ONE Software for the Enterprise: Our decade-long journey of driving transformation

As creators of Media ERP, we often get asked about our journey over the last 11 years. With our 9th run at NAB Show coming up, we figured now is a great time to look back and reflect on how we, and our software, have evolved over the years!

It all started around a decade ago when the Media & Entertainment (M&E) industry had just begun its Digitization journey, migrating from tape to tapeless. Back then, Cloud was more an idea than a reality, and tech solutions specially tailored for M&E were virtually non-existent. Media Asset Management was all about managing storage & retrieval of content, with human orchestration and no automation. There was a pressing need for content enterprises to transition to file-based workflows and deliver content to multiple platforms.

Whilst enabling that, our endeavor was to also connect every stakeholder involved in the business of content through digitization. So we gave the M&E industry its very own ERP - CLEAR - ONE software that automates the content supply chain. Leveraging the power of hybrid Cloud and automation, it provided the industry with a single software for the enterprise, specially designed to connect all their departments, geographies and businesses.

For the first time ever, technical operations, creative, marketing, legal, operations, sales and senior executive leadership teams could all collaborate on the same software. Media enterprises were connected with their entire ecosystem of production companies, brands, localization vendors, advertising agencies, playout locations and multi-platform delivery channels through one platform. CLEAR, coupled with our Cloud-enabled services helped M&E players unlock new revenue streams, save time and reduce costs in a big way.

2012 PFT Booth – ONE Platform, ONE Interface, ONE Ecosystem

Of course, there was a lot of skepticism at the time (believe it or not, a tad of this lingers even today!) Can you trust Cloud with your content? Is it cost-effective? My content is stored locally, how will MAM work from the cloud? My requirements are region-specific, and what I do in each region is very unique – so how can I run global operations using one software? My team only needs to access Production documents, view Dailies, and collaborate on cuts while producing content, so how will Media ERP help?

We answered all these questions – and more! We emphasized the need to go beyond MAM, look beyond OTT and think beyond Dailies. It was all about automation across the supply chain and the efficiencies ONE software can bring to content makers.

2013 PFT Booth – Go Beyond MAM

To solve specific customer challenges, we launched CLEAR modules, and our customers loved the bite-sized versions! We unveiled Cloud MAM, Operations Cloud, DAX^® Production Cloud and Broadcast Cloud. Customers got first-hand demos of how Cloud MAM provides ONE MAM across geographies, departments and businesses; and how the patented DAX^® Production Cloud helps manage both Dailies & Post workflows. The software’s ability to help slash costs by 30% and enhance efficiencies by 40% became crystal CLEAR!

2014 PFT Booth – Virtualization: Limitless Possibilities

Media ERP continued to evolve in tune with changing market dynamics. By the time VoD platforms and mobile device viewing gained popularity, our software was all geared up to configure and onboard new outlets for distributing content across multiple platforms with ease. Whether customers were looking to publish their content to popular platforms like YouTube/Netflix, or to their own streaming service platform, CLEAR with Managed service had all their needs covered. With hundreds of preset bots for delivery to linear and new media destinations, integration with branded transcoders, custom workflow orchestration and on-demand content processing infrastructure, we began helping M&E enterprises conquer the multi-platform universe.

2015 PFT Booth – Digital Next

2016 PFT Booth – Be Bold. Take The Leap

2017 PFT Booth – Be MORE with CLEAR

Of course, we didn’t stop there! Year after year, we’ve added transformational solutions to augment CLEAR’s capabilities across the content lifecycle. These include automation-led solutions for content acquisition, Promo Versioning Automation operations, Hybrid Satellite & Terrestrial distribution, Mastering for Global distribution, OTT distribution and more. The introduction of Work Order Management further elevated CLEAR’s promise of enterprise digitization to the next level, enabling users to manage assets, resources and tasks all on ONE software. They could assign manual tasks to best-fit resources (internal or freelance) based on skill, availability and cost, ensuring optimal resource utilization in line with business objectives.

2018 PFT Booth – Think Automation. Think CLEAR

Most recently, since AI has begun taking the world by storm, we’ve added a host of powerful AI-led Micro Services to our suite of offerings. Content creators can now leverage CLEAR for faster, easier content discovery like never before. Some powerful use cases include automatic content segmentation, automatic identification of best-fit thumbnails, AI-led scene description, AI-assisted promo creation, AI-led compliance editing, automatic identification of objects within a video, automatic creation of sports highlights packages and much more. We’re super excited to help our customers tap the immense potential of AI to enhance efficiencies, gain speed and increase monetization!

So, if you’ve been following us (well, you must in case you haven’t so far…), you can tell that the concept of one software for unifying creation to delivery is not an idea born in 2018. CLEAR was not built for usage exclusively within a service company, for a single customer use! CLEAR has been in the hands of our customers, globally, enabling them to independently manage content during production and distribution, on the back of one software. CLEAR is cloud native and has been automating the content supply chain for the last 11 years! ONE platform, one interface, one ecosystem, with over 1.5 MN hours of content under management.

Stay tuned for what’s coming up at NAB 2019! Catch us at booth #SL9605 and check out our latest transformational offerings. Because at the end of the day, we have ONE goal, ONE passion - Automation.