Cover Story
1. Simplify the details
Smart Business Los Angeles | November 2009
Whenever your company does something new or implements change, people are often fuzzy on the details of what tomorrow’s business tools and ideas mean to them. That’s why Jose Royo, CEO of Ascent Media Corp., breaks down the complicated.
Ascent is the world’s largest provider of integrated services for the creation, management and distribution of media content. Its digital distribution handles, among other things, everything done by Sony Pictures, distributing about 50 terabytes a week.
Such technological complexity often leads to questions like: What’s a terabyte, and what does it mean for customers?
“Simplicity helps a lot,” Royo says. “… Articulate a vision that is clear and astute. Be clear about what the vision is, collaborate through the definition of that vision, and then be clear on what the execution components are going to be and who’s going to be doing what so there is a common sense of purpose.”
Royo ensures his vision is easy to understand by eliminating what makes it elaborate — new technology specifics, high-end financial terms and anything that an outsider wouldn’t understand. What’s left is a message that lays out how what Ascent is doing pushes its overall business goal.
“It’s about business,” Royo says. “And how do we have a healthy business going forward. … Strip all the technology sort of noise out of that equation and make sure that the business explanation and the business model that is put around any financial decision is laid down to that simple vision.”
