“Reducing operational costs is the biggest theme in content operations right now. While cost savings can be achieved through workflow optimisation, this needs to be informed by detailed and accurate data about the assets, their source location, the processes they’re undergoing and the cost of each step in the workflow,” says Blue Lucy CEO, Julian Wright.  “BLAM’s new modular dashboard displays operational information in an accessible and repeatable format so that our customers can make data-driven business decisions and quickly measure the impact of any changes.”  

Because BLAM integrates and directly orchestrates systems and services along the entire content supply chain, the report dashboard can be used to track utilisation and cost of every step in a workflow. Reports can be customised to a customer’s specific business interest with the scope being any process the platform manages. Examples of the insights that these reports can surface, and some of the decisions that this data can help inform, include:  

• The total cost to deliver an asset – to ensure pricing is appropriate.
• Asset revenue - to inform decisions about appropriate workflows and technologies used for premium vs lower value content.
• The time assets are actively being accessed for delivery - to manage storage tiering timing and reduce restore costs.
• How frequently different versions of an asset are required – to aid decisions about saving derivatives or creating new versions based on demand.
• The amount of time assets spend in queues at different points of an end-to-end process – to identify technology bottlenecks, human resource shortages or training requirements.
• The time spent and cost of any manual handling – to inform future decisions on the value of automation.

The Blue Lucy team will also demonstrate the latest enhancements to their media portal, BOLT.  BOLT is designed to provide effortless access to content, allowing everyone from media executives to data wranglers to receive, review and share content without navigating complex UIs or waiting for tech ops teams to deliver material. BOLT is now available in three commercial versions so customers can select a toolset that is appropriate to their business need and budget.

• BOLT Essential: the entry level media portal providing easy content ingest, search and share.
• BOLT Advanced: with enhanced media management and access control including asset relations, versioning, and advanced permissions for user groups.
• BOLT Pro: featuring advanced production tools to support collaborative workflows for larger teams.