Communications
Microsoft and Ascent smooth digital supply chain
16 April 2008
At the NAB Show 2008, Microsoft and Ascent Media Group announced a alliance to produce new solutions designed to automate and streamline the supply chain for the media and entertainment industry.
As part of the alliance, Microsoft will work with partners to create a new solution that Ascent Media Group will use to manage its business processes as well as offer new services to media and entertainment companies. Composed of new media and entertainment functionality built on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform, the solution will integrate and streamline media production processes. Ascent will offer a hosted version of this solution along with integrated managed services to film studios, broadcasters, global media enterprises and advertising agencies.
The new Microsoft Dynamics AX functions are tailored to address industry-specific processes including work order management, library management, resource scheduling, element tracking, digital ordering and distribution. Ascent Media Group is a natural choice for digital supply chain provider, since it has expertise in asset management, metadata tracking, billing and notifications and strong media industry relationships.
“The transformation to an all-digital world has completely redefined how the media industry creates, manages and delivers rich media content,” said Martha Béjar, corporate vice president for the communications sector at Microsoft. “However, the business processes that support the entire digital value chain have not necessarily kept pace, and currently hinder the effective monetisation of that content. The partnership we have forged with Ascent draws on our companies’ respective strengths and expertise, and will result in new business management solutions and services that address the specific requirements of the media and entertainment industry.”
“The delivery of media over a wide range of devices has added tremendous complexity to the digital workflow process,” said Jose Royo, CEO of Ascent Media Group. “That complexity has given us an opportunity to develop new services that help alleviate the pains being felt by our customers. Our strategic alliance with Microsoft not only delivers a new business system backbone that will help streamline our own production workflows and order management, but also allows us to create additional revenue streams through new service offerings.”
Avanade implemented the industry solution for Ascent Media Group. At the heart of the implementation is a production-scheduling tool that is designed to interact seamlessly with Ascent’s existing digital and physical asset management systems and general business systems.