Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Global Cloud-based Video Workflows Market

The classic broadcast operations centre will always have a role, but the new Cloud-based Workflow model is offering a compelling alternative in the shape of IP-based network operations centres paired with smaller and more agile transmission gear, cameras, and capture devices. Although the migration was well underway prior to 2020, the year’s exceptional circumstances have prompted many production teams to make the switch now.

As enterprises seek to accommodate a remote workforce, market growth is linked to greater utilization of SaaS solutions. Growing usage of digital payment, online shopping, and over-the-top (OTT) streaming services is expected to aid the Market Growth.

Definition / Scope
Market Overview
Market Risks
Top Market Opportunities
Market Drivers
Market Restraints
Industry Challenges
Technology Trends
Pricing Trends
Regulatory Trends
Post COVID-19 Recovery
Market Size and Forecast
Market Outlook
Technology Roadmap
Competitive Landscape
Competitive Factors
Key Market Players
Strategic Conclusion
References
Further Reading
Appendix

Definition / Scope

Cloud workflow helps enterprises administer, define, and coordinate business processes without the need of a base platform. The cloud workflow platform offers functionalities such as real-time visibility, and improved efficiency and performance. With rising competition and regulations throughout the world, businesses are looking for process optimization solutions that will help them not only drive processes but also keep up with the changing requirements. Traditionally, procedures were carried out manually, which took a lot of time and money and was prone to errors because it entailed human work.

Cloud workflow solutions integrate easily with existing operations and provide information and document management. Cloud workflow adoption is popular among businesses because it offers various advantages, including improved employee cooperation and communication, as well as real-time, secure access to information. These advantages improve decision-making and assist firms in gaining a competitive advantage over their competitors, which is critical in today’s changing business environment.

Because of the increased demand for optimized business operations, the cloud workflow market is gaining traction. Organizations are burdened by repetitive work procedures that reduce efficiency and lengthen the time it takes to complete business operations, which is why they are increasingly considering the transformation of traditional cloud workflows to automate business processes and assist management in making more informed decisions.

The global cloud workflow market has been segmented based on types, business workflows, and regions.

Cloud-based Video Workflows – Based on type

Cloud Workflow Platform
Cloud Workflow Services

Cloud-based Video Workflows – Based on services

Consulting
System integration and Deployment
Support and Maintenance

Cloud-based Video Workflows – Based on Business Workflow

Human Resource (HR)
Accounting and Finance
Sales and Marketing
Customer Service and Support
Procurement and Supply Chain Management
Operations, and others (legal and R&D)

Cloud-based Video Workflows – Based on Region

North America
South America
Europe
Asia-Pacific
Middle-East & Africa

Market Overview

The cloud workflow market was worth USD 2.01 billion in 2020 and is predicted to reach USD 4.43 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 17.1 percent over the forecast period.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on many people’s lives and companies on a massive scale. The cloud computing industry, on the other hand, has grown stronger as a result of the incident. According to a Microsoft blog post from March 2020, shortly after stay-at-home orders were issued across Italy, the company’s team collaboration product had a monthly usage jump of 775 percent.

SMEs are fast migrating to the cloud from on-premises solutions. The Cloud Workflow Market has seen a surge in the deployment of cloud-based workflow solutions by SMEs and large organizations as a result of the choice to use workflow solutions on the cloud.

North America accounts for a sizable portion of the Cloud Workflow Market. In terms of cloud usage, it is one of the most forward-thinking regions. It is what gives industrialized economies like the United States and Canada their shape. Furthermore, North America has the biggest market share, owing to the increasing adoption of new technologies, increased investments in digital transformation, and growing GDPs in North American countries.

Market Risks

Cloud security fears will force business change and security

In a multitenant, over-the-Internet environment, protecting video IP remains a major problem and learning curve for the media industry. The most popular way to limiting external exposure to media assets, as in other businesses, is to keep them on-premise or transport them to collaborators via trusted logistical partners. However, due to file sizes, shipping is increasingly problematic, and downstream unlawful copying remains a risk due to the accessibility of media duplication. This sort of thought, however, is naive in a world where all high-demand content will be distributed via OTT. As a result, we’re seeing a lot of content security solutions being used.

