5 key benefits of SaaS marketplace for OTT business

Your video streaming service is looking to take the market by storm. You've got great content, a dedicated team, and a solid business plan, but there's just one problem: building and maintaining an OTT service from scratch is an uphill battle that requires a lot of time, resources, and expertise. So, what's the solution?

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Enter the OTT marketplace - a hub of pre-built OTT integrations, tools, and features that can help you take your service to the next level. With the marketplace, you can easily scale your service, get to market faster, reduce costs, minimize risk, and streamline your workflow. Let’s look in detail at how your OTT business can benefit from operating the streaming service within a marketplace-based SaaS platform.

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Scalability

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The ability to scale the service easily and efficiently is one of the cornerstones of an OTT business. The marketplace provides video streaming services with access to pre-built integrations and features that can be easily added or removed as the business grows and evolves.

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For example, if a video streaming service wants to expand to new regions or territories, it can leverage the marketplace to quickly add new integrations and features that are relevant to the new audience. This can include adding new payment gateways, content delivery networks (CDNs), Digital Rights Management (DRM), social media platform integrations, and other regional-specific features that can improve the user experience and drive engagement.

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As the service expands, it can leverage the marketplace to add new monetization models or experiment with different approaches to revenue generation. As the market changes rapidly together with customer preferences, video businesses need to adapt quickly and alter the revenue sources to maintain the customer base. For example, the recent changes in the OTT space dictate that many users are trying to minimize the number of streaming subscriptions in a household due to an economic downturn, meaning that advertising-based monetization models suddenly become more attractive to OTT business in order to maintain the number of viewers. 

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If a video streaming service experiences sudden growth in demand but is not able to scale up its service quickly enough, users may experience issues such as slow load times, buffering, or other disruptions. By having access to a marketplace that can support scalability, video streaming services can ensure that their service can handle increases in traffic and user demand, providing a smooth and uninterrupted viewing experience for their viewers.

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Time to market

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Building an OTT service from scratch can be a time-consuming process that requires significant investment in resources and expertise. The marketplace offers a variety of pre-vetted partners and integrations, making it much easier and faster to build a comprehensive and high-quality video streaming service. It is absolutely possible to take an OTT service live in weeks rather than months or years.

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According to a report by IBM, building an OTT service from scratch can take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years, depending on the complexity of the service and the resources available. By contrast, using a marketplace within an OTT SaaS platform can significantly reduce this timeline and allow video streaming services to get to market faster.

Additionally, by using the pre-built integrations and tools available in the marketplace, video streaming services can avoid the delays that can come with finding and negotiating with the right partners for each aspect of their service. 

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There are many time-consuming operations when it comes to building a video streaming service, but one of the most time-consuming is the development of the video player itself. Developing a video player that can deliver high-quality video streams across different devices and platforms can be a complex and challenging process. It requires expertise in video encoding and delivery, as well as knowledge of the various video codecs and streaming protocols used across different platforms. To add, developing a user interface, integrating with different payment and monetization systems, and creating content management systems and storage solutions are some of the most challenging operations in an OTT space. 

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By utilizing a marketplace, streaming services can use pre-built video players, payment systems, and content management systems, allowing them to get to market faster and focus on other crucial aspects of their business.

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Cost-effectiveness

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OTT SaaS platforms can provide video streaming services with cost-effectiveness by eliminating the need for them to build and maintain the underlying technology infrastructure themselves. The businesses can leverage the resources and expertise of the SaaS platform provider, while also avoiding the significant capital expenditure required to build and maintain their own infrastructure.

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For example, a video streaming service that builds its own infrastructure would need to invest in servers, storage, networking equipment, and other hardware, as well as hire and maintain a team of engineers to manage and scale the infrastructure as needed. This can be a significant expense, particularly for smaller companies or startups with limited resources.

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Additionally, since the SaaS platform provider is responsible for maintaining and updating the underlying technology infrastructure, video streaming services can focus their resources on creating high-quality content and improving the user experience, rather than worrying about infrastructure maintenance.

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Though it is difficult to provide specific numbers for the cost of developing and maintaining an OTT service, as the costs can vary widely depending on the specific requirements of the project. However, according to a report from VideoNuze, the average cost of building an OTT service in 2020 was between $500,000 and $1 million, with ongoing maintenance costs averaging around $250,000 per year.

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Video streaming services can significantly reduce their development and maintenance costs by up to 90% by leveraging pre-built tools and integrations that are already available in the marketplace, as well as benefit from the economies of scale offered by the SaaS platform provider. 

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Reduced risk

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Since the vendors in the marketplace have already been pre-vetted by the SaaS platform provider, video streaming services can be confident that they are working with reliable and trustworthy partners. They can also avoid the risks of integrating with vendors who may not have experience in the specific requirements of a video streaming service.

Furthermore, since the vendors are available on an as-needed basis through the marketplace, video streaming services can avoid the risks associated with long-term contracts or commitments. This allows them to scale their platform up or down as needed based on the performance of their service and the changing needs of their viewers.

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One of the riskiest parts of building an OTT service is the investment required for developing and maintaining the technology and infrastructure, as well as the costs associated with acquiring and licensing content. Additionally, competition within the market can also be a significant risk, as it can be difficult to attract and retain subscribers. Other risks include technical issues, such as platform downtime or glitches, and changing regulations and industry standards.

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An OTT marketplace can help customers mitigate those risks in several ways. By offering pre-vetted and trusted technology vendors, the marketplace can help customers avoid the risk of integrating with unreliable or untested vendors. This can help ensure that the technology and infrastructure powering the OTT service is reliable and secure.

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Streamlined workflow

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With an OTT marketplace, video streaming services can streamline their workflow by accessing a suite of pre-built integrations and APIs. This means that they can quickly and easily connect different parts of their video service, such as content management systems, analytics tools, and monetization platforms, without having to build everything from scratch. This not only saves time but also reduces the risk of errors or inconsistencies in the workflow.

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For example, in a traditional video service development process, a video streaming service might need to build its own content management system from scratch, integrate it with the chosen analytics tool, and then integrate both of those systems with its chosen monetization platform. This can be a time-consuming and complex process, and there is a higher risk of errors or inconsistencies in the workflow.

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On the other hand, with an OTT marketplace, a video streaming service can access pre-built integrations and APIs for all of these systems, which reduces the time and complexity of the development process. This allows the video streaming service to focus on bringing the best content to its users, rather than spending time building and managing complex systems.

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Operational efficiency can help internal teams in a few ways:

1. Time-saving: With a streamlined workflow, teams can complete tasks more quickly and with fewer resources, which frees up time for other essential tasks.
2. Collaboration: By having a centralized platform and tools, teams can work together more easily and efficiently. For example, different teams such as marketing, content, and product can collaborate more easily on tasks like creating and promoting new content.
3. Resource allocation: With a more efficient workflow, teams can better allocate resources to the areas where they are most needed, whether it's creating new content, optimizing the user experience, or improving marketing campaigns.
4. Better decision-making: By having access to data and analytics, teams can make more informed decisions about their business. For example, they can use data to identify areas where they need to improve, make changes to the user experience based on user behavior, or adjust their marketing campaigns based on performance metrics.

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The marketplace is a valuable resource for video streaming services operating within an OTT space. By leveraging the pre-built integrations, tools, and features available in the marketplace, video streaming services can accelerate their time to market, reduce costs, minimize risk, and improve their operational efficiency, ultimately helping them succeed in the competitive OTT market.

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Experience the benefits of Accedo One's SaaS marketplace and take your OTT business to the next level. Book a demo here.