In this series, we’re offering a taste of some of the best practices and strategies featured in our Studio Maturity Reports. If you want to dive deeper into optimizing your studio's performance, we suggest taking our Studio Maturity Self-Assessment. This will provide you with a fully customized report analyzing your studio and outlining exactly what steps to take to advance your studio's operational maturity and unlock its full potential.
Continuing our Studio Maturity Series, we turn our attention to Studio Technology. And it’s here that we must make a full disclosure: when it comes to this particular component of studio operations, we can’t help but toot our own horn.
But that’s only because studio technology is what we do at Creative Force. We save studios from their tangled web of software and general-purpose tools and replace them with a single content production management platform enabling automation at all steps of the production process, integration with world-class industry tools, and real-time production insights.
So, yes, in our opinion, to be a fully Optimized content production studio, we believe it is critical to leverage a single content production management platform.
However, not every studio is ready for Creative Force immediately. For those studios, we wanted to provide insights into what else they can do to continue to work their way up the maturity model while they wait for the right time for their organization to implement Creative Force.
To guide studios on taking the next big maturation step in their Studio Technology, we consulted Ian Mitchell, Senior Director of Customer Experience. Ian has worked directly with content production studios worldwide to implement industry-standard software and services in roles at Pixelz, Canto, and Creative Force. In these roles, he’s seen the inner workings of numerous studios and helped them untangle and optimize their tech stacks.
The journey from Reactive to Managed & Sustainable, according to Ian, always begins with optimizing the tech stack they already have.
Achieving Managed & Sustainable
When it comes to Studio Technology, Reactive studios are easy to spot. These studios often rely on generic tools like spreadsheets and PDFs that aren’t purpose-built for a content production environment and either aren’t, or can’t be, integrated. As a result, any data passed through the production process is handled manually, leading to frequent errors, wasted time, and frustration throughout the content production workflow.
For studios not yet ready to transform their operations by purchasing Creative Force and leveraging Flow Production in your studio, there are other steps Reactive studios can take to begin maturing their tech stacks and eliminating existing inefficiencies.“
Always start by identifying tools you are already using that can integrate with one another,” says Ian. “Look for opportunities where systems, and even simple tools like spreadsheets, can communicate with other systems to eliminate repetitive, manual tasks. In content production, every bit of automation helps. The same goes for redundant systems. It's surprisingly common for different teams in a studio to use two different tools to achieve the same goal. In addition to cost savings, having more people working within the same tools enables greater team collaboration and efficiency.”
Reviewing the studio's tech stack should also include identifying where it might be possible to implement smaller, industry-specific technology, laying the foundation for a more comprehensive solution like Creative Force in the future.
“It’s great to look at your technology stack and, considering organizational readiness and resources, plan where you might replace some of your generic tools with industry-specific ones, either in the short term or in the future,” says Ian. “This can be something as small as CaptureOne, something more substantial like a Product Information Management system, a Digital Asset Management system, or even something as transformative as Creative Force. For Reactive studios, just starting that conversation is a big first step.”
Achieving an Optimized Technology Stack
We’re not going to lie: it’s tough to optimize the technology stack of a content production studio without a content production management platform like Creative Force.
Content production management platforms offer a single interface where every process is managed, operational data is collected, and other industry tools can seamlessly integrate. Achieving the rapid turnaround times of just a few hours, as many of our highest-performing customers do, without one is challenging. Add a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system and a Product Information Management (PIM) system, leveraging their APIs to ensure data flows end-to-end seamlessly, to the tech stack and that’s our definition of a studio that has invested in Optimizing its Studio Technology.
“It’s incredible what many of our customers are achieving in terms of efficiency,” says Ian. “The level of automation they achieve frees them from manual work, data entry, and moving files around—all that tedious stuff—allowing them to refocus the extra time they save on optimizing the other components of their studio and for their creatives to focus on the work that they both enjoy and drives value. It really lays the foundation for achieving Optimization in all the other areas of the studio.”
Leveraging a content production management platform like Creative Force is essential for full Optimization, but not every studio is ready for it immediately. For those studios, the journey begins with integrating existing tools and eliminating redundancies to enhance collaboration and efficiency while gradually incorporating industry-specific technologies. This process lays the groundwork for future implementations of transformative tools like Creative Force, enabling them to achieve a more efficient and cohesive production environment.
Want more of our best practices and strategies for taking your Ways of Working to the next level? Take our Studio Maturity Self-Assessment to receive a customized report outlining the exact steps needed to advance your studio's operational maturity and unlock its full potential.
