How Adobe Certified Service Partners bring creativity to everyone
Welcome three partners to its Adobe Certified Service Partner for Video and Audio program family: Benchmark Broadcast (South and Southeast Asia), CIS Group (US and Latin America), and Digistor (Australia).
The COVID-19 pandemic has had big impacts around the world on the way many people work. In the media and entertainment industry, the impact was twofold: a change in consumption and a change in production.
While streaming video has been on the rise for years, lockdowns and stay-at-home orders boosted demand to record-breaking heights. Media companies rose to the challenge to keep entertainment, news, and educational videos flowing to audiences everywhere. This meant embracing the cloud, setting up remote production workflows, and taking advantage of every collaboration tool available to connect team members working out of their own homes.
But many media companies discovered something surprising: by rethinking technical processes, they unleashed creativity. Creatives working with well-defined, highly integrated workflows spent more time polishing their work and less time wrestling with technology. Many employees also saw the upsides to working from home. Busy editors gained the flexibility to see family during work breaks. Producers dealing with pregnancy or physical disabilities no longer needed to worry about long commutes to a studio.
The key to successful remote media production lies in the technical environment. Companies must have the right solutions, supported by the right infrastructure, connecting the right workflows together using the smart integrations. And in the complex media world, what’s “right” can be very different for each company.
Enter Adobe Certified Service Partners for Video and Audio
At Adobe, we recognize the importance of having custom support to help media companies create environments that work for them and their goals. That’s why we introduced the Adobe Certified Service Partner for Video and Audio program. System integrators certified under this program are trained across three areas: support, workflow and system design, and software integrations. These Adobe Certified Service Partners help scale the reach of Adobe support by helping build efficient, productive, and creative environments around Adobe Creative Cloud apps for any media company.
Previously, we introduced the certification program and some of its first partners. Today, we would like to welcome three new partners to the growing service partner family: Benchmark Broadcast (South and Southeast Asia), CIS Group (US and Latin America), and Digistor (Australia). These three companies come from different corners of the world, but they have one thing in common: a strong commitment to helping customers achieve their best creativity with a solid technical foundation.
Benchmark Broadcast: Building the best systems for customers
Since its founding in 2006, Benchmark Broadcast has worked with some of the biggest broadcasters operating across the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia. The system integrator and consultancy provider has seen the media world change dramatically over the years. Production companies work with multiple vendors providing a complex array of equipment and software — from network, storage, and compute infrastructure to editing software, ingest systems, and media asset management.
“We’ve seen what happens when clients don’t have someone experienced trying to fit all of these complex pieces together,” says Ashish Mukherjee, CEO of Benchmark Broadcast. “It’s our job to find the best solutions for each customer and fit them together in a way that brings together the best system for each client.”
Benchmark Broadcast has spent many years creating workflows for clients built around Adobe Premiere Pro. As an Adobe Certified Service Partner for Video and Audio, Benchmark Broadcast now has a way of showing customers that its years of Adobe experience will translate into effective integrations and efficient media production.
“Adobe is not new to us, but the certification process was still very useful to our engineers,” says MP Eswaran, COO at Benchmark Broadcast. “It has structured lessons that lead us through best practices and make sure that we’re building workflows the right way, every step of the way. Our engineers are working much faster, but most importantly, they have an even deeper understanding of how all the pieces fit together so that we can improve the Adobe ecosystem for clients.”
“We’re a relatively small company but becoming a service partner has raised our profile,” adds Mukherjee. “We’ve seen a surge in demand for complex remote production environments. Many companies claim that they can do this, but with certification, we have a way of demonstrating to clients that we can and will get the work done.”
CIS Group: Working on the customer’s side
From reality TV shows to the Olympic games, CIS Group has provided design, workflow, and integration support to media companies across the Americas for more than 30 years. While the company was originally known as an Avid house, CIS Group started building more Adobe Creative Cloud workflows as it recognized the strong strategic vision and cutting-edge technology of Adobe Premiere Pro.
“The industry is changing for integrators like us,” says Matt Silva, CEO of CIS Group. “Customers aren’t coming to us looking to buy and install new products. They’re looking for a partner who can provide that additional support. They want someone who will sit on their side of their table, have those important conversations, and help them understand what solutions, workflows, and processes will give them the results they’re looking for.”
In the fast-changing world of media technology, the Adobe Certified Service Partner for Video and Audio training helps CIS Group stay on top of the latest features, integrations, and best practices. Clients can be confident that CIS Group has expert engineers who will work together to provide a cohesive environment that allows content creators to focus on the creative aspects of their jobs.
“There has been growing interest in remote workflows and collaboration for several years, but COVID-19 forced many companies’ hands,” says Silva. “It’s really inspired people to explore how they can take advantage of flexible and remote workflows to boost creativity while enabling industry participation for an even broader and more diverse group of creators.”
Digistor: Bringing production into a new era
From post-production to broadcast television, advertising to education, Digistor is one of the leading systems integrators working in Australia. One of the ways that Digistor differentiates itself is through its emphasis on working closely with customers to create custom pipelines that specifically address their workflow challenges.
“A live event pulling footage from multiple cameras at once will have very different workflow needs compared to a blockbuster movie,” says Mark Richards, marketing manager at Digistor. “Our goal is to find out what customers want to achieve and help them understand the advantages and disadvantages of any solution. We’ve worked with Adobe Premiere Pro for years due to its flexibility and open integrations that allow it to fit into any type of environment.”
Digistor frequently worked with Adobe to help its engineers better understand Adobe Creative Cloud apps and their integrations. But the training delivered as part of the Adobe Certified Service Partner for Video and Audio program took the learning to an even deeper level. Engineers learned how to get under the hood, extend architecture, and use Adobe resources to reach specific customer goals.
“We’ve already seen a huge appetite for more knowledge from customers,” adds Richards. “They’re asking detailed questions to understand how they can better adopt workflows, especially with growing reliance on cloud-based infrastructures and remote production teams. As an Adobe Certified Service Partner, we’re better positioned to provide guidance with confidence.”
With the help of our newest Adobe Certified Service Partners, Benchmark Broadcast, CIS Group, and Digistor, we’re reaching more video and broadcast clients worldwide to provide them with the custom solutions that they need to focus on bringing creativity to the forefront, no matter where teams are located.
For additional information on the Adobe Certified Service Partner for Video and Audio program, please contact your Adobe representative.