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OnPrem Solution Partners, LLC |
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November 14, 2016 Issue |
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CEOCFO MAGAZINE |
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Consulting and Technology Innovation for Major Studios, Broadcasters and Leading Brands in Media and Entertainment providing Production Workflow Analysis, Piracy Intelligence, Digital Supply Chain, Music Royalties and Master Data Management |
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Co-Founder + Partner Co-Founder + Partner
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published - November 14, 2016
CEOCFO: Mr. Christian, what was the concept when you started OnPrem and where are you today? Mr. Christian: The concept was that we wanted to provide a next generation, cutting edge consulting and software development company that was differentiated by quality talent. We had a straight forward three phase plan. The first phase was focused on ramping up a consulting practice with unparalleled talent and deep domain expertise. The second phase was building our Innovation and Development Center (known as IDC) focused on DevOps, UX design, development and testing. The third component was to develop our own IP that could be used as accelerators for our consulting practice, as well as direct go to market software solutions.
CEOCFO: What defines next generation for you? Mr. Christian: To us it comes down to the delivery of innovative solutions with an evolved methodology that enables us to be both agile and predictive at the same time. If you take a step back, we knew that in order to get the best talent, we needed to be working on new, cutting edge solutions. So when we think about next generation, we really are talking about systems, processes, and business models that have not been done before. We are humbled by the exciting opportunities we’ve had the privilege to partner on with our clients. Within the Digital Supply Chain practice that I lead we are dealing with new highly integrated, cloud based digital platforms that are enabling new consumption models ranging form TV everywhere to different OTT solutions. These represent a small sample of some of the next generation solutions that we have been focusing on.
CEOCFO: What is the key to staying ahead of the trends, to understanding what might be needed before you can even start on the technology? How do you know when it is time for a change? Mr. Christian: I think we are fortunate in that we literally have consultants that are on-premise at many of our clients, working day-to-day in the trenches on many of their systems and business problems. This enables us see some of the gaps in the marketplace that allow us to understand where we may need to ramp up new skill sets in the future. We have been able to do that time-and-time again as we believe that this type of solution, or this particular package, or this type of technology, is going to be a growth area for us in the future. That has also allowed us to understand and diversify across specific domains and industries. We started in media and entertainment and have now taken our experience, methodology and approach to consumer products and financial services.
CEOCFO: Would you give us a concrete example of a need, what you developed, how it is in use today? Mr. Christian: I will focus a bit on my area of expertise in the digital supply chain practice. By no means is this the only thing that OnPrem focuses on. Within the media entertainment landscape and the studios in particular, we are seeing shrinking release windows and tremendous amount of new distribution and consumptions models. Previously, one would see a theatrical product go from domestic theatrical release, to international theatrical release, to home entertainment, to pay TV, then to other downstream digital offerings over a period of years. Now you are seeing these release windows shrink almost down to nothing where there is a simultaneous release, cross platforms on a worldwide basis. So what does this do? This fundamentally changes the business model and the technology supporting it. Studios are organized by release window. A downstream business unit would consume content created by upstream business units. The impact is not only on creation of the movie itself but all the marketing collateral and consumer products that goes along with it. OnPrem is currently helping our clients in developing solutions to be able to ingest, manage, manipulate and distribute content across all of the new consumptions models in an automated fashion. This is not only the long form content (the movie itself) but also the marketing collateral and specific metadata needed for each of these different distribution models. What is interesting about this is that the newly required technology is less than half the problem. The other half is the process reengineering and change management that needs to happen. We provide individuals with process expertise that will document the current process for each of the business units and help them design the future state process of this unified, more efficient flow across the different distribution models and squeezed release windows. We then look at the required change management the organization will need to undergo to adapt to the new technology and process. In order for a system to be successful, not only do you need to have a process to support it, you need to make sure that your organization supports it. This may require some restructuring of the organization and at a minimum will require training and acceptance testing for those individuals to buy into the system and not try to step around it.
CEOCFO: Does the media industry welcome change? Do you find it any different working with media than you might in some other industries? Mr. Christian: I believe there absolutely could be that perception that the media industry doesn’t welcome change. However, we have been able to push through this due to our experience within the industry and the relationships that we have with our clients as a trusted advisor. We are seeing our clients learn from the past. We obviously saw what happened to the music industry; they want to make sure that that does not happen to the movie industry. Therefore, they realize that they absolutely need change around technology, process and organization. Our approach and style is not to come in with a mentality that is our way or the highway; we really come in with a partnership approach; we can augment their team to help them get to their desired state in an accelerated fashion. It has worked very successfully for us since we started.
