Greg Morrison, SVP & CIO, Cox Enterprises
Media companies are faced with a challenging future driven in large parts from increasing access of content on mobile devices. Media companies have traditionally made little use of cloud services and have limited their use to non-essential applications and services. This trend is now changing. Media companies, like most other industries, are seriously considering migration of important systems to the cloud. The industry has to transform because of significant digital disruption occurrence resulting in creating a competitive climate. Print media, newspapers, consumer magazines and other publications, are trying to manage an accelerated trend of converting from print to online. Broadcast media is dealing with consolidation, regulatory, retransmission and copyright protection issues. We are seeing more pay per use, on-demand content delivery pricing models. To support the new models, we need robust digital workflow processes and content management solutions.
The solutions need to automate the entire content workflow and monetize digital assets. Besides being in high demand, these solutions are increasingly being delivered as cloud services.
The digital revolution is built on the cloud, social, data analytics and mobile disruptions. Change in these areas is having a profound impact on businesses. The change is disrupting enterprise business models and challenging established technology solution paradigms. In many respects, the digital transformation is turning every business into a technology business. It is pulling technology into the core of the business making it a real differentiator. The expectations of CIO roles have changed a lot over the years, mine included. There has been substantial progress in recent years to consolidate and mature just about all aspects of technology domains. We are in a digital economy that is disrupting old models and challenging established technology objectives. New attention is required to strategize and focus on digital solutions that encompass people, processes and products for businesses. The technology challenges in media are not different from the technology challenges in other industries. You can change the industry but you have many of the same technology issues, opportunities and challenges. Yes, the industry vernacular and transactions are different, and there are clearly some industry-specific challenges that are more acute. But, at the end of the day, we strive to add value by improving the experience of our customers. We want to find opportunities to enhance our business proposition and grow revenue. The processes, partners and solutions sets are surprising similar. IT organizations also must shift from technology gatekeepers to a more strategic and consultative role. The maturing cloud service market is accelerating the need to do this. IT organizations that might be lagging must transform from traditional service providers into flexible service brokers to better align it to business outcomes and solidify the IT relationship with its business customers. As a service broker, IT can counsel customers on technology decisions and provide choices of technology that best support their business objectives while balancing cost and value. Cost visibility is foundational to this transformation.
