Case Study: Jyske Bank Serves Espresso, Enterprise Video

The other piece of the Jyske project puzzle is supplied by Stratacache, says Pattison. "Jyske is using Stratacache at the network side, using Envivio for encoding, using [Media Publisher] software for creation, management, and distribution of content, and then they are distributing over Stratacache, which is essentially a CDN." Among many things, Stratacache provides edge appliances for content caching, according to Pattison.

Central Software
Naturally, Pattison thinks his company’s software is the most important component of the Jyske enterprise video system. "Our software is used to do everything from live event webcasting for corporate communications and branch training right down to morning updates to branch workers so they can work and interface with customers with the latest and greatest information. It’s the perfect example of why live matters. They capture all of the content so it is available on demand. They also upload externally created video events to our platform, and we manage that within our Video Control Center. And we integrate with the video encoders and distribute across their corporate network, but we’re also managing all the assets, categorizing them, so you can find all the video content within the enterprise. And as a subset of that, we are pushing out to digital signage at branch locations to help them attract and retain customers by making the branch experience more interactive. "

Besides giving Jyske content-management capabilities, the Media Publisher solution also provides a front-end tool for video content capture, says Pattison. "We have a product called Live Event Pro, which is a live webcasting application that provides an interface for both presenter and moderator (if you have one) to create a video event. And we also have a product called VOD Manager so that video content, whether live or uploaded, can be edited. And you can associate metadata with it. We have a digital signage application, so you can take video content, produce an RSS feed, and flow it out to endpoints. And then our platform is called the Video Control Center, which provides the ability to interoperate with all the different components of infrastructure—encoders, streaming servers, and so on. That’s all managed proactively with IT through that Video Control Center central system."

ROI
Jyske’s Lars Jensen says that it’s hard to measure ROI for this project, but that the bank measures general success using several metrics. Of course, the bottom-line metric (yearly net income) is "the bottom line," says Jensen. But he says the bank also takes very seriously the results of a rather detailed customer satisfaction survey that it conducts annually.

"Feedback from our customers has been very positive, which is crucial in the competitive retail banking environment," says Jensen. "Video is helping us accomplish our goal of being first to offer more advanced services to banking customers."

As a tool for internal corporate communications, the bank’s Media Publisher-centric system has also gotten good reviews from internal users. Feedback from the bank’s 4,000 employees has been "fantastic," according to Jensen. "We are able to communicate more effectively and innovatively, which is building morale, strengthening relationships, and helping us to communicate consistently to all our employees."

Another more targeted metric for success in this specific project is "net uptake of new customers," according to Jensen, who says that Jyske succeeded in attracting 5,000 new customers in the fourth quarter of 2006 alone. In comparison, it typically takes the bank an entire year to acquire 8,000 to 10,000 new customers.

Wider Implications for the Future
Steve Pattison is clearly proud of the role his company has played in the Jyske Bank project. He calls it "a comprehensive implementation" and "one of the best use cases so far."

"This is probably the most complete deployment of enterprise video that I’ve seen anywhere from anybody in the world," says Pattison. "These guys are doing live webcasting, they’re doing video-on-demand, and they’re doing digital signage. And they are doing it in an organized, centralized way. They are embodying and have implemented the complete video value chain, and that’s not that common yet. They are doing the whole thing."

And he thinks the Jyske Bank project raises the bar for future enterprise video implementations to come.

"In the future, more and more people will gravitate to this kind of installation because it makes a ton of sense," says Pattison. "I think it is the way people are going to go, because you don’t want silos of video content for every application. Why would you have one silo of content for signage, one silo of content for live webcasts, and one silo of content for VOD, and so on? That just doesn’t make any sense."