Growing global demand for digital content has resulted in significant changes for companies offering content creation and distribution solutions. There’s no denying that consumers are hungry for video content both on traditional and digital platforms. Therefore, content creators and distributors seek high-quality service providers who can offer end-to-end services that meet their requirements.
Trusted by the world’s leading content creators, broadcasters, OTTs, and distributors, Deluxe Entertainment has mastered the art of distributing digital content and offers comprehensive services at an unmatched scale, speed and quality.
In an exclusive talk with Mirror Review, the CEO of Deluxe Entertainment, John Wallace, shares the outstanding offerings of his company. He also comments on various topics, including strategy, focus areas, USP, and employee efforts that are leading to the success of Deluxe Entertainment. Here are the excerpts.
How has the media and entertainment industry changed over the years? And to what extent consumer demand is driving this sector to get more effective?
Today, increasing consumer demands and significant technological innovations are forcing media and entertainment companies to completely rethink the way they do business. Competition for viewership amongst both traditional and new media companies is at an all-time high, with audiences expecting to access content at faster speeds and in more formats.
Whether it be an edgy episodic series produced in a foreign language, the latest must-see TV, a cult favorite legacy title, or an international reality TV show, all forms of content are being embraced by global audiences. Eager consumers are generating new opportunities at an unprecedented scale, which is leading to disruption in traditional workflows and requiring the industry to quickly develop new infrastructure and innovations to deliver content faster and more reliably at a greater scale.
To meet that need, the industry is embracing the cloud, automation and more open software models, like our Deluxe One platform, to deliver more content and provide global viewers with whatever they want wherever they are.
What is the idea behind Deluxe? Which are your present and future focus areas?
Deluxe is a key partner to leading content creators and distributors around the world. You can think of us as the creative and distribution enabler after a shot is captured on set—from post-production and visual effects to mastering, localization, and securing delivery to every screen, around the globe, including mobile devices and movie theatres. We have the largest end-to-end media supply chain in the world, providing more video creation and distribution services than anyone else.
And in the past year, we’ve focused on bringing those services together under our cloud-based Deluxe One platform, which is driving the future of the company as the industry’s premier platform services provider. Deluxe One addresses the challenges that the industry is facing with its central, open, cloud-based platform that reimagines the content lifecycle with more automation, connectivity, transparency, and insight. As content reaches more locations and devices in a shorter amount of time, all of these elements will become integral to how filmed entertainment is made, distributed and consumed.
What is the contribution of your employees in the company’s growth? How do you get the most out of your people?
What is the contribution of your employees in the company’s growth? How do you get the most out of your people?Deluxe has always been recognized as having the best talent in the services industry. As a result, the industry has continuously turned to Deluxe to enable the next evolution of content creation and distribution. We are very proud of the legacy that we have established over the last 100 years.
The engineering, operational and creative minds at Deluxe are once again leading with innovation to support an industry in transition with the introduction of Deluxe One that not only improves our internal workflows but also simplifies the increasingly complex workflows of our customers. Our new platform allows our employees to focus on high-value projects for our customers while reducing the amount of time that is spent on tasks that can be automated. This means our teams can meet the increasing demands of speed to market and quality for our customers.
As we contribute to transforming the industry to a new era, the most important part of my role is to trust my team and enable them to do what they do best for our customers.
What’s the most challenging part about what you do? Which factors do you keep in mind while making a strategy for Deluxe?
Our scale and reach are a competitive advantage in the industry. This is why we are entrusted to deliver the largest blockbuster releases and partner with the biggest OTTs for their global rollouts. This also means we have to be thoughtful about the changes we make to our business and can’t move as fast as a company that doesn’t have this level of responsibility to consider.
At Deluxe, we have to be strategic about rolling out major changes to our systems in order to ensure that employees at all levels and in all offices understand what’s going on and how to implement innovations seamlessly. That doesn’t mean that we shy away from implementing innovative processes, it just means that we have to be a little more thoughtful about it.
What is the USP of Deluxe? How is it different from its competitors, if any?
We are the only company with a true end-to-end global media supply chain. The breadth and scale of our offering is unrivaled in the world, and now we have connected these offerings into the Deluxe One platform, creating seamless access to our services and providing an open platform that the entire industry can plug into.
Tell us about your privileged clientele base and the ongoing projects.
Tell us about your privileged clientele base and the ongoing projects.We have earned the trust of the industry over the last century that affords us the privilege to work with the world’s greatest creators and largest distributors worldwide. While the specifics of their work are not something we can discuss, you can bet that we have had a hand in most premium content creation and distributions.
Share the future of media and entertainment industry in less than 30 words.
The future is providing truly personalized content experiences that are enabled by data, automation, and real-time cloud content processing, bringing engaging content to audiences on any screen, anywhere.
