2015
2015 Global Enterprise Video Webcasting Product Line Strategy Leadership Award
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Contents
Background and Company Performance ........................................................................ 3
Industry Challenges .............................................................................................. 3
Product Line Strength and Customer Impact of MediaPlatform ................................... 4
Conclusion........................................................................................................... 6
Significance of Product Line Strategy ............................................................................ 7
Understanding Product Line Strategy Leadership ............................................................ 8
Key Benchmarking Criteria .................................................................................... 8
Best Practice Award Analysis for MediaPlatform .............................................................. 8
Decision Support Scorecard ................................................................................... 8
Product Line Strength ........................................................................................... 9
Customer Impact ................................................................................................. 9
Decision Support Matrix ...................................................................................... 10
The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards ..................... 11
Research Methodology ........................................................................................ 11
Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices ................................................................................................................. 12
About Frost & Sullivan .............................................................................................. 13
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Background and Company Performance Industry Challenges
Webcasting has become a must-have, oftentimes business-critical feature in enterprises
around the globe today. For any large enterprise with a geographically dispersed
workforce, webcasting is seen as a tool that helps not only to save cost but also to train
workforces, communicate with employees and partners and create efficiencies within
organizations. Video, both live and on-demand are thus becoming increasingly adopted by
enterprises.
Several technology vendors have identified the business opportunity that resides in
webcasting platforms and over the years have launched their own webcasting solutions.
Apart from the traditional vendors in the space like VBrick, Qumu and Haivision,
companies like MediaPlatform, TalkPoint and Kontiki have had success in this market.
Companies with traditional core competencies in other areas have also played in this
space- for example, video conferencing giants like Cisco and Polycom, virtual events
companies like ON24 and INXPO, online video platforms like Brightcove and Kaltura.
As a result, the enterprise video webcasting space is both crowded and dynamic. A
number of different vendors offer a variety of different solutions- while some vendors
provide point solutions that enable enterprise IT departments to stitch together home
grown offerings that leverage existing infrastructure and end points, other vendors
provide end-to-end platforms that power all parts of the workflow from ingest to delivery
and video management.
For many customers, this market fragmentation is confusing. The sheer number of
vendors and the comparison of product and pricing models, and integration capabilities,
usually make for long sales cycles. For vendors, market education is an important priority
and the messaging of competitive differentiation is critical. Companies that invest in this
and not only have a great product but also significant market and mind share stand to do
well in the market should they constantly evolve to meet changing customer
requirements.
On a broader scale, demand analysis suggests that enterprises would like a single
platform that cater to live and on-demand video requirements, for communication with
internal (employees) and external stakeholders (customers, suppliers, investors,
partners). Cloud solutions and hybrid models are hugely popular because of flexibility and
scalability considerations. Also, enterprises globally have a declining tolerance for building
and fostering multiple different business relationships to solve different parts of the same
problem. Consequentially, there has been an ongoing wave of convergence- where in most
vendors in the markets are building out platforms to include all the above mentioned
capabilities.
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Another key challenge in this market is that enterprise IT departments usually have
limited budgets. And video is often a second class citizen in many enterprises. Even where
they are not, few organizations truly devise enterprise wide video strategies. Therefore,
even when budgets become available, they are diverted for upgrades to existing document
based systems or more widely adopted video conferencing systems. The buyer ecosystem
as a result comprises of enterprise departments looking for a solution- once the
departments are satisfied with the experience, it is adopted by others, and eventually
there is a push for widespread enterprise adoption. Simplified pricing models that are
more palatable for the enterprise customer are key in this environment.
Scalability, reliability, security and high-quality continue to be the most important
requirements in this space. These solutions typically have high visibility because of their
use by enterprise C-suite members. Networks and outdated enterprise technology
continues to be a challenge, and vendors who can navigate this quickly and with precision
have a competitive edge.
Product Line Strength and Customer Impact of MediaPlatform
Breadth
Founded in 2005 and head quartered in Los Angeles, California, MediaPlatform offers the
webcasting market a fully integrated platform that empowers enterprises to webcast live
video as well publish on demand content. Several large global organizations with
geographically dispersed workforces use the MediaPlatform solution for their internal as
well as external communications. Fortune 500 companies like Adobe, Facebook, General
Motors, and Ericsson form part of MediaPlatform’s clientele.