Fragmented supply market

Although the managed security services market is highly fragmented, smaller, pure play security service companies have been acquired by large telecom and service providers in recent years. These acquisitions are aimed at enhancing large players’ service offerings by adding depth to their portfolio.

Top Market Opportunities

Surging Demand for OTT services

Audio, video, and other media are delivered over the internet via over-the-top (OTT) services. When the internet became available to the general public in the 1990s, the computer market exploded. However, due to inferior technology at the time, bandwidth speed was extremely limited. Because of developments in electronics, smart TVs and other smart gadgets such as smartphones became available in the second part of 2000. Apart from their core use, these devices were designed with internet access as an extra feature. This progress in electronics, combined with increased internet access, ushered in the era of over-the-top (OTT) services, and so OTT was born.

Because video encoders are essential for providing OTT content, the expanding market for OTT services is likely to present a significant potential for the video encoder market.

Rising social networking

Rising social networking is fueling the growth of the video transcoding market. Users post updates about their lives on social networking sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others, where video transcoding is useful for adjusting the video’s size and quality to the site’s and device’s requirements. According to Reogma Market Insights, there were over 3,622 million social network members worldwide in 2020. As a result of the rise in social networking usage among consumers, the global need for video transcoding is predicted to rise.

Market Drivers

Rapid adoption of cloud-based video transcoding solutions

The video transcoding market is predicted to grow due to the adoption of cloud-based video transcoding solutions. Cost-effective, configurable, scalable, and adaptable cloud-based video transcoding solutions are available. Qencode Inc., for example, creates sophisticated cloud video transcoding platforms that reduce video file sizes by 60% without sacrificing quality and improve video quality on h.264 (AVC1), h.265 (HEVC), and VP9, MP4, HLS, and MPEG-DASH. Furthermore, for distant education, cloud-based video transcoding is the recommended approach, since it can convert videos of syllabus or lessons into the needed format for display on the user’s (student’s) device.

Surging growth in Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings

Increased need for transcoding as the number of portable devices grows, high rise in Software as a Service (SaaS) offers, high digitalization of cable and broadcast Furthermore, increased demand for multiscreen video services is likely to drive up need for video transcoders. Multiscreen video refers to the conversion of video content into numerous video formats with various resolutions and bit rates for devices such as televisions, smartphones, tablets, and computers. Furthermore, the introduction of high efficiency video coding (HEVC) or H.265 is expected to raise demand for video transcoders in the near future among network operators and media businesses.

Ever-growing demand for content and adapt to rapid changes in viewer behavior

Media organizations are turning to the cloud to rethink the media pipeline, from acquisition through distribution of premium IP, adaptive bit-rate live and on-demand video across numerous devices, in order to keep up with an ever-growing demand for content and respond to quick changes in viewer behavior. Broadcasters are attempting to fine-tune pipelines and shift more of their traditional video infrastructure to the cloud in keeping with this trend. As a result, the cloud’s flexibility, scalability, and security are proving to be a huge benefit, allowing for unprecedented levels of technological and operational independence as well as cost savings.

While the vast majority of broadcasters have already begun to embrace cloud-based technology for these reasons, implementing a complete broadcast in the cloud workflow is only now becoming a reality, thanks to technological advancements that make it easier to deliver traditional broadcast content and multiscreen linear video within a unified virtual architecture.

Market Restraints

Limited capability to deliver 4K streaming and broadcasting services

4K televisions have become commonplace. However, due to the restricted availability of 4K programming on broadcast and streaming networks, it is difficult to fully utilize the capabilities of 4K TVs. Although some 4K content is available through OTT providers such as Netflix, Hulu, and Prime, powerful internet connections, high bandwidth, and high-efficiency video coding are required to broadcast such content. As a result of the poor adoption of high-efficiency encoders like H.266 and AV1, streaming and broadcasting of 4K content is constrained.

