HITS

LOS ANGELES — The media and entertainment industry continues to undergo a digital transformation, according to Box CEO Aaron Levie, with more cloud-based tool, integrated workflows and applications, and more services that focus on collaboration between business units.

“This industry is dramatically transforming, consumer expectations are dramatically transforming,” Levie said, speaking Oct. 4 during a morning keynote with Theresa Miller, EVP and CIO of Lionsgate, at the Hollywood Innovation & Technology Summit (HITS) Fall event. “It means a new set of challenges … for everyone in the business.”

Studios, including those like Lionsgate, have made major investments in a variety of tools —especially Software as a Service (SaaS) tools — from companies like Box, Salesforce and Microsoft — to better dig into data and analytics and break down long-standing, internal silos. For Levie, the importance of those tools lies at the edges of media and entertainment companies, “where you don’t have to go through the entire chain of command, the hierarchy of the entire business,” do share data and react to it.

“That nimbleness and agility at the edge of the company [is important],” he said.

But making sure those tools can speak to — and work with — each other is crucial. Otherwise, collaboration is muted, and made more difficult, Levie added. “You have an application for every part of work in the entertainment business,” he said. “The question is how do you get them all to work together.”

And even though more Hollywood vendor companies are working together, allowing even the products from competitors to more easily work with what they offer, it’s the studios who have the power to make sure the products they’re looking for work seamlessly.

“Everyone in this room, you have control over the roadmaps of software companies,” he said, speaking to the studio representatives in attendance.

HITS Fall was sponsored by Amazon Web Services, Box, Microsoft Azure, Ooyala, TiVo, Cognizant, DXC Technology, Gracenote, LiveTiles, ThinkAnalytics, Wasabi, Aspera, EIDR, MicroStrategy, the Trusted Partner Network, human-I-T, Zaszou IT Consulting, OnPrem Solution Partners, and Bob Gold & Associates, and was produced by the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA), in association with the Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), the Hollywood IT Society (HITS), the Smart Content Council and Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH).