The Total Economic Impact™ Of Iconik

Increased Content Output

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that Iconik enabled their organizations to increase content output by streamlining content management workflows. They described faster content ingestion, automated proxy generation, metadata enrichment, improved content discovery, and more efficient collaboration across geographically distributed teams. As a result, content producers spent less time on manual administrative tasks and content retrieval, allowing them to support higher production volumes, create more content with existing resources, and accelerate content delivery without proportionate increases in headcount.

• The media systems manager at a medical device organization said: “There is immediate speed efficiency that we get when footage first gets offloaded onto our on-premises server. Iconik will automatically generate proxy files for us. It’s sped up our workflow efficiency. Additionally, Iconik has transcription features built in that save us a lot of effort. I can just transcribe something, have it translated, and bring in closed captions without any delays.”

• The same interviewee also said: “Iconik has allowed us to expand the volume of content we’re outputting. Five years ago, we output 500 to 600 videos between four to five postproduction people. Now, we’re around 1,300 to 1,400 videos a year with nine or 10 people.”

• The postproduction editor at a medical device organization shared an example: “We recently did a patient testimonial with a very quick week turnaround. The beginning of that project required the editor to be able to absorb all of the production footage that had been shot to turn around a cut in a day. Review took place over the next few days and then delivery by the end of the week. This all overlapped with a hybrid remote workflow system. This would not have been possible with our on-premises-only model [prior to Iconik].”

• The same interviewee continued: “I’m working on a project this week that has benefited directly from the available integrations. A bunch of footage was shot in EMEA. Through integrations with Iconik, we were able to send the footage without taking the route of shipping drives or trying to find some other FTP or peer-to-peer solution. This project would not have happened without the integrations.”

• The senior technical operations specialist at a software organization said: “We have a high volume of creative media in one central library now. Content moves from creation to publishing without heavy manual handling like we had to do previously with our hard drives.”

• The same interviewee said: “The majority of our monthly active users are logging into Iconik for their daily workflows. They use it to collaborate and share files with stakeholders. I’ve been told their workflow efficiency has improved by roughly 50%. Ingestion has been reduced by 4 hours. The manual upload of files is completely eliminated. Whereas before, teams had to wait a long time for files to finish and share, we can build automations and placeholders for assets and have stakeholders be notified when a new asset has been uploaded and is ready for their review. Our metadata process used to take half a day and now, it is maybe an hour max.”

• The IT director at a media organization said: “We are producing a lot more video than we ever did with the same number of people. I would say production has more than doubled. We have standardized workflows which allows teams to be more efficient.”

• The operations manager at a video game organization shared an example of content delivery reducing from two days to under 24 hours. They said: “We’ve started to streamline our content delivery to our partners. People get used to our collection structure that we’ve really established and standardized has been huge for familiarity. Additionally, we’re streamlining our localization. It’s really unlocked efficiencies for sharing content with our regional teams and reducing the number of early content publishes. We’ve built a lot of optimizations within Iconik around tiering access for everyone to understand when content is supposed to go live across time zones.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• There are 80 content producer using Iconik in Year 1, 84 in Year 2, and 92 in Year 3.

• A content project ranges between 50 GB of content to 150 GB. This includes both brand and marketing asset packages and video productions. Each content producer creates 20 content projects in the prior environment.

• With Iconik, producer capacity is increased by 20%, resulting in four additional content projects per producer.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for a content producer is $48.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• How many content projects are managed.

• The exiting capacity of content producers.

• Annual salaries for content producers.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $690,000.

Improved Media Operations Productivity

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that Iconik simplified the administration and support of media operations by centralizing content management, standardizing workflows, and providing greater visibility into content environments. Compared with prior solutions, they described spending less time troubleshooting issues, relying less on vendor support, and finding it easier to maintain, expand, and customize workflows. Interviewees also noted that the platform’s usability and self-service capabilities reduced support requirements for both IT teams and content users.

• The senior technical operations specialist at a software organization said: “As an administrator, I feel assured that our content is in a centralized location. I know how to easily navigate issues if they arise. Compared to some of our other [prior] tools like our MAM, I was completely reliant on our technical account manager. Iconik provides more visibility. If our ISGs are failing, I don’t need to raise a ticket immediately. I can troubleshoot with our on-site IT. This is one of the key benefits.”

• The IT director at a media organization said: “It’s much easier to support a single system and standardized workflows compared to our prior setup. It’s easier for us to add capabilities and make changes because of the standard and open API. Additionally, users can self-service; for example, giving third parties access to content with shared links.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• In the prior environment, 1.5 IT admin FTEs support content production.

• With Iconik, the IT admin gain 30% productivity on their content operations tasks.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for an IT admin is $130,000.

• There is a productivity recapture of 50%, meaning half of all work is recaptured for productive activities.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The amount of IT support involved in content operations.

• Annual salaries for IT professionals.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $69,000.

