Astro's Analytics Journey
Date Released:13 Sep 2017
Share
Tweet
This is the fifth piece in a series of blogs by Phuah Aik Chong, Astro Chief Technology Officer
In one of my earlier articles, I briefly touched on the importance of Data Analytics across all aspects of our business.
As part of our 3-year digital transformation journey, we recognise that it is key for us to build up our internal Analytics capabilities to enable Astro to leverage on data to serve our customers better, and to stay competitive.
As we progress into this journey, we increase the number of data points available to the business, thus opening a new world of opportunities with Analytics. Each business unit has several Analytics initiatives underway and these initiatives have grown organically to further refine our understanding of our customers in both households and down to an individual level, ultimately enabling highly targeted personalisation across all our products and services.
We have enabled personalised content recommendation across our On Demand service on connected set top boxes, and video streaming apps Astro GO and NJOI Now. Similarly, personalised product recommendation is available on our Go Shop ecommerce web portal. There are more in the pipeline to come.
Challenges from legacy practices
As we accelerate the pace of enabling data driven features in our products and services, we have created an unprecedented data wealth which requires a systematic approach to data and industrialisation of our Analytics practice. Without such an approach, we take the risk of being Data Rich but Insights Poor.
We do have a few challenges to overcome during the first few months of the journey in order for us to be able to really leverage on the rich data set we have, mainly due to how Analytics have evolved over the last few years in the organisation.
Our data is stored across a few different locations, on premise and in the cloud. Whilst we have a centralised Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) for the structured data from our PayTV business, the unstructured data from other digital products was stored across multiple systems in the cloud. It was complicated to understand the overall data landscape and time consuming to pull data across multiple sources for analysis.
There were existing Analytics and data skills in many parts of the organisation, with different maturity levels that sometimes operated in silos which meant we needed to strengthen the operating model and collaboration between the teams. The silo-ed engagement model limited the possibility to drive enterprise wide standards on data quality and best practices, and at the same time didn't provide good visibility of the overall integrated Analytics roadmap across all business units.
The first few months were spent making sure we started off with the best foundation, putting the right organisation and processes in place and empowering our people with Data Driven decision tools powered by the latest technology.
A modern data driven organisation
To facilitate data collection from all end points, we are quickly evolving from a traditional Enterprise Data Warehouse reliant organisation to one that is driven by a Cloud based Data Lake.
When centralising our data into a Data Lake architecture, we realised that we needed a business focused centralised organisation to leverage on the richness of the data across business units to ensuring the pollination of information throughout the Astro group.
With a centralised organisation, we aim to:
Provide an interface to the business leaders of each unit, helping them understand how to develop and refine their Analytics based Use Cases
Capture all business initiatives and break down the business KPIs into Analytics capabilities before they become an implementation project led by the project office
Add an Analytics component to all existing projects to ensure they are ready for future data analysis
Enhance data collection and processing from existing systems
This Analytics Practice or Center of Excellence (COE) comprised:
Data stewards in charge of the governance of data across all products and services
Analytics practitioners that are currently spread across the group
Data scientists who are already serving specific business units, plus new talents recruited Analytics mentors and coaches
Oversight by Analytics experts from Amazon Web Services
These mentors and coaches enabled our workforce to think data, back-up assumptions, and validate hypothesis with real data. They will increase our Exploratory Data Analysis capability among our employees and equip them with storytelling capabilities through data, giving greater insight to our business decision makers.
Data enabled Projects
Measuring success of an Analytics project may not be that straight forward and as such we make it a must to pre-define business KPIs for each Analytics project to ensure data points are made available for constant monitoring and re-adjustment if required.
With this approach, we aim to identify the opportunities for improvement, becoming a leaner, ROI-driven organisation, and only invest in projects and technology if they solve business problems at a realistic cost.
Our flexible, Cloud Based Data Lake architecture enables us to perform experiments faster by scaling up and down as we need, without requiring upfront investment through lengthy procurement processes.
This Data Lake collects, cleanses, and makes data available to Data Analysts, Data Scientists and ultimately the business decision makers, so that our business leaders can have better and faster insights into their areas of responsibility.
We are already beginning to see positive results from the Analytics investments we have made to date. We are very excited by the road ahead with the positive contributions these initiatives will have on our customers and b
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
Astro's Analytics Journey 
