What Is Imagineering Irony?

Imagineering Irony

CASE HIGHLIGHT
Organizations have the opportunity to reduce costs, increase productivity, increase security and compliance, and mitigate risk by developing, acquiring, or partnering for new competencies related to both print and electronic document workflows. The most sophisticated among them can reengineer print and document workflows to align with business goals, driving new business models, business transformation, and better business outcomes.
This Buyer Case Study looks at how DreamWorks, an entertainment company, partnered with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to automate and optimize its document-intensive workflows.
DreamWorks licenses partner companies to create product tie-ins with their popular film and television entertainment.
Hundreds of products per film mean multiple licensing partners that constantly change over time.
Much of the documentation that provided written communication between DreamWorks and their licensees was in paper form, creating confusion when people were operating from different versions of pertinent documents; time wasted searching for documents around offices and in file cabinets; and the use of substantial quantities of paper and printer ink.
HP provided scanners and scanning-in services, and Highland provided scanning software, so that with the cooperation of all workflow partners, documents could be scanned into a digital database, organized and made accessible to the involved parties, and updated as desired.
The resulting savings were substantial: Approximately $100,000 dollars per year saved in paper and supplies, filing and labor. In addition, the time for product completion was cut by one third, from 45 days to 30 days, simply from having clear communication and documents immediately available.
In This Buyer Case
Study
This Buyer Case Study looks at how DreamWorks, a media company known mostly for providing family entertainment via computer-generated animation in movies and television, partnered with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to automate and optimize its document-intensive workflows. Organizations that are currently engaged in or are evaluating managed print and document services (MPDS) programs, or who are seeking business value by reengineering workflow, can gain valuable insight from DreamWorks' experiences. The case study examines why DreamWorks needed a new workflow solution, the company’s main requirements, the vendor evaluation process, results, and lessons learned. The case study can help organizations more effectively evaluate partners and will aid in optimizing MPDS and workflow automation contracts and relationships.
Situation Overview
For well over a decade, organizations have been looking to print and document management initiatives as a way to reduce costs, increase employee productivity, and better meet security, regulatory/compliance and environmental/sustainability goals.
During that same period of time we have seen content delivery shift from paper to electronic formats. As companies continue down the path of digital transformation, they can leverage 3rd Platform technologies (which emerge from the innovation around mobility, cloud, social business, and big data) to fundamentally change document-intensive workflows for better business outcomes.
DreamWorks realized that its paper-intensive process for communicating with licensees was time consuming on both sides, error prone, resulted in miscommunication, and created inefficiencies that resulted in wastes of time and money. In 2011, the company worked with Hewlett-Packard (HP) to streamline this process, resulting in significant time savings and cost benefits.
For this Buyer Case Study, we interviewed Mark Tokunaga, director of digital operations at DreamWorks.
Organization
Overview
DreamWorks Animation, led by CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, is the largest animation studio in the world (DreamWorks, 2015). They are headquartered, of course, in southern California. Mr. Katzenberg was chairman of The Walt Disney Studios prior to co-founding DreamWorks. So far, DreamWorks has released more than 30 animated feature films, with plans to continue to release approximately two per year. According to Wikipedia (2015), of the top 50 highest-grossing animated films worldwide of all time (not accounting for inflation), 15 of these are DreamWorks films. Furthermore, DreamWorks films have received nine Academy Award nominations for best animated feature film, have won twice, and have received numerous other awards. Not only that, but DreamWorks has been named by Fortune magazine as one of the best companies to work for, five years in a row. In addition to film entertainment, DreamWorks is also involved in television entertainment, consumer products, and content marketing. There may be hundreds of product tie-ins to one movie, involving many licensees. Revenues from all sources have averaged over $700 million per year for the last five years (DreamWorks, 2014).
Challenges and Solution
Ironically for a company that specializes in the optimal utilization of computers to create imaginative animation, DreamWorks has not been optimally utilizing computers to provide and track all their documentation. In this particular interview, Mr. Tokunaga focused on the paperwork involved in working with the licensing partners who create the merchandise that is sold in creative tie-ins to DreamWorks' film and television entertainment. Prior to changing their workflow processes, a variety of documents were paper intensive: Licensing agreements, royalty agreements, usage agreements, press kits, even imagery.
Internally, the IT department and the operations department observed how their customers work and tracked tickets. Thus they were able to observe that a lot of paper was being used and stored, and that the switch to more computerized processes could result in significant efficiencies and savings.