Storage Optimization And Infrastructure Cost Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that Iconik helped their organizations optimize storage costs by intelligently managing content across production and archive storage tiers while reducing the need for ongoing storage infrastructure expansion. By providing seamless access to archived assets, Iconik allowed users at the interviewees’ organizations to maintain content discoverability and usability without keeping files in costly production storage. Interviewees described benefits like automated lifecycle management, archive consolidation, improved asset visibility, greater content reuse, duplicate content reduction, and reduced reliance on on-premises storage infrastructure. The media operations manager at a medical device organization said: “We effectively removed the need to have an archive on-prem because all of that is now stored in very cold storage through Iconik’s archive workflow. We’re saving a lot of money on storage costs.”

• The IT director at a media organization said: “We use our cloud provider’s intelligent tiering. When an asset hasn’t been accessed, it drops down the tiers to less expensive storage. We weren’t able to do that on-prem. Additionally [with Iconik], users are able to archive files themselves. Previously, we had to do that for them. Content that sits in archive costs $4 per terabyte per month, not $20 per terabyte per month. That’s a big saving when you have a lot of storage.”

• The same interviewee said: “There was a big push to start reusing a lot of the content we have. Iconik has a powerful search that allows us to reuse our content.”

• The operations manager at a video game organization said: “We’ve been able to reduce the need for growing on-prem storage. Over the years, we were growing our on-prem storage and buying more external hard drives. We’ve been able to shift more of that to the cloud and into Iconik to manage it. It now sits in lower tiers of our cloud versus it needed to be as much as it used to be for accessibility. Iconik helps with tiering and visibility of content so people can see what we have. This enables cost savings.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• 250 TB of content are moved to archive tier annually.

• The annual cost per TB of production storage is $240. The annual cost per archive storage is $48.

• In transitioning to Iconik, the composite reduces the need to purchase and maintain on-premises infrastructure that is worth $75,000 annually.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The type and amount of storage required.

• The cost per TB of storage.

• Whether or not storage infrastructure and maintenance can be retired.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $260,000.

Remote Production Enablement

Evidence and data. Interviewees said Iconik played an important role in enabling remote and distributed production workflows. By providing centralized access to content, consistent workflows for remote and on-site staff, and streamlined file sharing capabilities, the interviewees’ organizations were able to support employees regardless of location. Interviewees reported reducing the number of staff required to travel for events while maintaining production quality and collaboration effectiveness. This allowed their organizations to lower travel costs, expand workforce flexibility, and support more efficient production operations.

• The operations manager at a video game organization said: “Pre-Iconik we were sending a lot more team members to events. We have eight live events a year and before, we sent five producers and four editors. Now, it is two producers and one editor. It’s saving the cost of travel monetarily and mentally.”

• The postproduction editor at a medical device organization said: “There’s always an open invitation to start that process to transition to fully remote. The reason that we’re able to facilitate this is because of the tools [like Iconik]. Our configuration also simplifies the process of exchanging files and projects. Instead of having one stream to support on-site and one to support remote, everyone now has the same path to find a file.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• It hosts eight shoots per year requiring on-site video producers and editors.

• In the prior environment, each event required 10 production staff.

• With Iconik, the staff required is reduced by 60%.

• It pays $2,000 for each employee traveling to the shoot.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Whether or not it hosts in-person events.

• The number of staff required to host the events.

• Travel costs for employees.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $215,000.

Technology Consolidation Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees stated that Iconik enabled them to retire legacy content management, review, collaboration, archiving, and media workflow tools. Prior environments often relied on several disconnected platforms to support capabilities that were consolidated within Iconik. By reducing technology overlap and simplifying their media technology stacks, interviewees lowered licensing costs while improving the user experience through a more unified approach to managing, locating, sharing, and governing content.

• The postproduction editor at a medical device organization said: “Iconik is robust. In the past, you would need a different type of software or platform to perform different aspects of what Iconik is able to do. We would use a review and approve software, something different for archiving, something else for cataloging and finding.”

• The senior technical operations specialist at a software organization said: “We decommissioned our previous MAM worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and our tools for creative collaboration and review worth $90,000. The DAM we retired was around $600,000 across two years, which we were able to claw back about half of.”

• The IT director at a media organization said: “We’re using fewer systems. We no longer use a separate tool for creative collaboration that was nowhere near as capable [as Iconik]. We’re also in the process of decommissioning [an archive tool] which will lead to £10,000 a month in savings.”

