BY JAKE WIDMAN

PHOTOS: DAVID TOERGE
Inside Concadia Solutions
ACCENTURE and SONY ELECTRONICS , JOIN FORCES TO LAUNCH NEW VENTURE

The potential of rich media-video, music, photos, and images-is vast and largely untapped. Accenture estimates that the revenues from digital television and rich media could reach approximately $30.1 billion by 2005, with video on demand accounting for $3.2 billion of that. But in order to realize that potential, broadcasters, post-production houses, and entertainment studios need digital asset management systems for efficiently tracking and accessing their content.

Broadcast and entertainment companies already understand the value in their media assets, which is why the announcement was made at NAB. Many corporations outside the entertainment business, however, possess valuable content but haven't yet thought of it as a property that could be leveraged into new distribution channels and products. Accenture's business relationships in the corporate world will position Concadia to tap into that market.

BIRTH OF AN LLC

Concadia Solutions was born out of Sony's desire to expand its digital asset management business by broadening what it could offer to customers. Sony's System Development Center (SDC) has been active in the asset management arena since 1991, when it designed and built an innovative system that enables hospitals to manage their digital images, says Jerry Ledbetter, Concadia's Executive Vice President. Since then, SDC has worked on numerous digital asset management projects, most notably CNN's recent archive project, says Ledbetter.

But while Sony was able to offer its customers the engineering expertise needed to implement digital asset management systems, it lacked expertise in the analysis and planning stages. Before customers approached Sony, they needed help in areas such as business plan development, workflow and process analysis, and return on investment analysis. The question for Sony was, "How do we move from being a systems provider once the customer knows what he wants, to being a provider much earlier in the process?" says Ledbetter. If Sony could enter the process further back on the decision tree, to provide business services along with technology services, it could potentially expand its business by "a quantum leap," says Ledbetter.

With that goal in mind, Sony asked Accenture to assist Sony in identifying and mapping new markets. Until recently known as Anderson Consulting, Accenture is one of the leading management and technology consulting firms in the world. Clients come to Accenture for help with systems integration, business planning, and overall strategies for dealing with digital content and e-commerce.

As Accenture and Sony worked together, it looked like their best opportunity would be to co-launch a new venture. Accenture could provide the business and IT skills, while Sony could provide its traditional broadcast and digital asset management expertise. Norm Rickeman, an Accenture partner in the media and entertainment practice who now serves as President of Concadia, says, "The things that Sony didn't feel they had, they felt Accenture had.

"One of the defining principles was, 'Let's make it something bigger and better than an alliance,' " says Rickeman. The two firms decided to form a new company, which would give the venture more accountability than an alliance would possess. "The creation of Concadia is a statement of commitment to this new space," says Rickeman. "We've seen a tremendous amount of interest in our five months of existence."

HOW IT WORKS IN PRACTICE

To get Concadia off the ground, both companies put together a launch group of 16 employees, seven from Accenture and nine from Sony. These employees are "permanently on loan" from the respective parent companies, says Patrick Turner, a Solutions Architect for Concadia. As this core group generates new business, Concadia can recruit more staff members from Sony and Accenture as needed. "We can theoretically pull people from wherever," says Rickeman. "We're not limited to any one group."

Ideally, Concadia would borrow new employees for a minimum of a year, so that it can build a team with deep skills in Concadia's specialties, says Rickeman. For intensive short-term projects, Concadia can also borrow staff for a shorter period, and another option is to subcontract work directly to either parent company.

Both companies saw no reason to burden Concadia with a new infrastructure. Services like accounting and human resources remain in the hands of the parent companies. "We buy services from Accenture and Sony as part of the deal," says Rickeman.

No matter where the staff comes from or how long they remain with Concadia, everyone who interacts with a client company is presented as a Concadia employee. Typically, a customer would come to Concadia through the Accenture or Sony channel, perhaps after exploring media management and realizing that it's a complex undertaking. But from the client's point of view, says Rickeman, "If I talk to Concadia, I'm not talking to a Sony sales source."

