Grass Valley Announces Completion of Three-Year Business Transformation with Shift to Growth Mode
Hardware, Software and SaaS revenues surge, while AMPP goes mainstream worldwide
Grass Valley®, the leading innovator of solutions for live production, together with growth-driven private equity firm Black Dragon Capital, owners of Grass Valley – today announced that it has completed the three-year business transformation of Grass Valley and has transitioned to growth mode.
The company has seen a simplification of its organization focusing on improved client service, along with dramatic and continued investments in its market-leading integrated hardware solutions. Together with significant investment in the cloud-native AMPP® ecosystem and connected GV® Alliance solutions, the Grass Valley Media Universe (GVMU) suite is leading the industry as the most open and integrated ecosystem in the market.
“I’m very proud of the incredible transformation that the Grass Valley family has navigated.” said Grass Valley’s Chairman and CEO, Louis Hernandez Jr. “We set out a bold ambition to reimagine the future workflow for media and to accomplish this we’d have to work closely with our clients, who themselves are transforming to win in the next phase. We’ve simplified our organizational structure, with leadership changes and key new hires, optimized our global facilities, and focused our product portfolio to align with the changing media landscape. With the supply chain issues subsiding, we are seeing a considerable reduction in our backlog. I’m excited for our team and our industry that we are in a position to surge when our clients need us most.”
Since the launch of AMPP, Grass Valley have finessed their hardware portfolio, with new innovations closely tied to the AMPP ecosystem set to be unveiled soon. Together with key hardware integrations, the company has developed close to 100 native applications and certified nearly 80 Alliance partners within AMPP's open and integrated ecosystem. The platform provides clients with an open multi-vendor platform for live, production, and playout workflows as cloud-native solutions. Additionally, Grass Valley has enhanced the AMPP deployment models to encompass on-premises, cloud-hosted, or hybrid configurations—all while retaining the advantages of a cloud-native architecture. These innovations have resulted in eight significant patents issued in the first half of 2023 alone!
Throughout 2023, major Grass Valley customers are continuing to benefit from the agility and cost-efficiency advantages of hybrid (ground/cloud) architectures offered by AMPP. Among the most recent, fully deployed clients using Grass Valley’s approach to the future of media include CBS Sports Golazo Network, Sky, Telstra Broadcast Services and Canal+.
Grass Valley has experienced a strong surge in performance over the last year with the culmination of the business transformation and the rapid market acceleration of AMPP, resulting in dramatically improved performance. The Company has more than doubled its earnings in the last year alone, allowing it to look forward with accelerated investments across the portfolio. Notably, AMPP has exhibited over 200% year-over-year growth since 2020, having already achieved over 100% of its 2022 targets to date. Average application usage in AMPP now exceeds 3 million hours per month globally.
"With AMPP, we've ushered in a new era of cloud-native, open, and integrated solutions for media production, giving our clients the freedom to craft their workflows as they envision, whether it's on-premises, in the cloud, or a seamless blend of both,” said Grass Valley’s CPO, Adam Marshall. “Combine this with Grass Valley's industry leading innovations in cameras, routing, processing, and switchers, it underscores our steadfast commitment to propelling advancements in media technology.”
In tandem with its expansion initiatives, Grass Valley has appointed three key executives to its leadership team, closing the final phase of its three-year transformation plan:
Jon Wilson has been named Chief Operating Officer (COO), effective October 1st, 2023. Wilson former President and COO at Telestream previously served as CFO for just under three years. Wilson brings exceptional leadership skills and a proven track record of driving strategy and results, team development and continuous improvement throughout organizations. He is recognized for his ability to quickly comprehend and position new business models.
With immediate effect, Ian Fletcher has been appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) following his tenure as Senior Vice President VP of Enterprise Product Strategy. Prior to this, he held the position of Chief Application Designer within the Advanced Technology Group, playing a pivotal role in the inception and continuous enhancement and development of AMPP.
Adam Marshall is appointed as Chief Product Officer (CPO) effective immediately, following his previous role as VP of Marketing for Grass Valley. Marshall has quickly risen through the ranks of Grass Valley, previously holding the position of Pre-Sales Director and prior to that, Senior Global Pre-Sales Manager for AMPP & Playout. In his new role, Marshall will continue to have overall marketing responsibility for Grass Valley.
Furthermore, Grass Valley is on track to meet its goal, set in 2021, of hiring over 400 new, highly talented employees by the end of 2023. These positions are distributed across key global centers of excellence in Krakow, Poland; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Montreal, Canada, the company's operations center of excellence.
As part of its broader set of customer-centric strategic initiatives, Grass Valley launched an industry leadership council named GV x. The leadership council is comprised of over 35 of the most influential and recognized leaders in the media technology industry, providing valuable insights into the most important issues faced by our industry, market trends, and technology needs that GV and its ecosystem partners should address.
Grass Valley will be showcasing its solutions at IBC, Amsterdam, from September 15th through 18th, 2023. Grass Valley will demonstrate how its integrated hardware, software, and cloud GV Media Universe eliminates the traditional binary choice between on-premises and cloud solutions, offering an improved approach to decentralizing operations to align precisely with the unique requirements of each project. Visit Grass Valley at Stand 9-A01 to explore the future of media technology.
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About Grass Valley
Grass Valley is the leading media technology provider for the media and entertainment industry. Trusted by the world’s top media brands, Grass Valley is empowering content producers to deliver great live experiences through best-in-class hardware and software solutions that improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Supporting customers across the globe, Grass Valley is at the forefront of groundbreaking live media innovation and continues to create the future of live media production.
Headquartered in Montreal, Grass Valley has been engaged in the media technology business for over 60 years. For more information about Grass Valley, go to grassvalley.com.