrase ‘media supply chain’ first surfaced within the media industry, it was a straightforward concept, namely: the process of receiving, validating and transforming content as necessary to meet the requirements of target distribution and delivery platforms. What became evident over time, however, was that by taking a closer look at this process — and all the steps and workflows within it — media organisations could find numerous opportunities for optimisation. Just as important was the realisation that effective optimisation from content receipt through to output for distribution could make all the difference in opening up a competitive advantage and new revenue streams.

These drivers led forward-looking media organizations to embrace the idea of media supply chain optimisation and to adopt solutions such as SDVI’s Rally platform for media supply chain management. In deploying such a solution, organisations began to streamline their operations, processing content more quickly and fulfilling new content deals faster with less impact on day-to-day operations.

The SDVI Rally media supply chain management platform deploys all the applications and infrastructure to create a dynamic, responsive media supply chain. Extending the Rally platform across their operations, media organisations can make decisions more quickly, execute them more efficiently, and reduce time to revenue. As a cloud-native platform, Rally also gives media organisations the agility to embrace new opportunities, adapt to consumer demand, and provide next-level consumer experiences.

As media organisations began modernising their supply chains through optimisation, they did indeed see savings in terms of time and money. Even more meaningful, though, was increased visibility into just how much time and money they were saving and where. The Rally Insight data analytics service transforms the immense volume of supply chain data gathered by the Rally platform into actionable intelligence. With accurate, granular cost and usage data, media organisations are able to better understand the true cost of content preparation, improve accountability with more relevant reporting, and make faster, better-informed decisions about taking on new projects.

‘A natural next step’

But why stop at internal processes? Why not extend media supply chain optimisation to include upstream and downstream partners and thereby reduce friction, eliminate duplicate work, and simplify the handoff of content and metadata? For media companies that have modernised their factories, embraced supply chain methodologies and migrated infrastructure to the cloud, it’s a natural next step.

The broader media supply chain is an interconnected web of content producers, media companies and delivery partners. When these partners are intelligently connected through technology such as the Rally Connect content and metadata exchange service, they can move and receive content with minimal processing redundancy and duplication of work. Using a series of predefined content specifications and templates, the platform itself enforces the downstream specifications so that content always arrives pre-conformed.

As a result, partners can automate the movement of content and the registration of data so that an exchange that once took months can instead be completed within a day, all within the cloud. And instead of receiving raw materials arriving at the beginning of its supply chain, the ‘media factory’ receives content that is already processed and quality-checked — well down the path when it arrives. Eliminating friction and redundant work, this model saves both time and money.

For one media organisation, deployment of Rally solely for content distribution resulted in a 25% reduction in operating costs and a 23% increase in revenue post-acquisition. These cost savings and revenue gains are typical of Rally implementations, and they multiply as the platform is extended across the organisation more broadly.

While the original notion of media supply chain suggested significant efficiency improvements, media organisations today are realising massive efficiency gains and cost savings through optimisation of the end-to-end media supply chain. Enabled by platforms such as SDVI’s Rally, the process is proving to be a game-changer for modern media organisations.