Switchboard Delivers Data Operations for the Financial Times

SAN FRANCISCO, May 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Switchboard, the domain expert in data operations software for the largest content providers, today announced the results of their Financial Times implementation. Since deploying its turnkey solution last year for the Financial Times, Switchboard was able to accelerate the release of the FT's award-winning CPH (Cost-per-Hour) ad product by six to nine months. In addition, FT customers now benefit from 80% faster analytics for advertising campaign performance.

The Financial Times, one of the world's leading sources of news and information, with a reputation for precision and transparency, is now a majority digital content business. In order to maintain its competitive advantage, the FT needed to provide advertisers with a new level of insight in the form of increased audience attention. The FT partnered with Switchboard to access more granular data, such as event-level viewability and sell-through intelligence. Working with Switchboard's Data Operations platform, the FT was able to easily unify critical data streams to deliver real-time business insights while keeping costs in check.

"FT needed to automate existing manual data processes," said Barry Cassidy, Head of Advertising Operations at the Financial Times. "We implemented Switchboard's platform to eliminate the cost and uncertainty of building complex data automation. Switchboard's Data Operations domain expertise allowed us to focus on what we do best, delivering great digital media and award-winning ad products."

The results of FT's Switchboard implementation were significant:

• Faster Business Insights - FT tripled reporting frequency and increased granularity by 5X.
• Real-time Yield Forecasting - FT eliminated a four person-day overhead per forecast across all yield, planning, and ops teams.
• Zero Development Overhead - FT did not add developer hours for this large-scale data automation and governance work.
• Rapid Setup - FT's beta for sell-through forecasting was completed in one week. The production setup for CPH was completed in three weeks.

"Digital media businesses face unique Data Operations challenges because of the volume and variety of data they need to harness for advertisers," said Ju-kay Kwek, co-founder and CEO of Switchboard. "By removing the overhead of complicated and expensive Data Operations, Switchboard is helping FT accelerate the growth of their marketing intelligence platform and delight customers with new and constantly improving products like CPH."

Switchboard also optimizes yield and campaign performance for multiple ad products beyond CPH while keeping overhead low. The Financial Times plans to use the foundational data set created by Switchboard's Enterprise SaaS solution to accelerate development and ensure quality FT ad products. To learn more about Switchboard's Data Operations at the FT, visit Switchboard-software.com to view their FT case study, available today.

About Financial Times

The Financial Times is one of the world's leading business news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. In 2016 the FT passed a significant milestone in its digital transformation as digital and services revenues overtook print revenues for the first time. The FT has a combined paid print and digital circulation of more than 910,000 and makes 60% of revenues from its journalism.

About Switchboard

From the team that launched Google's BigQuery Platform, Switchboard provides domain expertise and an Enterprise SaaS solution to data-intensive companies looking to implement a robust DataOps platform. Founded in 2014, Switchboard's software automatically extracts, scrubs and normalizes data, bringing immediate usability to granular data. Switchboard is the leading DataOps software for the largest content providers, including Financial Times, Univision, and VICE Media. Be Data Strong - optimize and monetize data with Switchboard.

SOURCE Switchboard

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