Turning up digital music - Universal Music's platform powers ahead
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Turning up digital music Universal Music’s platform powers ahead
Universal Music Group can trace its history almost as
far back as recorded music has been offered for sale to
the public. Great music, then and now, has always been
central to the company’s success—proven by an artist
roster that is an authentic who’s who of music through
the decades. Today, Universal Music Group leads the
industry, with a one-third share of the global market.
It’s maintained that leading position by being able to
change its business model to accommodate the needs
of consumers as they have evolved. And how consumers
want their music today has changed music business
models out of all recognition. Global digital music
revenues to record companies are growing at an ever
faster rate—up 8% to USD5.2bn in 2012. And as the
digital revolution proceeds, it has driven major change
and innovation in the way that Universal Music manages
and distributes its content to a growing range of business
partners, retailers and direct to consumers.
The business challenge
As early as 2007, Universal Music recog- ated impacts elsewhere, adding to cost
nized a growing challenge with its digital and complexity. A complex data model
supply chain. With a fast-developing range made it hard for anyone to achieve a clear
of partners requiring digital content, the view of assets and their associated rights
spread of mp3 players, and ceaseless and as product types, formats and digital
innovation creating new channels to rights management continued to multiply,
market, the company needed to find a way the strains on the existing supply chain
to manage all of its digital assets without began to tell.
incurring significant additional costs in
These multiple challenges led Universal
meeting new and emerging demand. Their
Music to conclude that it needed to make
systems were at that point geared towards
a decisive shift to a digital supply chain
physical products. Managing digital assets
solution that could continuously adapt to
on those required significant manual
consumer preferences as they evolved. The
interventions and ad hoc workarounds.
decision to change generated a number
That inevitably led to inefficient workflows
of key questions—principally whether to
and inconsistent data. Underlying systems
make the major investments in hardware
also presented a complex and challenging
and software to build a platform in-house,
barrier to navigating into the new digital
or to find an alternative approach with
era. Numerous applications around the
a partner.
globe had to be maintained and as any
one system changed it inevitably gener-
2 Turning up digital music: Universal Music’s platform powers ahead Turning up digital music: Universal Music’s platform powers ahead 3
Accenture managed the roll out of the Digital Supply Chain platform
(DSC), providing Universal Music with a sophisticated platform that
provides total transparency into all of the activities taking place across
its entire digital operations at any one time. The system comprises of
four key elements, focused on collating and storing Universal Music’s
audio and video content, artwork and metadata and distributing it
to Universal Music’s digital business partners:
1
The DSC interfaces with many of Universal Music’s business systems to
ingest all types of content—audio, video and graphics—and consolidate
source media with relevant metadata (such as title, artist and label).
2
Rights, pricing, and scheduling information associated with all digital
assets and products are managed through a single repository. As well as
storing the contractual rights associated with each piece of content,
the DSC enables users to add more restrictions and set up sales
How Accenture helped
campaigns, thereby creating an additional level of marketing rights.
3
The DSC makes all the required media available in the right format at
Having assessed the capabilities and assets A number of factors proved decisive in the right time. These processes include a number of quality assurance
required to make the successful transition that choice. Accenture’s expertise and the checks to ensure standards are always met. The provisioning engine is
to a flexible and agile digital supply chain, scale and experience of its resources were instructed through a suite of ordering options—so business partners can
Universal Music selected Accenture as its key considerations, as was its then recent
‘cherry pick’ particular products or choose to receive all new products
long-term outsourcing partner. acquisition of Digiplug—a digital services
that meet their defined parameters automatically. Content can be
company working with a number of music
transcoded into a variety of different codecs and bit rates depending
majors. Partnering with Accenture offered
on its intended use.
“We needed to find the right partner that could build some key commercial benefits, including
the ability to avoid major capital
the platform rapidly and to be able to understand our
4
investment in a new platform along with The DSC ships content to over 1,000 business partners in 200 territories
business requirements to support it going forward. We the conversion of what had been fixed around the world through a variety of distribution protocols and
costs to a variable cost model. And by
quickly realized that Accenture had the solution and outsourcing the operation of its digital
delivery models. Standard business partners can obtain content through
‘push’ and ‘pull’ models, and a ‘connected’ (or ‘hosted’)
the skills that were required to build that platform.” supply chain, Universal Music is able to
model enables content to be delivered directly to consumers through
focus on its core business—spotting,
Stephan Garandet
direct-to-consumer and promotional services.
developing and marketing the world’s
VP systems & strategy and VP digital operations leading recording artists.