Availability of Free and Open-source Online Video Platform

The presence of several open-source video platforms in the market threatens the growth of the worldwide online video platform industry. Individual viewers and many content creators choose to use a freely available open-source internet video platform rather than pay a high price for one. This has a significant impact on the sales of OVP companies that do not provide their products for free. Furthermore, the rise in popularity of user-generated content (UGC) websites like YouTube and social networking sites like Facebook for hosting videos for free is likely to stifle industry growth.

Industry Challenges

Network Connectivity and Technical Difficulties Involved in Video Streaming

One of the key roadblocks in the video streaming software market is the lack of network connectivity and technical challenges associated with video streaming. Despite enormous developments in streaming technology over the last two decades, the sector continues to face distinct challenges. Viewers are unable to enjoy seamless video streaming due to bandwidth constraints, latency issues, and device compatibility issues.

Capital expenditures due to technological transition

HEVC (H.265), the most recent video compression technology, is more efficient than prior standards like MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. Although changing video codecs provides bandwidth benefits, the market faces hurdles because to ambiguity in patent license conditions, a lack of process components, and implementation costs.

Technology Trends

Centralized Media Ingest to the Cloud

The process of collecting, uploading, and storing videos into a file system is known as ingest. Multiple cloud vendors now offer ingesting HD quality video via direct upload over the internet, indicating that cloud storage has progressed. Once in the cloud, media assets can be encrypted, scanned by AI services, catalogued for search, transcoded, and distributed utilizing workflow automation technology.

The main advantage of quickly ingesting all media assets into the cloud is that it creates a “single source of truth” for a production. This allows the entire project team to use self-service tools like online search to find the most recent version of an asset. The lack of support for capturing media files at their source and seamlessly synchronizing them with cloud storage is one of the main hurdles to centralized cloud ingest. AI/ML may be used to evaluate and automate the time-consuming process of labelling, grouping, and resizing assets as soon as they’re put into the system, allowing team members to spend less time manually arranging metadata.

For example, you could add a photo of a product—say, a phone—and the AI engine can identify which brand and product it is, as well as location, contextual metadata associated with background imagery, and various other useful metadata values, using AI connected to your Digital Asset Management (DAM) system.

Cloud-based Real-time Collaboration

Video production is a multi-phased process that requires a lot of effort. The definitive version of the content is created late in the process since the phases are separated from one another. This means that many iterations are spent visualizing the content according to the creative direction between development and final editing. These downstream workflows can begin to operate in parallel with the help of real-time collaboration technology when media is directly uploaded to the cloud.

Studios who have started using cloud asset ingest and remote virtual creative workstations have reported an increase in data security trust. Workflows that rely on external vendors no longer require such vendors to keep copies of the files with a single source of truth for media assets. Granting and cancelling asset access can be done swiftly and easily online, with immediate enforcement. Despite these developments, maintaining version control and avoiding “shadow” repositories of media files remains a difficulty. Production costs for on-site storage and equipment will shift to cloud and internet providers as studios acquire confidence in these new technologies.

Pricing Trends

The cost of workflows is computed on a monthly basis based on the number of workflow steps completed.

Internal and external steps are two types of steps. Internal and external steps have varied prices.

The following stages are included in the overall number of workflow steps completed:

Any step that goes off without a hitch.

During the execution of a step, if it fails.

Any step that is retried throughout the execution of a workflow. Each retry attempt is treated as a separate step execution.

Pricing table

Resource	Price per month
Internal steps
First 5,000 steps	Free
Steps after 5,000	$0.01 per increment of 1,000 steps
External steps
First 2,000 steps	Free
Steps after 2,000	$0.025 per increment of 1,000 steps

Regulatory Trends

To guarantee that security and safety are maintained, governments and regulatory agencies have established regulatory consequences in the video streaming software business. This is one of the most pressing issues that must be addressed in the market. While online streaming is becoming increasingly popular, it also brings with it a slew of negative consequences that threaten users’ security. As a result, strong rules are required to keep such operations in check. Such laws have an impact on growth since service providers are required to follow the regulations in order to ensure that the rules are followed.

