Part of:Video content management wrangles video in the workplace
Discover the benefits of a video content management system
Video is everywhere. Organizations that want to reap its benefits need a strategy that supports video creation and provides a central location for security, management and storage.
The explosive growth of video across the enterprise wasn't just because of the increased number of virtual meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Video usage has also increased to support virtual trainings, HR onboarding, executive town halls and asynchronous communications.
"You will only create more video," Gartner analyst Adam Preset said. "You will never have less video."
To keep video from becoming too unwieldy, organizations need a strategy to manage video content. But managing video properly takes time and resources, Preset said. Organizations need to manage and store the video itself, as well as the data that's extracted from the video for AI-enabled capabilities, such as transcriptions, sentiment analysis and object recognition.
While video platforms, like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, offer some management tools, larger organizations with more complex video needs may have multiple video platforms, which can create management headaches.
This is where video content management platforms -- such as Qumu, Kaltura and Brightcove -- come into play and offer a single place to store video with a consistent set of management capabilities.
"I don't think it's optional to have a video content management strategy," said Kieran Ellerton, vice president of professional services at Qumu.
Before the pandemic, organizations didn't necessarily need a formal strategy. Now, however, they need a plan to handle the growth of video over the last two years, he said.
Video content management benefits
The main benefit of a video content management strategy is having a centralized location for meeting recordings, training videos, short-form video and highly produced sales or marketing content. This approach creates two opportunities for organizations.
You will only create more video. You will never have less video.
Adam PresetAnalyst, Gartner
First is improved search. When a video is uploaded to the content management platform, it is indexed with metadata. An AI-based engine can search that metadata for key spoken words and phrases so employees don't need to search through videos to find the information they need, Ellerton said.
Second is reporting and analytics. A video content management platform can provide analytics on who's watching videos, why they're watching and for how long. For internal videos, this can help organizations understand employee engagement. Analytics for external videos, such as sales and marketing, can determine customer engagement and inform business decisions.
A content management strategy for video is also critical for regulated organizations, such as finance and healthcare, said Andi Mann, CTO of Qumu. For example, all created video content, including recorded meetings, are subject to discovery. A content management system makes it easier to locate requested videos, as a court won't accept the excuse that a video can't be found, he said.
A video content management platform can also address security, compliance and governance requirements, such as monitoring who can access stored video and addressing government regulations, like GDPR, Mann said.
A video strategy is also needed to engage with younger generations of employees who grew up with digital communications. They consume and create video outside of work, whether it's making short videos on apps like YouTube or TikTok or simply recording video on family vacations, Preset said.
But, on work computers, organizations often don't deliver video creation and management tools as part of the standard productivity software, like the Microsoft Office suite.
"That is the frontier most enterprises have to push forward into," he said.
The use cases driving video content management platform adoption
Evaluating video content management platforms
When deploying a platform to support a video content management strategy, organizations must choose a platform that supports multiple video use cases, Preset said.
To do so, organizations need to determine what their employees need, such as meeting recording storage, support for virtual events and broadcasting for town halls or departmental announcements. But organizations should avoid the costly mistake of thinking different problems require different products, he said.
"Ultimately, that becomes a management pain point, as well as expensive," Preset said. Instead, choose a platform that can address most video requirements. Larger organizations, however, may find a single platform does not meet every need and may require specialized apps to support specific use cases, such as video creation.
"Large, complex organizations can rarely get a one size fits all," he said.
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