From content generation to operations transformation

During the pandemic, media organizations grew revenues through content development and customer acquisition. But with consumer subscription fatigue set to accelerate, they’re now shifting to operational transformation to find a competitive advantage. But this isn’t just a cost-cutting play. By harnessing the power of data, technology, and automation, operations can generate new sources of revenue.

Brajesh Jha, Genpact’s global head of media, publishing, and entertainment, talks analyst HFS Chief Strategy Officer Don Ryan through four ways media companies can link revenue growth to operations:

• Maximizing content by better distribution and monetization
• Creating better ways of working and automation
• Increasing efficiency through data and insight
• Building loyalty through trust

• Content maximization through optimized distribution and life cycle management. Although there was heavy investment in content during the pandemic, revenues per subscriber weren’t a priority. Now, all parts of the business must support content generation as industry dynamics change and margins tighten. Distribution, monetization, and siloed decision-making can improve with systems and process standardization

• Building loyalty through trust. To maximize the value of each customer, media companies need metrics on churn, average value per user, geography, and ethnicity. Plus, they need to know more about the end consumer, viewing habits, and media consumption habits. They can harness existing data to build this granular picture to support decisions about digital advertising, but they will only build loyalty if customers trust how they use this personal data. Media organizations need to invest in customer data platforms to get a solid grip on first-party data to balance personalization and privacy using AI and analytics
• Scale through automation and new ways of working. From a revenue-enhancing perspective, legacy ERPs, inefficient workflows, favored vendors, and infrastructure issues make collaboration hard. Customized legacy applications mean automation is hard to deploy and scale. The solution lies in modernizing legacy infrastructure and fixing siloed broken processes. Chief technology officers and chief information officers need to clarify processes, personas, and end goals and then apply journey mapping to work out what they can automate