Post COVID-19 Recovery

If Covid-19 has a silver lining for the cloud-based video workflow sector, it’s that broadcasters of all sizes have discovered just how much they can accomplish remotely and how simple and cost-effective it is to convert operations to remote workflows using cloud and IP-based networks. Broadcasters who had already taken the plunge will continue to fine-tune and expand their remote capabilities, while those who were in the early stages of exploration – and then had their hand forced by the epidemic – will build on their recent accomplishments.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic has brought a standstill as a result of which the world has been brought to a standstill and which has caused the evolution of everything-from-home model which augured well for the cloud-based video workflows Market as there was improved demand from segments such as education, IT and Telecom segment. Over the Forecast period, the demand from other segments is expected to increase which is projected to augur well for the growth of the Market.

Market Size and Forecast

The cloud workflow market was worth USD 2.01 billion in 202- and is predicted to reach USD 4.43 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 17.1 percent over the forecast period.

Cloud Workflow Platforms dominates the Market with the largest Market Share

Cloud workflow platforms and services help clients streamline their business processes, improve accountability, reduce the project duration, improve communication, and reduce manual efforts. The platform aids in the efficiency of corporate procedures as well as the protection of business data. The advent of this platform has benefited the ecosystem’s primary stakeholders. Cloud workflow platform providers have broadened their products and played a role in increasing stakeholder revenue in a variety of areas.

The Cloud Workflow Platforms segment attained a Market Share of 60% and is poised to grow at a CAGR of 16.2% to reach a Market Size of USD 2.54 Billion in 2025 from a value of USD 1.206 Billion in 2020.

The Cloud Workflow Services accounted for 40% of the Market Share and is valued at USD 804 Million in 2020 and is projected to grow at 19.4% to reach a Market Size of USD 1.95 Billion in 2025.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) Segment is Expected to Grow at a Higher Growth Rate

According to RightScale Inc., businesses typically run a larger share of their workloads in a private cloud (46%) and a lesser portion (33%) in a public cloud. Small and medium firms, on the other hand, choose to use the public cloud (43%), rather than the much more expensive private cloud (35 percent).

Small and medium enterprises profit the most, according to OpsRamp, Inc., as they spend 36 percent less money on IT. According to Forbes, larger businesses invest more in cloud computing. Businesses with over 1,000 employees spend an average of USD 3.5 million. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, spent an average of USD 889,000.

Because a growing number of SMEs are using cloud workflow solutions, the SME category is likely to have a bigger market size and increase at a faster CAGR during the forecast period. SMEs used cloud workflow solutions to save money on the upfront costs of implementing workflow solutions on their own premises and to improve their business operations.

North America to Account for the Largest Market Share

Some of the region’s most prominent players have been able to advance technology through research and development. For example, Google launched its first Google Cloud Platform (GCP) field in Canada in February 2018, offering reduced pricing for Google Cloud Storage infrequent access and cold storage classes, as well as Nearline Storage services, to customers in the region.

According to a Cisco poll, 69 percent of IT decision-makers see BYOD as a real interest to workplace policies because it saves time for operators. BYOD adoption is expected to have increased 44.42 percent in the US IT sector during the last three years. With the growing number of mobile workers in enterprises and workplaces, the amount of data collected and managed has increased as well. This is expected to boost the growth of the cloud workflow market throughout the forecast period.

Countries in the region, such as the United States and Canada, are rapidly transforming their economies. The market is expected to be propelled by the growing adoption of cloud computing among businesses, as well as increased competition. Because of the new workflow management technology, the presence of top players, and the globalization of cloud services in the region, it is predicted to have the largest market size. In addition, this region has advanced tremendously in terms of technology and application deployments.

Market Outlook

Over the forecast period of 2021 to 2025, the Cloud Workflow Market is estimated to develop at a CAGR of 17.1 percent to reach a Market Size of USD 4.43 Billion in 2025. The cloud workflow market is expected to rise due to the growing use of cloud-based workflow among SMEs, rising cloud usage, and a growing focus on optimizing workflow and business processes. Cisco predicts that 94 percent of workloads will be created in cloud data centres by 2021, while Forbes predicts that 83 percent of company workloads will be in the cloud by 2020.

