How Dropbox for Business gives media companies a competitive edge
Published on August 05, 2014
The media industry has always been defined by technological change. In just the past century, recorded music displaced sheet music, radio connected us with voices from far away, home video allowed us to experience content on our own schedules, and television brought a theatrical magic to our homes.
Technology continues to reshape the media landscape today, but the pace of change is even faster. The past 20 years have seen dramatic shifts in how entertainment — from movies and TV shows to books and music — are developed, packaged, released, promoted, and monetized.
To see how much the Internet has affected media since the introduction of the graphical web browser, just look at where the worlds of film, television, music, and publishing stood in the 1980s and 1990s, when the dominant distribution system of the time was defined by stability.
With few exceptions, movies were released in theaters first, books went to press as hardcovers before paperback, albums were reclassified as “catalog” releases after 18 months, and TV shows started life on TV networks.
Over the past two decades, though, this system has been twisted, scrambled, and turned on its head. Non-linear distribution has complicated the lives of media execs and creatives immensely. Content can now live on multiple platforms concurrently, with movies appearing “day and date” — in theaters and on video on demand (VOD) — and books and periodicals published in print and digital, at the same time. As we can see by comparing the ‘before’ and ‘after’ of distribution models, media is most definitely undergoing a sea change.
In this new media landscape, the companies that thrive are the ones on the leading edge of these changes. Those that move faster and are more nimble than the rest of the industry are seeing the results in their bottom lines. When it comes down to it, moving as quickly as possible isn’t merely a competitive advantage — it’s a matter of survival.
This is a reality that Valiant Entertainment, one of the world’s leading comic book publishers, lives and breathes. As Peter Stern, Operations Manager at Valiant, told us, “Anything we can do to get that comic out on the market sooner means that there’s less time before we start taking money off of what we started paying for already.”
Yet as much as technology is driving companies to produce faster (and in greater volume), it’s also enabling them to be more productive than ever.
In our new whitepaper, we look at the specific challenges that media companies face on a day-to-day basis, and how Dropbox for Business helps throughout the industry’s value chain — from planning and production, to marketing and sales, through to distribution and licensing.Read on to learn how media companies can use technology like Dropbox for Business to move faster, be more strategic, and stay ahead of the pack.
