Navigating the shift to digital through organizational realignment

The client’s perspective

As the broadcasting landscape began to change with the shift to digital technology and the increasing power of the internet, a large media organization was challenged with adapting its organization and its people to the new environment. Rather than offering content through a single platform—television—content could now be distributed through multiple new channels, and the organization wanted to address its internal barriers to expanding into these areas.

Eagle Hill came on board to help answer the question: How best could the organization structure itself to efficiently share content across platforms?

A new view

To develop a strategic plan, Eagle Hill first conducted an analysis of the organization’s current state. Stakeholder workshops gathered information and fostered stakeholder consensus on mission, goals, roles, and responsibilities. Through these, Eagle Hill uncovered several obstacles to serving as an efficient, multi-platform content provider. An outdated budgeting system was unable to manage the budgeting process across several platforms. Additionally, each department had their own set of siloed content services—an inefficient use of resources. In fact, the individuals within these content groups had never even met, which was a hindrance to well-coordinated content efforts.

Next, the team reviewed best practices and benchmarked the organization against industry competitors to inform the new organizational structure. We also analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, and processes of the organization’s five departments involved in content management. From this, we developed a long-term strategic plan including timelines, measurable goals, and a recommendation to consolidate the five departments into a single, integrated department.

Highlights of the proposed organizational design included a matrix structure to drive content decisions, a shared services function to provide common services to the various internal groups, and a new performance metrics system. In addition, Eagle Hill created a governance structure to guide content decision-making and reengineered several business processes to accommodate it.

Eagle Hill also looked for ways to ensure leadership had all the right skills to execute the new strategy, identifying employees with leadership potential and highlighting roles that would be better staffed through external hiring. Finally, we designed and facilitated implementation of a new content budgeting system critical for enabling the new organization.

Unconventional consulting—and breakthrough results

Eagle Hill’s work resulted in the successful formation of a new organization empowered to make integrated content decisions. The resource gaps that Eagle Hill identified were filled and several groups within the company noted the improvement of leadership and the enriched focus on strategy. The media organization also witnessed an increase in stakeholder awareness throughout the organization.

Additionally, the portfolio of content offerings and services grew steadily and the refined budgeting processes allowed for additional accuracy and cost savings. All in all, the organization was better prepared to share content across multiple platforms and had grown to be a thriving, multi-platform broadcasting organization.