Small businesses are fast transitioning to the cloud from on-premises solutions. The Cloud Workflow Market has seen an increase in the deployment of cloud-based workflow solutions by SMEs and large organizations, thanks to the option of using workflow solutions on the cloud.

Large organizations, according to RightScale, run a larger amount of their workloads in a private cloud (46%) and a lesser fraction (33%) in the public cloud. Instead of private solutions, small and medium companies choose to use the public cloud (43 percent) (35 percent).

Furthermore, rising government usage of cloud services to automate workflow processes, analyses data, improve record-keeping, raise productivity, and improve efficiency is another factor projected to promote market growth to some extent.

According to Macquarie Telecom Group, a significant portion of government business is already on the cloud, ranging from 20% to 60% for most agencies. This means that cloud services will cost a lot of money on average. The majority of government entities spend between USD 2 and USD 3 million each year.

North America makes up a sizable portion of the Cloud Workflow Market. In terms of cloud adoption, it is one of the most advanced fields. Due to the rapid adoption of workflow management technology, the presence of leading companies, and the globalization of cloud services in the area, it is predicted to have the largest market size.

The cloud workflow industry has been growing rapidly, but the scarcity of secure cloud and the lack of secure cloud may limit the market’s growth. Furthermore, factors such as the expanding use of AI technology and the increased focus on digital transformation projects present the market with development prospects.

Technology Roadmap

Scaling video services to meet high demand is a critical aspect of every distributor. Maintaining an on-premises large service and video production storage infrastructure may limit your ability to scale when demand spikes and your company doubles in size overnight. If you’re forced to spend time, money, and other resources upgrading your services and storage capacity only to meet your increased demands, it’s possible that your workflow and income streams may be disrupted.

Providers must have scalable, dependable, and flexible solutions to meet the large shifts in streaming usage caused by COVID-19. Media processing and delivery services that are cloud-native or cloud-neutral are extremely versatile and scalable.

With a cloud workflow, streaming service providers can expand their capacity and capabilities without having to invest heavily in infrastructure. Your cloud service provider will keep an eye on the infrastructure and assign resources based on your requirements. Scale up and down in real time, paying just for the resources you need for as long as you need them.

Competitive Landscape

Because of the existence of major competitors such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle, the Cloud Workflow Market is moderately competitive. They have gained a competitive advantage over others due to their capacity to constantly innovate their goods. These players have been able to expand their market footprint through strategic collaborations, research and development, and mergers and acquisitions.

Key Market Developments

In June 2020, Pegasystems Inc. unveiled Pega Process Fabric, a new cloud-based software architecture aimed at streamlining how businesses manage work across disparate enterprise technologies. This “platform for platforms” breaks down technology silos to consolidate work across the company and improve user experiences for employees, customers, and partners with minimal deployment effort.

In April 2019, JEDI is a USD 10 billion military cloud deal that Amazon and Microsoft are competing for (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure). JEDI was created to replace older systems with cloud-based services. JEDI Cloud will deliver enterprise-level, commercial IaaS and PaaS to the Department and any mission partners for all Department business and mission operations, according to the initial proposal.

Competitive Factors

All of the Market’s Top Players have been striving to include the most recent innovation into the demand to obtain the most up-to-date and advanced products, while also maintaining quality and lowering prices to a great extent. As a result, market expansion has been fueled by collaborations, acquisitions, and mergers. All of these actors have also served as role models for newcomers, providing an example of a productive working atmosphere.

Recent Developments

Brightcove launched a new mobile app in April 2020 to enable efficient video streamlining of staff. I was created to help with internal communications within a company. It also includes a template for content organisation, monitoring, and security.
In July 2019, Kaltura released a new advanced video analytics system that focuses on viewing, engaging, and creating the dimensions for practical audience management data.
Brightcove and Southern Cross Austereo joined in March 2017, allowing Brightcove to post the content faster and more efficiently.

Key Market Players

Some of the key global video encoder and transcoder providers in the market are Intel Corporation, Encoding.com Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, Imagine Communications Corporation, VBrick Systems, Inc., Wowza Media Systems, LLC, ActiveVideo Networks, Inc. and HaiVision Systems, Inc.

