Enterprise Administration Methods Adapt to ‘New Regular’

WASHINGTON-COVID-19 came like a freight train to most of the world, and as a result, the way we look at our lives – professionally and personally – has had to change almost as quickly. This rapid change process will not skip the TV industry and in this case the advancement of corporate management systems.

Regardless of whether their main goal is to help broadcasters address advertising and traffic needs through metadata management, providers have turned their attention to a number of key processes brought about by current events.

GOING REMOTE

Since mid-March, the majority of the workforce has been doing their daily tasks from home. Many did not know how the process would change for them.

“There weren’t many people, many of our clients, talking about how to maintain a 95% work-from-home attitude,” said Steve Reynolds, president of Imagine Communications. In response, Imagine has made much of its business management platform suitable for distributed use, whether through the cloud or possibly as a managed service. But it was still a change that people had to get used to.

Myers also had a number of clients wondering how best to do operations remotely. Like Imagine, they had previously developed the function and enhanced it with ProHost 2.0. According to Mike Tirrell, CTO of the Westfield, Massachusetts-based radio and TV management software provider, while an edge device is able to fully integrate with all systems within a given media facility, it makes ProHost 2.0 available everywhere.

What has surprised many users during this time is how little their work has actually been affected due to the work-from-home orders and, in some cases, how more efficient they are. As a result, a return to the office and the nature of previous operations before COVID is not that urgent.

“I think there are a lot of companies out there considering what to do with managed services and what to do in the public cloud, as this is not just a business continuity plan, it is, in fact, the primary plan for the way they want to run their business is progressing, ”Reynolds said.

COMPETITION AGAINST DIGITAL

When it comes to advertising, television has long been one of the dominant platforms for businesses. However, in recent years digital evolution has emerged and as the ad market has been badly hit by COVID-19, the gap between television and some of the big digital players like Google and Facebook is becoming increasingly apparent. Still, media companies should take this time to find ways to reassert their strong position in the advertising world.

“The premium television companies own [digital’s] Value, but their execution systems, the way they run their businesses, have become very isolated – one platform on top of the other, “said Lorne Brown, CEO of Operative, a provider of automated advertising software. “The TV market … needs to modernize its tech stacks in order to survive and unlock their value in this new market.”

The dominant theme these days is programmatic advertising, which Myers’ CEO Crist Myers defines as “making sure the right programming hits your audience”. Although it has become more widespread in recent years, the development of the ATSC 3.0 standard will provide broadcasters with new tools to better target specific populations, Myers’ Tirrell explains.

While Digital is ahead with Programmatic, WideOrbit developed MarketPlace and Programmatic Digital to remove barriers to the full use of technology by television and transactions, said Mike Zinsmeister, CRO of the San Francisco-based company management systems provider for M & E.

Brown doesn’t see programmatic as having the greatest potential for enterprise management systems. Instead, it focuses more on creating multi-faceted systems that combine a number of different user needs.

BRING IT ALL TOGETHER

In our review of corporate management systems for M&E a year ago, we discussed how the various facets of corporate governance are combined in individual platforms. This approach has only increased in the current environment.

“It all comes back to that unified infrastructure concept,” said Brown of Operative, whose flagship cloud-based AOS is designed to help media companies integrate the various aspects and platforms of their business and enable them to do it in a way that Way to sell, the buyer wants to consume it.

Pretty much all of the companies we’ve spoken to have this type of product, whether they’re for full system operations or focus on the many different aspects of a single function like advertising. WideOrbit has its Unified Sales Suite to connect buyers and sellers through a single, simple platform. The latest version of Myers’ ProTrack, 7.0, offers a variety of services for managing, publishing, and more. Imagine’s XG gameplan provides users with insights into supply and demand aspects, as well as audience and other aspects.

“I think what we’re seeing with COVID-19 is a decade of trends in 18 months,” Brown said. Providers and users just have to try to keep up.