• The operations manager at a video game organization said: “We ended our agreements with older platforms we tested because they wanted us to buy their own hardware. Especially with how geolocated we are across the globe; it was costly to scale those solutions. Iconik is helping us sell the vision of reducing spend in overlapping products within our organization. We’re able to offer more with the platform versus some of the more bespoke tools.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the composite organization retires two content workflow tools worth a combination of $150,000.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on whether or not redundant prior solutions were used to manage content workflows and their decommissioning schedule. Organizations may still integrate with other tooling to enhance the value of Iconik.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $336,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:

• Strengthened content governance and security. Interviewees highlighted improvements in permissions management, auditability, rights management, compliance support, and content traceability with Iconik, helping their organizations reduce risk while maintaining secure collaboration at scale.
  The senior technical operations specialist at a software organization said: “The need to shift hard drives has been almost completely eliminated. In terms of security, we feel that the share features are robust. Our information security team is happy with the security and the documentation Iconik has been able to provide.”
  The operations manager at a video game organization said: “Iconik has a very robust permission structure around what people are allowed to do with content and how they’re able to interact or see content. That’s really given us a lot of capabilities to mitigate the risks that were identified and even track and trace down if there’s problems that come up with people accessing content they shouldn’t through the robust sharing options.”
  The media operations manager at a medical device organization said: “[Iconik] has greatly enabled us to get granular with our permissions in how we share content throughout the company. EMEA has GDPR; we’re able to enable and leverage the roles and the permissions within Iconik to help collaborate and streamline and align their workflows with the US team while also giving them enough agency to do what they need to do without being too stringent.”
  Organizations could quantify this benefit by evaluating reductions in governance-related administrative effort, compliance management costs, and the financial impact of avoided security or content-sharing incidents.

• Enhanced global collaboration and workforce flexibility. By providing centralized access to content, standardized workflows, and cloud-based collaboration capabilities, Iconik helped the interviewees’ organizations reduce their dependence on physical media transfers and location-specific production resources. As a result, their employees, contractors, partners, and regional teams could participate in content workflows more easily, improving collaboration across geographies, increasing workforce flexibility, and supporting remote and hybrid work models.
  The IT director at a media organization said: “Iconik allows us to collaborate better both internally and with external partners. It enables teams to work across brands because everyone follows the same workflow now. It’s much easier to collaborate and understand and fix problems.”
  Organizations could quantify this benefit by evaluating improvements in workforce productivity, reductions in collaboration-related delays, and cost savings associated with enabling remote and geographically distributed content teams.

• Accelerated content delivery and time to market. Interviewees explained that Iconik helped shorten the time required to move content from creation to distribution through improved content accessibility, streamlined review and approval workflows, standardized processes, and easier collaboration. Interviewees noted that the ability to bring content to market more quickly supported marketing responsiveness, improved audience engagement, and created a competitive advantage in fast-moving content environments.
  The media operations manager at a medical device organization said: “The speed to market is increasing and accelerating by reducing the time needed from content creation to distribution. It’s a huge advantage to get content out faster than our competitors. We’re supporting marketing in their campaigns.”
  This benefit could be quantified by measuring reductions in content production cycle times and estimating the value of delivering marketing campaigns, media assets, or customer-facing content to market more quickly.

• Expanded content value and revenue opportunities. Forrester research found that business and technology professionals most often cited improving digital experiences among the key actions their organizations are taking to improve customer experiences.³
  Interviewees reported that improved content accessibility enabled their organizations to derive greater value from existing media assets. By making content easier to find, retrieve, and reuse, teams could support a broader range of business initiatives without recreating content from scratch. Interviewees highlighted how greater access to trusted media libraries supported sponsorship, licensing, syndication, audience engagement, and other revenue-generating opportunities, enabling their organizations to extract more long-term value from the content they already own.
  The operations manager at a video game organization said: “Our business teams have more reference material than they did in the past and they can self-access it. This is useful for selling sponsorship opportunities.”
  The IT director at a media organization said: “We’re all about creating trusted content. The better content we have, the more engagement we’re going to have. [This supports our] licensing and syndication opportunities.”
  This benefit could be quantified by measuring incremental revenue generated through sponsorships, licensing, syndication, or other business opportunities enabled by improved access to and reuse of content assets.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Iconik and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Supports AI-enabled content intelligence and automation. Interviewees described opportunities to improve metadata quality, automate content management activities, enhance content discoverability, and support future AI-powered workflows. As their organizations continue investing in AI capabilities, they expect Iconik’s centralized content repository, metadata framework, transcription capabilities, and search functionality to serve as a foundation for intelligent content operations.
  The operations manager at a video game organization said: “We’re interested in exploring AI solutions for tagging and search. There’s also a lot on the roadmap that I’m looking forward to. The publishing back end they’re bringing in will be huge in terms of helping manage cross-publishing content at scale.”
  The senior technical operations specialist at a software organization said: “Over the next three years, we’re focused on adding more structured, meaningful metadata, more automation across workflows, and potentially integrations with an AI video editor assistant.”

• Expanded platform adoption. Interviewees described Iconik as a platform capable of evolving alongside their organizations’ changing content management needs. Interviewees viewed the platform as a foundation for future expansion across new teams, geographies, workflows, and technologies. The media operations manager at a medical device organization said: “The EMEA team is growing so we’re looking to expand usage. Our animations team, which has about 30 to 40 people, has been very interested in Iconik for the longest time. Their processes are a bit archaic as far as review and approve. [Iconik] is going to accelerate their team.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).