CEOCFO: OnPrem’s mantra is suggest, suggest, suggest, innovate, innovate, innovate. Day to day, how does that work? Mr. Christian: We are coming in to organizations that have a very defined structure and methodology in how they implement solutions and process. At times these existing structures may have a bit of rigidness. OnPrem has come up with evolved, agile based principles and methodologies for our approach on implementation. This approach is not only from a technology standpoint but even how we gather information feedback, for example, on process and on system definition. We are constantly talking to our clients about this. We understand that you are approaching it this way… have you thought about leveraging this approach…. and here are the benefits of that. These suggestions are not based on theory, they are based on how we have done this multiple times before, and these are the types of results that we’ve seen. In many cases, suggestions may need to be offered multiple times before there is a willingness to change. In other cases, there is already a willingness to change. They know they need to; they just may not have the structure to be able to do it. Related to this point, we are always challenging ourselves to make sure that we are not rigid internally. We have a very robust, defined methodology to deliver solutions and we want to make sure we are eating our own dog food.
CEOCFO: Did you understand that concept in the beginning, or did you realize as you went along that this was an approach that would serve your clients in the best way? Mr. Ponsart: From our inception, we were aligned with what we wanted to build and the culture we would need to be able to support it. The partners have worked together for over 15 years and understand that culture is one of the biggest keys to success. It is part of everything we do. Before engaging members, before making our very first technology decision, before selecting the location of our IDC, the fundamentals of our culture were understood. These would come to influence the kind of company we were looking to build. Mr. Christian: That was absolutely the vision from day one. Having an amazing culture is what has enabled us to be successful. A talent friendly culture is our core DNA. We are a professional services firm and our revenue is based on our resources. Our resources are individuals; they are our assets. Having a great place for them to work, and enjoy and innovate means everything to us. It means higher retention, it means great work opportunities, it means being able to attract higher quality individuals. It really is the foundation of how we formed this company.
CEOCFO: What is next for the company? Mr. Christian: When we first started, we had a three year plan in terms of what we were looking to do – we previously talked about the three components of consulting, developing the innovation development center, and developing our own IP. At the start, our first focus was on the media entertainment industry because it was where the majority of our relationships were. However we knew that we were not going to call ourselves a media entertainment company because we knew we wanted to grow much more beyond that. Right now we are working on our diversification strategy. This is not something new and has been communicated from the start. We are looking to diversify in three different ways. First, we want to be able to diversify across industries. Right now, our main focus from an industry standpoint is to diversify into consumer products as well as financial services. We believe that our methodology, approach, and skill set will be applicable to these industries. The second point in our diversification strategy is on geography. The majority of our consulting practice is in Los Angeles, with a development center located in Austin, Texas. We are now actively ramping up in New York. The reason for the geography is we believe that our existing expertise and industry know-how is absolutely applicable in the East Coast market. We also want to make sure that we don’t over travel our team members; we care about our individuals and we want to make sure that we are not sending them on a plane and traveling coast to coast on a weekly basis. The third area of diversification is around lines of business and subject matter expertise. For example, expanding our data analytics practice as we see a huge need there ramping up. Also expanding our Salesforce practice as we see a large need there. These are the areas of diversification and growth that we will be focusing in the next year or so. From there we will continue to diversify in the same three areas expanding to new industries, geographies and business lines.
CEOCFO: There are many consulting companies, and many companies that touch on parts of what you do. Why choose OnPrem Solution Partners? Mr. Christian: I believe it goes back to the foundational things that we talked about when we were structuring the company. First I think we have a differentiated quality talent pool. We have a great subject matter expertise both in industry and domain that the company is focusing on. I also believe another differentiator is our ability to be true partners with our clients. We do not want to be viewed as just a vendor; we want to be a partner in every extent of the word. Again, we have an ability to be flexible in our methodologies to work in an effective way with our different clients. We also believe another big point is our innovative mentality; we are always looking to improve, to adjust, and we are small enough to be extremely nimble to be able to do that. The final thing is really our culture. It is infectious and to be honest, we are fun to work with. These are our individuals that you want to be able to hang out with and spend the day with. This comes out loud and clear in our client feedback. Mr. Ponsart: I think one of our key differentiators is our approach and methodology which comes from significant experience and successful project delivery with our clients. We take a bottom-up approach to planning projects. This is reflected in our proposals to our clients. It makes a very strong statement to our clients that we understand the solution and have done this before. |
“Our approach and style is not to come in with a mentality that is our way or the highway; we really come in with a partnership approach; we can augment their team to help them get to their desired state in an accelerated fashion. It has worked very successfully for us since we started.”- Jon Christian
OnPrem Solution Partners, LLC
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Major Studio Consulting Firms, OnPrem Solution Partners, LLC, Media and Entertainment Consulting Firms, CEO Interviews 2016, Jon Christian, Christophe Ponsart, Consulting and Technology Innovation for Major Studios, Broadcasters and Leading Brands in Media and Entertainment providing Production Workflow Analysis, Piracy Intelligence, Digital Supply Chain, Music Royalties and Master Data Management, Business Services Companies, Technology Company, Business strategy consultants, operation and process improvement for major studios, broadcasters, entertainment and production companies, organizational change management consulting, media and entertainment consulting in Los Angeles, New York City and Austin, Texas, OnPrem Solution Partners, LLC Press Releases, News, Business Services Stock, Companies looking for venture capital, Angel Investors, private companies looking for investors, major studio consulting companies seeking investors, media and entertainment consulting companies needing investment capital, OnPrem solutions partners twitter, facebook, linkedin, instagram |
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