Learning from cloud migration pioneers

Just after NAB, SDVI hosted an invitation-only event called the Media Supply Chain Council. The intention of the meeting was to address the financial and operating interests of executives considering, planning or operating a next-generation media infrastructure in which the cloud plays a significant role. Participants included senior personnel from several global media and entertainment and public cloud companies.

As opposed to a typical vendor event where the focus is on vendor products or thinly-disguised selling, the purpose of the Media Supply Chain Council was to create a commercial-free environment where people could come together to problem-solve and generate new ideas, sharing best-practices for next-generation media supply chain management and optimisation.

One of the end-user companies represented at the Council has been operating supply chains in the cloud for quite some time and was a featured presenter. Their motivation to move to the cloud was driven by the same things we hear from every media company: increasingly complex operations, increasing commercial and financial challenges, complex change management, and complex technology deployment. In discussing their adoption of a cloud-native supply chain model, they described impressive operating and financial benefits, including dramatically improved agility, operational and financial efficiency, and time to revenue. Most of the Council participants already had a general sense for the potential of a cloud-based supply chain, but hearing the specific, truly impressive results had a real impact, using data to confirm what many already suspected.

Convinced that the benefits of a cloud-based supply chain are compelling, most of the participant conversations centered on deployment strategies and how to get started. Deployment of cloud-based supply chains touches almost every aspect of operations including content management (production, distribution, and related data), organisation management (people and process) and resource management (financial, labour, technology and physical assets). Inspired by Council discussions around the perceived challenge of dealing with all these factors, SDVI Chief Product Officer Simon Eldridge recently published an article entitled ’Cloud Migration in Five Steps’. In it, Simon describes a series of general steps that can be universally applied when devising cloud-based supply chain deployments.

Having quantified the potential return on investment, one thing is clear: the returns won’t start until you get started with your migration.

Lawrence R. Kaplan is president and CEO at SDVI Corporation.