For the media and entertainment industry, the journey to become a digital-first organization is vital. However, in the past, digital transformation was frequently treated as a survival strategy, rather than a means of embracing innovation and building a competitive advantage.
One brand that bucked this trend is a leading communication and entertainment group in Brazil, Grupo Globo, which evolved from disrupted to disruptor.
Resilience to grow
The Brazilian media and entertainment market closed in 2022 with a revenue of US$33 billion, according to a report published by PwC. Leading the industry, Grupo Globo is an organization close to celebrating its first centennial, and a top-of-mind and top-of-share brand thanks to a history of innovative and high-quality content across multiple formats, influencing millions of Brazilian consumers.
It was also the first company to adapt its business strategy and develop its own streaming platform, Globoplay, offering free and exclusive content for over 100 million users with more than 2000 titles for an audience across news, entertainment, and sports, from original production to content from partners.
A Thoughtworks client for over six years, Grupo Globo embarked on its transformation journey in 2018, helping it to reach its goal of becoming a media and tech organization.
Vectors aligned: Speed and tech at the core of our process
Grupo Globo’s data intelligence strategy began in 2019. This marked an important milestone: the beginning of the partnership between Globo and Google for cloud storage services.
Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to participate in another phase of this journey, with a project to migrate the data consumption of one of Globo’s products, Globoplay, from a legacy system to Google Cloud Platform, with a strategic and critical deadline of nine months.
With this initiative, Globo hoped to make their business more efficient, reduce costs, optimize processes and integrate teams. In addition to the focus on savings, the economic results expected were also linked to environmental, social and governance (ESG) financial commitment.
Meanwhile, the team at Thoughtworks looked at efficiency, strategy and technical quality as the macro measures of success, given the critical timeline to complete the migration and the impact of this project on the overall product strategy. The vectors were once again aligned, which paved the way for an extraordinary impact, but not without a challenge.
Tech quality at the core
One of the biggest challenges faced at the beginning of the project was the identification of all of the pipelines that were built and active in the legacy system. Before starting the planning stage, it was crucial to create a general migration strategy, including:
Unique dataset list and segmentation of the pipeline into foundation, business intelligence and marketing
Dependency mapping
Scripts and an adapted data validation process
Identification of ways to migrate and optimize (refactoring, restructuring, substitution)
Prioritization and planning in each delivery phase
Risk identification and mitigation
Outcomes
The new data architecture laid the foundation for new opportunities and had a positive impact on the business:
78% cost reduction in Marketing and Commercial Intelligence and better financial transparency
Streamlined reuse of data and code, resulting in a 34% decrease in dataset size and improved scalability and processing efficiency
Greater resilience in campaign operations and journeys
Efficient monitoring interface ensuring transparency and prompt response to failures.
- Improved data governance with Data Catalog and unified access management
- Synergy with Globo's data ecosystem
- Enhanced automation, broader coverage, and proactive failure prevention within an integrated process operating 24/7
Autonomy for multiple business units
Data reliability and visibility
