MTV adopted Frends iPaaS to support the Nordic centralization of playout services and reduce the technical debt of all broadcasting operations. Frends has also streamlined deployment of MTV’s new B2B CRM system, Salesforce.
Business Goals
MTV Oy is the leading commercial TV company in Finland: they are the home of phenomena, current topics and stars. The media family includes streaming service MTV Katsomo and C More, TV channels MTV3, MTV Sub and MTV AVA, MTV Uutiset, which broadcasts current news on multiple channels, and pay TV channels. In addition, MTV arranges Finland's largest societal festival, SuomiAreena, in cooperation with the city of Pori every summer. MTV also organizes the TV & MEDIA -event for the TV and media industry annually. MTV is part of Telia Company – paving the way to further develop the whole media industry.
In 2019, MTV’s broadcasting partner, Red Bee Media, centralized its playout services in Stockholm, Sweden. Simultaneously, MTV’s broadcast automation software was replaced with a new one.
Instead of building new point-to-point integrations, MTV adopted Frends iPaaS, which combines efficient integration management and development with modern automation techniques. The integration platform was particularly vital in deploying Salesforce and harmonizing sales management with Swedish TV4. In the future, Frends iPaaS would allow scalability by reducing the dependencies on current systems.
“Frends is an easy-to-use platform, which makes minor modifications and problem-solving easy even if you haven’t built the processes yourself. With Frends, we can easily introduce new technologies to our ecosystem and remove old ones without risk.”
Jere Karhunen, System Architect at MTV Oy.
Integration Challenges
Broadcasting is a complex, fast-paced, and constantly evolving business that needs to operate around the clock. Offering content via linear and digital channels requires a lot of data, systems, and integrations. Many of the integrations were built point-to-point, which started to build dependencies and slow down development.
“We used to have point-to-point integrations with no orchestration. Monitoring processes and locating incidents was challenging, and we didn’t have a clear view of the architecture,” says Jere Karhunen, System Architect at MTV Oy.
So the media company started exploring options to help customer data, budgets, and forecasts flow smoother with more efficient integration development.
“Earlier, we had tried a few integration platforms, but they were too stiff for our needs. We started to explore technologies allowing a process model for integration development. Low-code Frends iPaaS matched our needs perfectly and, in addition, provides a simple user interface visualizing processes,” says Veli-Matti Huhtala, Product Owner at MTV.
Results
The Nordic centralization of playout services
MTV rebuilt their integrations on top of Frends iPaaS to enhance monitoring of data and locating incidents. The goal was to use Frends as an interpreter that modifies data in the form required by different systems.
“Frends has the business logic and determines in which format the information is forwarded. Frends operates in between systems modifying data. In addition, we built APIs that Red Bee Media and TV4 can utilize. The communication between systems is now extremely fluent and reliable,” says Karhunen.
Frends iPaaS made the centralization of playout services smooth and efficient without risking the flow of data in the process. Furthermore, MTV is no longer dependent on any current systems, but the switch will be easy in the future.
“Frends is an easy-to-use platform, which makes minor modifications and problem-solving easy even if you haven’t built the processes yourself. With Frends, we can easily introduce new technologies to our ecosystem and remove old ones without risk,” describes Karhunen.
By spring 2023, 95% of MTV’s business application integrations have been built with Frends iPaaS. Using Frends iPaaS has streamlined the operation and development of MTV and reduced technical debt.
“Frends works as a hub or an integration layer, which sets no limitations for the future. We can build various APIs and processes and use automation capabilities for increased efficiency,” says Karhunen.
Deploying MTV’s new B2B CRM system, Salesforce
MTV piloted Frends with its former CRM system, Microsoft Dynamics. In 2021, due to the acquisition, MTV introduced Salesforce to harmonize its operations with Swedish TV4. The deployment was highly successful, as all APIs were ready-made.
“Frends iPaaS made the CRM switch as efficient as possible as we only needed a new kind of mapping and some minor alterations. The receiving end for customer data already existed as we could utilize APIs made for our previous CRM system,” says Huhtala.
“Frends is the crucial interpreter between different systems, and it supports our microservice thinking. It would be impossible to manage the current status without Frends,” says Huhtala.
As a low-code platform, Frends iPaaS assures fast deployment of changes for MTV. In addition, MTV appreciates the platform's versatility that supports different methods, like XML and database search.
With Frends iPaaS and its capability to utilize existing integrations, MTV could deploy Salesforce fast and efficiently. Now, integration management and development are convenient and allow scalability without limitations. In addition, the integration architecture is not dependent on any specific technologies, but they can be flexibly replaced.
MTV is pleased with the fluent cooperation with Frends developers and scrum master.
“The cooperation has been excellent, and the team feels like a part of us. They are hard-working, and the project model with a scrum master has worked very well. We have regular meetups both remotely and face-to-face,” says Karhunen.