Universal Music Group International
Accenture and Universal Music continue to work together to develop
and improve the platform and what it offers in line with changes in
consumer and business demand. Recent developments include creating
direct to consumer capabilities providing a retail environment that
generates a more direct connection between the company’s artists and
their fans. In addition, the platform is also able to make a considerable
back catalogue available as well as other forms of previously unused
material and formats—such as artist interviews, electronic press kits
and high-definition video content—that are now enabling new ways to
generate revenues and increase the appeal of Universal Music’s
content.
4 Turning up digital music: Universal Music’s platform powers ahead Turning up digital music: Universal Music’s platform powers ahead 5
In the DSC, Accenture has delivered and operates a
dynamic platform that continues to adapt as the market
changes and Universal Music responds accordingly to
capitalize on new and different opportunities.
High performance delivered
Today, the DSC enables Universal Music Secondly, the DSC offers Universal Music 1.6 million products each month—and
to serve 1,000 business partners in 200 flexibility. The platform supports advanced experience has shown that the DSC is
territories across the globe. If required, distribution campaigns (including content capable of handling significant peaks
this platform can ramp up quickly to exclusives), which are all easy to manage within those capacities. Many of the
meet demand and can deliver 1,000,000 through an intuitive user interface. deliveries actually consist of an ‘update’
products to Universal Music’s business to the metadata or rights—the DSC boasts
Third: greater visibility and transparency.
partners in a day. In addition, in 2012, it a close relationship with each product as
The status of assets and products is
enabled the distribution of 25,000 new each one is updated 300 times per year
captured at every stage of processing,
product releases. on average.
with monitoring and reporting available
The DSC delivers a compelling value throughout the digital supply chain. And finally, based on increasing volume
proposition that consists of five pillars. Universal Music’s cost to serve is now
The fourth pillar is scalability. On average
three times cheaper per product than
First, through greater automation the DSC ingests 80,000 products each
it was prior to the implementation of
and consolidation, numerous manual month, with a peak of up to 11,000 in a
the DSC.
tasks have been replaced. Streamlined single day. There are five million tracks
digital-only processes ensure products are stored in the DSC, although the storage With the demand for digital music
now packaged and delivered automatically infrastructure means it would be easy to growing at an unprecedented rate, the
supported by a single digital inventory increase this amount at short notice. In DSC continues to provide a platform for
of all available content. terms of processing products, the DSC growth and innovation that will position
manufactures 5.5 million files and delivers Universal Music for high performance well
“One of the key benefits is around
into the future of the digital music
automation. We now have a single
industry.
dashboard where we know the exact
status of every single product in our
platform. That makes a massive
difference for us centrally but also
“Now I can shift my focus from dealing with problems
locally for all of our territories around to look at what needs to be built in the system to serve
the world.” Stephan Garandet. future needs. We need flexibility now more than ever
and we need Accenture to complete our mission.”
Stephan Garandet
VP systems & strategy and VP digital operations
Universal Music Group International
6 Turning up digital music: Universal Music’s platform powers ahead The Digital Future of Media and Entertainment 9Accenture Digital Services For more information, About Accenture
please contact:
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Tom Grayson
mix of business models to drive new capabilities across all industries and
Managing director
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Accenture Digital Services
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thomas.grayson@accenture.com
digital content in any format, across companies, Accenture collaborates
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optimizes operating models, delivering Senior manager high-performance businesses and
next-generation solutions on a Accenture Digital Services governments. The company generated
pay-as-you-grow basis—all to help stuart.green@accenture.com net revenues of US$25.5 billion for
clients thrive in a changing digital the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011.
ecosystem. Its home page is Its home page is www.accenture.com.
www.accenture.com/digital-services.
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