MediaPlatform has two products, the enterprise video platform PrimeTime and the
enterprise webcasting solution WebCaster, which form part of its fully integrated offering.
To aid with delivery, the company also provides an eCDN product known as MediaPlatform
SmartEdge. WebCaster, in particular, is used by companies for live and rich media
webcasts. The product includes a number of interactive features such as Q&A, polls,
surveys and the ability to insert pre-recorded video.
MediaPlatform offers its customers full deployment flexibility. Enterprises can choose from
an on-premises, hybrid or cloud deployment option. Only a handful of vendors in the
space truly offer this. The hybrid model where in the management of the application is left
to the cloud while the delivery still remains on-premises and behind the firewall forms a
large part of MediaPlatform deployments.
MediaPlatform has been early to identify the trends leading up to the evolution of the
enterprise video space. As mentioned earlier, customers today largely prefer a single
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platform for their live and on demand video needs. Deployment flexibility, interactivity,
reporting and analytics are also very important features to have in a webcasting solution.
From a product line perspective, MediaPlatform’s solution is second to none in this market.
Scalability
Navigating a large enterprise’s network, in order to deliver a scalable, reliable, high
quality, live webcast is one of the biggest challenges for webcasting vendors across the
board. Enterprise networks and infrastructure are often outdated, and many are not multi-
cast enabled. Smaller, sometimes newly acquired offices do not have the necessary
infrastructure. The increasing instances of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and
telecommuting requires webcasting vendors to offer mobility and ways to reach remote
workers.
MediaPlatform’s SmartPath technology gives the company a distinct edge on its
competition. SmartPath enables enterprises to manage live webcast distribution across all
types of corporate networks in a flexible manner. Depending on network capabilities in
different parts of an organization, SmartPath evaluates the enterprise network, segregates
it and mixes and matches different technologies like multicast, P2P, HTTP streaming,
mobile streaming to deliver the webcast out to the entire organization. This helps
MediaPlatform to scale webcasts in challenging situations. For example: enterprise wide
events like town halls, all hands meetings, large departmental meetings etc. For
Accenture’s annual Sustainability 24 event earlier this year, MediaPlatform WebCaster was
employed to webcast to 70 countries over a 24 hour period.
Technology Leverage
The SmartPath technology detailed above is MediaPlatform’s single most compelling
differentiator from a technology perspective. It solves the live distribution issue for
organizations of all sizes.
Whether it is an on-premises or a cloud deployment, security is the topmost consideration,
right next to scalability. The enterprise security features of the product are another key
differentiator. MediaPlatform tackles secure transit by employing best practices for
encryption across the board, be it HTTP or RTMP traffic. Access control protocols help
control authorization to view, edit, and download content. MediaPlatform also has
permission mapping with the enterprise SAML system - this enables the company to easily
manage and maintain permissions across thousands of employees through the centralized
directory.
In order to extend the platform and enable widespread video adoption within enterprises,
MediaPlatform integrates with several popularly used enterprise communication and
collaboration platforms. Its SharePoint integration, for example, allows a live webcast to
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be viewed within a company’s SharePoint portal. MediaPlatform also integrates with Jive
and Yammer, the two most popular enterprise social networks. Live webcasts can be
shared and viewed on these platforms, and the comments and conversations on the
MediaPlatform webcast are viewable within the social networks as well.
To enable its enterprise customers to leverage existing infrastructure investments, the
MediaPlatform solution is also integrated with several video conferencing units. Through
standards based SIP, MediaPlatform is able to integrate with Cisco, Polycom and Tandberg
end points among others. Feeds from video conferencing end points can be ingested into
MediaPlatform and broadcasted out to large audiences.
The MediaPlatform solution can also integrate with Winnov lecture capture solutions that
are widely used in K-12 and higher education organizations. Where WebCaster is used for
external communications and lead generation, the solution is integrated with SalesForce
and marketing automation software Eloqua to streamline the lead communication process
to CRM applications.
