About
BACKNJTC CEO Success Stories of 2008
The rapid journey from niche player to a global digital media service provider
Origin Digital is today a wholly-owned subsidiary of Accenture, and a cornerstone of the Accenture Digital Media Services (ADMS) business that helps clients in all sectors to capitalize on the significant opportunities available from the rapidly expanding market for digital content and services. Its story is characterized by rapid growth and a drive to achieve a globally leading position in the digital media market.
Background and summary
Origin Digital is a media application service provider specializing in delivering digital media services that enhance and accelerate the deployment of corporate, brand and entertainment programming initiatives. The business began as the result of a management buyout from SAVVIS Communications, an IT services provider. A key member of the buy-out team was Darcy Lorincz, CEO of the Origin Digital business today, who had previously been Vice President and General Manager of Global Rich Media Services at SAVVIS and had helped to build SAVVIS's Media and Entertainment division from a standing start to an $80 million business.
Origin Digital was established in order to provide digital video producers, rights holders and distributors with an automated means to manage and distribute their video content efficiently across a broad array of media and channels. Accenture acquired Origin Digital in May 2008 - an acquisition that has opened up significant opportunities in a fast-growing global digital content and services market that analysts predict will grow by almost 70 percent to $277 billion by 2010.
Origin Digital Vision
Under Lorincz's leadership, Origin Digital assembled a world-class team and developed a range of web enabled services tools, applications and services that offered a new services paradigm in which businesses could use to manage their digital video content to meet the needs of their chosen channels and audiences. The proprietary platform that Origin Digital developed, Odaptor, allows businesses to minimize the complexities and costs associated with managing their digital video assets and to launch programming across platforms with a lower risk and quicker time to market. The business provides four principal service lines; each aimed at specific user types and with capabilities tailored to meet the needs of different audiences:
- Business TV - An integrated set of tools that enable the organization of all corporate video and the managed digital play-out or delivery to stakeholders under a single "master control."
- Events - Managed end-to-end services enabling broadband distribution of live events, including management of production and capture through to play-out with integrated tools such as user-generated content uploading and "chat" functions, for any distribution medium.
- Brand Exchange - An integrated set of tools that enable the consolidation of all video content from multiple sources for internal use and/or external play-out. This enables agencies and brands to streamline and simplify their workflow for exchange of multi-media across multiple campaigns.
- Social Media - An integrated set of tools that enable the capture, management and play-out of online video content, including advertising insertions, consumer interactivity and UGC uploading.
Starting with just six employees at the end of 2006, Origin Digital now has 41 full-time and two part-time staff.
Challenges to growth
Like many small and start-up companies, Origin Digital was confronted with a number of significant challenges. Acquiring sufficient scale quickly in order to service large and demanding global clients is very difficult, as is creating a stable foundation from which to develop client relationships and prospects for growth in the future. Attracting experienced talent and funding to support a fast-growing business is an issue with which most ambitious start-ups struggle.
So while confident that the business's offering was powerful enough to more than compete in a rapidly expanding market, CEO Darcy Lorincz understood that the business needed to find a strategy to raise its profile significantly and place the business on a firm footing for the future. It needed to find a partner that could help it swiftly achieve sufficient scale, global reach and stability to accelerate progress towards the goal of becoming the number one global video application services provider.
A strategic response
Accenture provided the perfect strategic fit. Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company with over 186,000 employees worldwide, with offices and operations in more than 200 cities and 52 countries. Accenture's clients include 94 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than two-thirds of the Fortune Global 500.
For Origin Digital, the acquisition by Accenture completed in May 2008 has created the required stability, scale and reach, and opened the doors to a wide range of opportunities. Accenture has benefited from Origin Digital's considerable expertise and technology assets to help it deepen and strengthen the Accenture Digital Media Services (ADMS) business.
Capturing opportunities in a fast-growing market
The strength of the strategic fit between Origin Digital and Accenture has already proved itself in its ability to provide customers with integrated solutions that meet their fast-changing needs in a market for digital content and services that is continuously evolving and expanding. As a key element of the ADMS business, Origin Digital has access to worldwide expertise and resources that enrich the services that it provides to clients. And being part of Accenture means that Origin Digital can achieve rapid scale in its business on a global basis that would not have been possible by continuing to operate alone.
Origin Digital's customers can now make use of a wide array of additional services and expertise that will allow them to become ready for the opportunities presented by a digital world. As the Internet continues to drive the appetite for digital content, companies need to ensure that they have access to the capabilities and tools that allow them to reach new markets and drive new revenue streams by managing and monetizing their digital assets across proliferating channels and formats.
Origin Digital's services have been instrumental in delivering some of the most innovative uses of video content available online. For example, the business's technology and expertise has allowed NFL's online viewers to select multiple camera angles to view a live game; they have allowed mainstream brands such as Dove to harness the power of user-generated content; and they have created effective tools for internal communication and collaboration for Johnson and Johnson's global operations.
A developing New Jersey success story
Origin Digital's base in New Jersey is home to a business that now has access to the resources and expertise allowing it to succeed on a truly global basis and achieve its aim of becoming the world's leading video application service provider. Origin Digital's headquarters, on the Hudson River overseeing the New York skyline is in a prime New Jersey location, providing access to one of the centres of the media world and proximity to many of the world's leading businesses.
Looking to the future, CEO Darcy Lorincz is now focused on the challenges of differentiating the services that Origin Digital - as an integral part of ADMS - provides compared to its competitors, by communicating the substantial benefits of combining Origin Digital's service provision and Accenture's global industry expertise and experience, and continuing to drive towards his ultimate goal - becoming the world's largest video applications service provider.
Nominator's statement:
As CEO of Accenture Digital Media Services I am delighted to nominate Darcy Lorincz for the New Jersey Technology Council CEO Success Stories. Not only has he had the foresight to identify a new business opportunity - helping content owners and distributors stay ahead of the explosive demand for digital content and services - but he has also proved his leadership skills in building the team of world-class experts that is Origin Digital. Accenture is proud to be working with this team. Darcy is an outstanding candidate and, speaking on his behalf, I know he would be honored to be considered as a nominee for this program. As a member of the NJTC, Darcy is aware of the good work carried out by the Council to support and promote technology businesses and economic growth in the area. Richard Cottrell is the CEO of Accenture's Digital Media Services business. Prior to joining Accenture he had a successful career at EMI Music where he was President and CEO of EMI Music Distribution (USA), and also helped steer EMI into the digital world by launching early digital initiatives including the first digital downloads and digital asset management system.
Ends
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Contact Information:
Name of Nominee: Darcy Lorincz
Name of Company: Origin Digital - An Accenture company
Contact at Company: Nicole Figueiredo
e-Mail: nfigueiredo@origindigital.com
Web site of Company: http://www.origindigital.com/
Nomination by:
Name: Richard Cottrell
Company: Accenture Digital Media Services
e-Mail: richard.cottrell@accenture.com
