Navigating the Enterprise Video Workflow

When the editor asked me to write an article on enterprise streaming, I realized it had been a few years since I’d delved deeply into corporate streaming systems. Almost a decade ago, I spent several years designing and launching a corporate webcasting program, and I have continued to work with corporate customers intermittently since then. But I was curious to see what had changed in the past 2 years.

What emerged, after a series of interviews with representatives from major corporations such as CA, Lockheed Martin, Merck, and QAD, is a picture of enterprise use that goes far beyond traditional streaming. Each representative talked about the original intent of the company’s streaming systems, and in every case, across a variety of industries, the expanded use of streaming solutions has led to expanded use of other types of technology.

Each of these companies employs workflow solutions that bear striking similarities to each other, but with enough variation to provide a bigger picture of the drivers that forced companies to move from early homegrown products to single- or multivendor projects.

Rather than telling each company’s story separately, we’ve split this article up across a variety of topics, exploring how each company got started, what its growth looked like, and what has changed versus what has stayed the same. We’ve also provided a series of best practices that Streaming Media magazine readers may find beneficial in their own enterprise streaming implementations.

The Companies
Representatives from four companies agreed to be interviewed for this article. While these multinational corporations may be familiar to most of our readers, as some have been featured before in Streaming Media, we’ve included an introduction to each company and its streaming representatives.

CA. James Lasher is director of audiovisual (AV) services for CA, Inc., a global independent IT management software company. CA’s enterprise IT management solutions for mainframe and distributed computing enable what the company calls Lean IT for its customers, and streaming plays a role in keeping the company’s internal communications on course with its strategic mission.

Lockheed Martin. Thomas Aquilone, media services and enterprise technology programs manager, works in Valley Forge, Pa., for Lockheed Martin, which has been featured in Streaming Media several times this decade. Aquilone discusses the use of streaming within several business areas of Lockheed Martin, including information systems and global services (IS&GS), enterprise business services (EBS), and aeronautics and space systems.

Merck. Two representatives from this international pharmaceutical company—William Vanderdecker, manager, Merck digital communications, and James Fox, associate manager, webcasting services—gave details on Merck’s far-flung streaming initiatives, including expansion to Europe and Asia.

QAD. Scott Lawson, business systems architect for the information technology team at QAD, Inc., spoke about his role in the overall picture for the company. QAD provides enterprise resource management and supply chain software and services for global manufacturers. The company has 1,500 employees split fairly evenly between working in a main office and working remotely from home or small satellite offices.