Haivision Systems Inc. is a Canadian firm that specializes in mission-critical, real-time video streaming and networking. It uses a variety of software, hardware, and services to provide video across the Internet protocol (IP) video lifecycle (contribution, distribution, and delivery). Its platform is made up of smart edge devices that specialize in picture encoding and decoding. For video routing, processing, and management over any IP network, the devices are coupled with video management and networking software running on private and public clouds. It helps with video streaming workflow by encoding, decoding, and transcoding. It sells the product and allows blue-chip end-clients in areas like technology, media and entertainment, manufacturing, consumer products, financial services, healthcare, and retail to access real-time video. It serves businesses and governments by providing infrastructure solutions for the video streaming market.

Encoding.com, Inc. provides video encoding and streaming services. The Company offers services to media, entertainment, e-learning, retail, telecommunication, lifestyle, and advertising. Encoding.com operates in the United States.

Nvidia Corporation is a corporation that specializes in artificial intelligence computing. Graphics and Compute & Networking are the two segments in which it operates. GeForce graphics processing units (GPUs), the GeForce NOW game streaming service and related infrastructure, and solutions for gaming platforms; Quadro/NVIDIA RTX GPUs for enterprise workstation graphics; virtual graphics processing unit (vGPU) software for cloud-based visual and virtual computing; and automotive platforms for infotainment systems are all part of the company’s Graphics segment. Its platforms address markets such as Gaming, Professional Visualization, Data Center, and Automotive.

Imagine Communications is an Irish internet service provider and telecoms operator that offers WiMAX and wireless broadband services as well as reselling Eircom wholesale telecommunications packages. Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, Norway, and the United States are all served by the corporation. Imagine temporarily ran “Cellular 3,” Ireland’s first mobile virtual network, which purchased airtime from Eircell. The agreement was terminated due to a legal challenge, and Imagine quit the mobile industry. Imagine was de facto Ireland’s third mobile operator at the time, while Meteor Mobile Communications, the third physical operator, had not to be licensed

VBrick Systems, Inc. provides video management services. The Company offers video management platform, enterprise delivery network, and online streaming services. VBrick Systems serves customers worldwide.

Wowza Media Systems is the creator of the Wowza Streaming Engine (formerly known as Wowza Media Server) is Wowza Media Systems’ unified streaming media server software. The server streams live and on-demand video, audio, and rich Internet applications to desktop, laptop, and tablet computers, mobile devices, IPTV set-top boxes, internet-connected TV sets, gaming consoles, and other network-connected devices across IP networks. The server is a Java application that may be installed on a variety of operating systems.

ActiveVideo Networks, Inc. operates as a software company. The Company offers software platform for pay-tv navigation, interactive TV advertisements, and online video. ActiveVideo Networks serves clients in the United States.

Strategic Conclusion

As cloud-based video production becomes the norm, content owners will have the ability to develop and produce more titles with more predictability. Early renderings that can be viewed as cloud immediate can aid with budgeting, marketing, and creative purpose decisions. Teams working on huge franchises might reap synergistic benefits further downstream by simultaneously developing assets that have been shared by the production. Technology companies are collaborating to standardize software connectors and security protocols. Other industry partners will need to collaborate to provide cloud-native tools, services, and workflows that address the remaining barriers to standardization and user acceptance.

To do this, participants must develop a clearly defined plan for where the industry should go in the next years, as well as a coordinated approach for research, learnings, and recommendations that can be shared with the community for refinement. A ten-year timescale is the most conservative estimate for these changes. Through the process of stakeholder interaction, this will change over time. Most importantly, the several companies participating in the various steps and processes will have to continue to generate innovations.

References

Appendix

SMEs – Small & Medium Enterprises
HR – Human Resources
R&D – Research & Development
OTT – over-the-top streaming services
GDP – Gross Domestic Product
HEVC – High Efficiency Video Coding
UGC – User-Generated Content
HD – High-Definition
AI – Artificial Intelligence
DAM – Digital Asset Management

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Next Post

Asia-Pacific Cross-border and Remittance Service Market

Our Purpose

...to democratize business information...

Contact Us