Brand Equity
Since its founding in 2005, MediaPlatform has been focused on the enterprise video
segment of the market. Some of the world’s top brands and organizations are
MediaPlatform’s customers. Technology companies like Facebook, business service firms
like Accenture, Ericsson and Ernst & Young, financial services firms like Charles Schwabb,
and several other large global organizations like Dow Chemicals and General Motors are
clients.
Close to 65% of MediaPlatform’s revenues come from North America, and the United
States is the single largest market for the solution. MediaPlatform is also gaining traction
in Europe and Latin America. MediaPlatform’s sound product line and early customer
successes in North America are helping the effort as the company scales to other
geographies.
Conclusion
MediaPlatform has been early to identify the direction in which the enterprise video
market is headed. The company’s solution is a fully integrated platform that enables large
global organizations to deliver and manage live webcasts as well as publish to on demand
content. MediaPlatform’s SmartPath technology gives the company a significant
competitive edge. The technology empowers the largest and most dispersed organizations
to enjoy scalable, reliable high quality webcasts as it helps to navigate even the most
complex enterprise networks. Even though the value proposition of webcasting is
powerful, the technology is yet to reach widespread enterprise adoption. MediaPlatform’s
integrations with a slew of popularly used enterprise technologies help extend video
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webcasts as well as on demand video into other avenues such as collaboration platforms
and enterprise social networks. With its strong overall performance and future oriented
product line strategy, MediaPlatform has earned Frost & Sullivan’s 2014 Product Line
Strategy award in the Enterprise Video Webcasting Market.
Significance of Product Line Strategy Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon customers purchasing from your
company, and then making the decision to return time and again. A full, comprehensive
product line that addresses numerous customer needs and preferences is therefore a
critical ingredient to any company’s long-term retention efforts. To achieve these dual
goals (customer value and product line strength), an organization must be best-in-class in
three key areas: understanding demand, nurturing the brand, and differentiating from the
competition. This three-fold approach to delivering Product Line Strategy Leadership is
explored further below.
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Understanding Product Line Strategy Leadership
As discussed above, driving demand, brand strength, and competitive differentiation all
play a critical role in delivering unique value to customers. This three-fold focus, however,
must ideally be complemented by an equally rigorous focus on building a superior and
comprehensive product line.
Key Benchmarking Criteria
For the Product Line Strategy Leadership Award, we evaluated two key factors—Product
Line Strength and Customer Impact—according to the criteria identified below.
Product Line Strength
Criterion 1: Breadth
Criterion 2: Scalability
Criterion 3: Technology Leverage
Criterion 4: Features
Criterion 5: Supply Chain Reliability
Customer Impact
Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value
Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience
Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience
Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience
Criterion 5: Brand Equity
Best Practice Award Analysis for MediaPlatform
Decision Support Scorecard
To support its evaluation of best practices across multiple business performance
categories, Frost & Sullivan employs a customized Decision Support Scorecard. This tool
allows our research and consulting teams to objectively analyze performance, according to
the key benchmarking criteria listed in the previous section, and to assign ratings on that
basis. The tool follows a 10-point scale that allows for nuances in performance evaluation;
ratings guidelines are illustrated below.
RATINGS GUIDELINES
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The Decision Support Scorecard is organized by Product Line Strength and Customer
Impact (i.e., the overarching categories for all 10 benchmarking criteria; the definitions
for each criteria are provided beneath the scorecard). The research team confirms the
veracity of this weighted scorecard through sensitivity analysis, which confirms that small
changes to the ratings for a specific criterion do not lead to a significant change in the
overall relative rankings of the companies.
The results of this analysis are shown below. To remain unbiased and to protect the
interests of all organizations reviewed, we have chosen to refer to the other key players in
as Company 2 and Company 3.
