Warner Music Group (WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the big three recording companies and operates some of the most successful labels in the world, including Elektra Records, Warner Records, Parlophone Records, and Atlantic Records.
With such a large, global catalog of music, enforcing data integrity is incredibly important for Warner Music Group.
Warner's Road to Accreditation
The Data Team at Warner Music Group is the backbone of quality control for all information associated with the millions of records in their illustrious catalog. As the catalog and company have expanded, so has the need for growth in their data team. With this growth has come a dire need to both quickly ramp these team members and implement an iron-clad accreditation program to ensure these team members have been properly trained on enforcing data standards.
As Warner's Senior Vice President of Data Operations describes, “Our accreditation process is driven by certain standards. In the past, we had a wiki page, which held all of our useful information, but it was in no way as easily presentable, maintainable, or accessible as what we have today with Continu.”
Before utilizing Continu, the data team at Warner was not easily able to verify a person’s level of competency before providing them access to the master data system. As such, this would result in the need for more senior team members to be involved in hands-on mitigation, taking valuable time away from some of the most experienced team members in Warner's organization.
With Continu we are able to easily and comfortably verify that new members of the Data Team not only have passed, but at which level they have done so.
“With Continu we are able to easily and comfortably verify that new members of the Data Team not only have passed, but at which level they have done so. This also allows us to properly allocate and offer additional support to people who actually need it and we’re able to use Continu insight to focus on the specific areas they need improvement in.”
The WMG Data Team was able to easily build a self-serve data accreditation program with the power of Continu’s authoring suite & automation power. When a new member joins the Data Team, with Continu’s Workflows, they are automatically provided a structured program to accreditation based on their specific job function & experience. As team members complete tailored Learning Tracks, they not only gain the knowledge they need to ensure data integrity, but have the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency through structured knowledge checks & assessments.
WMG’s use of Continu isn’t exclusive to the US though. According to Warner's Senior VP, “Our rigorous use of Continu is truly global, with over 30 territories accessing the platform - UK, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Portugal, Chile, and many more. The standards are truly global standards with Continu at the helm of supporting a global system. We have one single digital supply chain that needs to be managed with a level of consistency - whether it’s a local label or a large one like Warner or Atlantic Records, anyone supporting these entities is using Continu.”
Our rigorous use of Continu is truly global, with over 30 territories accessing the platform.
Before utilizing Continu, WMG’s data team relied heavily on in-person impromptu training and side-by-side data discrepancy resolution. The transition to a highly centralized learning program with Continu has properly prepared the team for anything that’s thrown at them, including an overnight global shift to remote work. “With the switch to remote work, we haven’t skipped a beat. In honesty, Continu was a tool that was ahead of Covid that allowed people to be self-supporting and manage training themselves without dependency on anyone else. Because of this, nothing has changed in our ability to do our work or our efficiency…it’s essentially been business as usual”