A new research by management consulting company Accenture has found that most media and entertainment companies are unaware of ways to leverage customer data to deliver customised content.
An overwhelming majority (91%) of senior executives of media and entertainment companies, who took part in the survey, admitted that they are not taking full advantage of customer data.
The Global Media & Entertainment High Performance Study says that media companies are losing out on revenue opportunities because of lack of awareness of of today’s digital technologies.
The study found that 95% of the executives surveyed indicated that they did not have strong digital customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities in place. Over half (58%) say they are still in the early stages of developing such capabilities.
The study canvassed opinions from 130 senior industry executives across Europe, North America, South America and Asia Pacific.
Fewer than 10% of the executives surveyed indicated that their companies have a fully integrated view of their digital consumers.
Accenture said that the vast majority (91 %) of industry players must consider altering their way of doing business if they are to succeed in growing revenues in today’s digital landscape.
The survey also shows that only 57% of the executives say their companies are making continued progress on the journey from analog to digital. And only 43% of the executives surveyed say their companies have digitised more than half their properties.
A year ago, similar Accenture research had found that a third (33 %) of the companies were transforming their businesses from analog to an integrated, file-based digital enterprise.
Accenture’s Media & Entertainment industry group global managing director Marco Vernocchi said although some companies have made more progress toward achieving the goal of distributing content via any channel, in any format, to any device, most still need to form a holistic view of their digital consumer so they can monetise their content.
Vernocchi added, "Revenue growth in this new, multi-platform world is dependent on delivering personalised, consumer-driven content to individual consumers via the right platform.
"This change in focus from the mass-market audience to an audience of one requires a complex shift from mass media to mass technology."
Media businesses are not using social media effectively to increase sales, found the survey.
Over half the executives (55 %) indicated their companies had a clearly defined social networking strategy in place, 38% percent said they use social networking to gain customer intimacy, while only 17 % indicated that it is employed to gain sales.
The reliance on advertising continues to be strong. Nearly half (42%) of the executives expect advertising to be the primary source of revenue over the next two years.
Accenture said that the industry must also focus on rights management due to the rising cost of content creation and acquisition.
Over three-quarters (77%) of the executives interviewed indicated that their companies did not have an integrated approach to rights management.
Nearly half the entertainment executives interviewed (48%) indicated that they might collaborate with their competitors within the next year or two. This is a much lower percentage than their counterparts in other industry segments; publishing (77%); portals (65%); and broadcasting (64%).
"Clearly, the industry has lots of work to do to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the digital distribution of content," said Vernocchi.
"A clear view of the customer, improved customer relationships and digital rights management are just a few areas that could yield significant results."
Accenture’s research also found that 80% of those interviewed said the media and entertainment industry is still changing with more rapid change yet to come. As a result, 85 % of the executives believe their business will continue to change significantly, said Accenture.