As a business solutions company, Concadia is vendor-agnostic, says Rickeman. It's not bound to recommend Sony solutions. That gives Sony more credibility, because a customer doesn't have to
worry that he or she will just get a "Sony only" answer, says Rickeman.

One of Concadia's first projects was assisting Sony Music Entertainment (SME) set up a digital asset management system for managing online production and release of recorded music, and for gaining access to its archive. SME came to Concadia on its own, says Turner, not because of any directive from Sony. The project was led by Accenture, but only because Concadia wasn't yet a full-fledged company.

Before the project, SME had a few internal systems to help manage its assets, but lacked a company-wide solution. Concadia set up a team that spent about 13 weeks on the SME project, performing the requirement specifications and documentation. Concadia customized the software that was the basis of the internal system, and created a new interface for users. Now in use, the system is, says Ledbetter, "one of the few systems I'm aware of that is geographically remote," with half of the assets in Europe and half in New York.

The SME project gave the employees of Concadia's parent companies the opportunity to learn how each other work. The experience was especially fruitful in that it enabled Concadia to learn how to successfully combine each company's cultures and working processes.

BEYOND BROADCAST AND MEDIA

Beyond the broadcast and entertainment markets that are its obvious clients, Concadia sees a big opportunity down the road in the corporate market. Many corporations own rich media content of one type or another, but are not used to seeing it as a salable asset. An automobile manufacturer, for instance, might own scenic photographs or video that was created for advertising purposes, but these could find a new life as stock photography or stock video, says Shore. Or a financial company might own a film that was shot in the 1930s for a promotional campaign that could be used in historical documentaries. Realizing the value of such content requires a shift in corporate mentality from considering the images as an expense item to considering them as an asset. It also requires the ability to access and manage the content. "As well positioned in the CIO suite" as Accenture is, says Rickeman, Concadia is positioned to be a major player in the media management arena.

Contact Info

For more information, please contact:
James Howley, Vice President, Business Devlopment
Concadia Solutions
3300 Zanker Road, SJ4L1
San Jose, CA 95134
Phone: 408-955-6800
E-mail: info@concadia.com

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CONCADIA SOLUTIONS

Concadia Solutions' services unfold over a multistage collaboration with the customer. First, Concadia conducts an assessment of the company's current use of content management. The company may have a single database of videotapes in its library, or it may use several different content management systems, with the systems typically not incorporated into a single enterprise-wide system.

As part of the examination of the company's systems and workflow, Concadia produces a Day in the Life of a Tape study, which documents what happens to a blank tape once it arrives at the company to content being recorded on the tape to the tape being placed in storage.

Once the company's workflow is understood, Concadia and the customer conduct a needs-assessment analysis to figure out what the company wants to accomplish. Does the company need to increase its efficiency? Or does it want to tap into new markets?
With the goal established, Concadia's next step is a gap analysis, which outlines what the company needs to do in order to attain its goal. After that, Concadia conducts a requirements documentation, which sets down exactly what the new digital asset management system must accomplish.

Then Concadia implements the system's design. What should the digital asset management system look like? How can it work with existing or external systems? What components can be retained and what components must be replaced?

Next is a vendor analysis in which Concadia determines who can provide the components of the digital asset management system. "One of Concadia's key attributes is that we are vendor-neutral," says Sam Shore, Vice President of Solutions Consulting for Concadia. "We believe that allows us to give our customers a well-rounded approach that in the long run presents a greater opportunity for Sony."

Finally, Concadia combines the design results with the vendor recommendations to create an implementation plan for submittal to the customer. At that point, the customer may choose to have Concadia carry out the implementation plan, or can prepare a request for proposal for the customer to submit the plan for outside bids.

The initial assessment might take a week, says Shore. To come up with a design overview requires about six weeks, while carrying the analysis through the requirements documentation to creating the design of a digital asset management system is a three-month project.