DECISION SUPPORT SCORECARD FOR PRODUCT LINE STRATEGY LEADERSHIP AWARD
Measurement of 1–10 (1 = poor; 10 = excellent)
Product Line Strategy
Product Line
Strength
Customer
Impact Average Rating
MediaPlatform 9.5 9.5 9.5
Competitor 1 9.0 8.5 8.75
Competitor 2 8.0 7.5 7.75
Product Line Strength
Criterion 1: Breadth
Requirement: Product line addresses the full range of customer needs and applications
Criterion 2: Scalability
Requirement: Product line offers products at a variety of price points and functionality
levels
Criterion 3: Technology Leverage
Requirement: Demonstrated commitment to incorporating leading edge technologies into
product offerings, for greater product performance and value
Criterion 4: Features
Requirement: Products offer a comprehensive suite of features to serve customers at
multiple levels of functionality, ease of use and applications
Criterion 5: Supply Chain Reliability
Requirement: There is sufficient control over the supply chain to ensure availability of key
components and thereby the availability of products in the product line
Customer Impact
Criterion 1: Price/Performance Value
Requirement: Products or services offer the best value for the price, compared to similar
offerings in the market
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Criterion 2: Customer Purchase Experience
Requirement: Customers feel like they are buying the most optimal solution that
addresses both their unique needs and their unique constraints
Criterion 3: Customer Ownership Experience
Requirement: Customers are proud to own the company’s product or service, and have a
positive experience throughout the life of the product or service
Criterion 4: Customer Service Experience
Requirement: Customer service is accessible, fast, stress-free, and of high quality
Criterion 5: Brand Equity
Requirement: Customers have a positive view of the brand and exhibit high brand loyalty
Decision Support Matrix
Once all companies have been evaluated according to the Decision Support Scorecard,
analysts can then position the candidates on the matrix shown below, enabling them to
visualize which companies are truly breakthrough and which ones are not yet operating at
best-in-class levels.
DECISION SUPPORT MATRIX FOR PRODUCT LINE STRATEGY LEADERSHIP AWARD
High
Low
Low High
Cu
sto
mer I
mp
act
Product Line Strength
MediaPlatform
Competitor 2
Competitor 3
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The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best
Practices Awards
Research Methodology
Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research
methodology represents the analytical
rigor of our research process. It offers a
360-degree-view of industry challenges,
trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of
Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.
Too often, companies make important
growth decisions based on a narrow
understanding of their environment,
leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Successful growth strategies
are founded on a thorough understanding
of market, technical, economic, financial,
customer, best practices, and demographic
analyses. The integration of these research
disciplines into the 360-degree research
methodology provides an evaluation
platform for benchmarking industry players and for identifying those performing at best-
in-class levels.
360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN
THE CHAOS
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Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices
Our awards team follows a 10-step process (illustrated below) to evaluate award
candidates and assess their fit with our best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity
of our awards process are based on close adherence to this process.
STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT
1 Monitor, target, and screen
Identify award recipient candidates from around the globe
Conduct in-depth industry research
Identify emerging sectors Scan multiple geographies
Pipeline of candidates who potentially meet all best-practice criteria
2 Perform 360-degree research
Perform comprehensive, 360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline
Interview thought leaders and industry practitioners
Assess candidates’ fit with best-practice criteria
Rank all candidates
Matrix positioning all candidates’ performance relative to one another
3
Invite thought leadership in best practices
Perform in-depth examination of all candidates
Confirm best-practice criteria Examine eligibility of all
candidates Identify any information gaps
Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates
4
Initiate research director review
Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles
Brainstorm ranking options Invite multiple perspectives
on candidates’ performance Update candidate profiles
Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice positioning paper
5
Assemble panel of industry experts
Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders
Share findings Strengthen cases for
candidate eligibility Prioritize candidates
Refined list of prioritized award candidates
6
Conduct global industry review
Build consensus on award candidates’ eligibility
Hold global team meeting to review all candidates
Pressure-test fit with criteria Confirm inclusion of all
eligible candidates
Final list of eligible award candidates, representing success stories worldwide
7 Perform quality check
Develop official award consideration materials
Perform final performance benchmarking activities
Write nominations Perform quality review
High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of nominees’ successes
8
Reconnect with panel of industry experts
Finalize the selection of the best-practice award recipient
Review analysis with panel Build consensus Select winner
Decision on which company performs best against all best-practice criteria
9 Communicate recognition
Inform award recipient of award recognition
Present award to the CEO Inspire the organization for
continued success Celebrate the recipient’s
performance
Announcement of award and plan for how recipient can use the award to enhance the brand
10 Take strategic action
Review reprint and banquet opportunities
Coordinate media outreach Design a marketing plan Assess award’s role in future
strategic planning
Widespread awareness of recipient’s award status among investors, media personnel, and employees
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About Frost & Sullivan
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