The IABM has published the latest version of its industry-standard Technology & Trends Roadmap for media and entertainment. It paints a picture of radical disruption across the content supply chain – but also illuminates a clear future path for M&E companies and tech developers.
When IABM launched its Technology & Trends Roadmap in mid-2019, it was widely accepted and adopted by media companies from tech suppliers to content creators, suppliers and distributors, as a key tool in planning future technology requirements to keep ahead in the ongoing disruption in the M&E landscape. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic added a powerful new disruptive driver, the effects of which have been felt in all BaM Content Chain segments as well as industry sectors. As a result, at the end of 2020, the team behind the Technology & Trends Roadmap, led by IABM’s CTO, Stan Moote, undertook a review and have produced an updated version to help industry business leaders and technologists make more informed plans to ensure their ongoing success.
The latest Technology & Trends Roadmap is freely available via the IABM website.
“What we saw in 2020 was a rapid adoption of many technologies and trends that had previously been seen as ‘bleeding edge’,” said Peter White, CEO at IABM. “This has fundamentally changed thinking in many content chain segments and sectors. For example, the implementation of cloud solutions has dramatically accelerated over 2020, pushing many more content chain areas into ‘mature’ or ‘commodity’ categorisation than would otherwise have been the case. Organisations that were previously reticent to consider cloud for storage and processing are now embracing it - using the cloud was in many areas perceived as risky before 2020, now it’s considered risky not to. The seemingly never-ending drive to higher and higher quality of experience also took a back seat, with ‘Covid quality’ becoming the new benchmark as organisations fought to create and deliver content to viewers using a plethora of what would previously have been considered as consumer rather than professional technologies.”
White continued: “And while in-person collaboration inevitably took a hit, the industry moved forward with innovative new remote collaboration solutions to satisfy the increased demand for content from shelter-in-place/locked down consumers. Many of these workarounds have proved likely to be viable long-term solutions even after the restrictions of the pandemic are lifted. While some technologies such as 8K took a back seat, other areas have arguably leaped forward by five years in just nine months. The new Technology & Trends Roadmap brings all these changes together into a powerful, easy to understand reference which will prove enormously useful to all sides of our great industry.”
Stan Moote added: “The closer we looked, the more the industry-wide impact of disruptive changes driven by the pandemic became apparent. It’s only when you see it altogether in one place that you understand just what a massive shift there has been – and it’s still ongoing. If you compare the original Technology & Trends Roadmap – which was created just 18 months ago – with the latest version, you will quickly understand the scale of the transformation, with many areas massively accelerated by the COVID pandemic. I urge all business leaders and technologists to use this industry reference roadmap to appreciate how the events of 2020 are a vehicle for change for future growth by having a fresh look at 2021 objectives in the light of insights revealed by the new Technology & Trends Roadmap.”
