The volume your business is actually producing

Ask the central comms or marketing leader at most enterprises how many videos the business produces a year and they will give you a number. It is almost always wrong, low by 40 to 60%. The number they give is the central program; the actual volume is the central program plus the ad-hoc work each function is doing on its own. Sales pays for a freelancer to cut customer videos. L&D has a separate vendor for compliance modules. Recruitment uses an agency for employer brand pieces. Customer success bought a SaaS tool to record product walkthroughs.

The work is happening. It is just invisible to central. And it is fragmented across vendors, brand interpretations and measurement frameworks that do not roll up.

How six core functions actually use video

Across enterprise customers we work with, the same six functions show up as primary video producers. Each has its own format mix, its own outcome metric, and its own typical annual volume. A real enterprise video program covers all six, not just the central marketing team.

Marketing: brand and demand generation

Customer story videos, landing-page videos, brand campaigns, paid social cutdowns, event highlights. Typical enterprise volume: 12 to 36 videos a year. Primary metric: conversion lift on video-enabled pages, marketing-influenced pipeline. This is the function most central comms teams see clearly because it sits closest to them.

Sales: enablement and outreach

Personalized executive intros, recorded demos, customer testimonials, sales follow-up videos, RFP response decks with embedded video. Typical enterprise volume: 24 to 72 videos a year, much of it personalized. Primary metric: demo-to-close rate. This is the function most often invisible to central, because sales tends to self-source video and treat it as cost-of-doing-business rather than a program.

Internal comms: CEO updates and change

CEO updates, town halls, all-hands recaps, change announcements, internal campaign videos, leadership statements. Typical enterprise volume: 12 to 48 videos a year. Primary metric: pulse survey movement on topic and employee NPS. Usually visible to central because comms owns most of the production.

Learning & development: training and enablement

Onboarding modules, compliance training, microlearning libraries, product training, manager development series, sales training. Typical enterprise volume: 24 to 96 videos a year, often the highest-volume function in the business. Primary metric: course completion rate plus classroom hours saved. Frequently invisible to central because L&D runs its own LMS and its own video production with its own vendor.

People: recruitment and employer brand

Employer brand films, hiring manager intros, day-in-the-life pieces, role-specific videos, recruitment campaigns. Typical enterprise volume: 6 to 24 videos a year. Primary metric: cost per qualified hire. Often outsourced to a recruitment agency rather than the video team.

Customer success: onboarding and support

Onboarding walkthroughs, product training, FAQ video responses, QBR videos, renewal campaign videos. Typical enterprise volume: 12 to 48 videos a year. Primary metric: support tickets avoided and NPS movement. Often produced through a SaaS tool rather than a video team, which means brand and quality vary.

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What the consolidated company-wide volume looks like

Adding the six function ranges together gives a typical mid-enterprise total of 90 to 320 finished videos a year. The wide range reflects company size, sector and how mature each function's program is. Mature programs sit at the top of the range; programs where one or two functions have not yet started video sit at the bottom.

Most central comms teams when shown this range respond: "We do nowhere near that many." Which is correct, for the central program. The 90 to 320 includes the ad-hoc work each function is doing on its own. When you ask each function leader directly, the number is almost always higher than central comms expects.

The hidden cost of letting each function fend for itself

Four costs stack up when six functions each source their own video work.

Brand fragments

Each function picks the vendor that fits its budget and its timeline. Six vendors interpret the brand six different ways. Lower thirds drift. Voice drifts. Cultural references drift. The brand custodian cannot keep up because they only see the work central knows about. Brand consistency across the wider asset library quietly degrades.

Cost stacks invisibly

Six functions, six small budgets, six vendor setup fees, six account management overheads. Total cost is often 2 to 3x what a single consolidated program would cost for the same output, but the cost is hidden because no central budget line sees the total. The CFO discovers it during a procurement audit.

Measurement disappears

Without a central data pipeline, each function reports its own outcomes in its own way. Marketing reports views. Sales reports nothing because they think video is part of their bonus. L&D reports completion. Comms reports pulse scores. Nothing rolls up. The board sees engagement metrics from marketing and assumes that is the whole picture, missing the bigger outcome story that lives inside L&D and customer success.

Assets never get reused

A customer story funded by sales never finds its way to marketing. A product walkthrough produced for L&D never makes it to customer success. The same brand idea gets re-shot three times because nobody knows it already exists. The asset library is fictional. Every function is operating on its own.

What a company-wide program looks like in practice

The shift is not "central takes over everything". The shift is one operating model that every function briefs into, with central comms owning the brand spine and each function owning their own outcomes.

Each function keeps its own budget and its own brief authority. Marketing decides what customer stories to make. Sales decides which exec intros to record. L&D decides the training calendar. Recruitment decides which roles need employer brand video. Each function knows their work better than central does.

What changes is the production layer. All six functions brief into the same platform, work with the same brand-trained editor team, use the same brand templates and have their work signed off by the same brand custodian. The vendor stack consolidates from 5 or 6 to 1. The brand templates load once. The asset library actually exists.

The reporting layer changes too. Each function still tracks its own primary metric (demo-to-close rate for sales, completion rate for L&D, conversion lift for marketing). The six metrics roll up into one company-wide Tier 3 report leadership can read. The board sees one program instead of six fragmented ones. We covered the measurement framework in how to measure enterprise video success.

How to make the case for consolidation internally

The internal politics of consolidating six functions into one operating model are harder than the operational design. Three moves that work.

Map the actual current vendor stack

Get an honest inventory of every video vendor in the business right now. Procurement can usually pull it from invoices. The list is almost always longer than central expects. Six to ten distinct vendors is common for a mid-enterprise. Putting the actual list on a slide is usually enough to start the consolidation conversation.

Run a function-by-function calendar

Each function shares its 12-month video calendar (or the closest equivalent). Overlay them. The duplicated work is usually obvious: two functions producing customer-focused videos in the same quarter, three different vendors at the same trade event, two regional offices booking the same crew for adjacent shoots. The opportunity to consolidate gets visible.

Start with one function as the proof point

Pick the function with the biggest current vendor spend or the most visible brand issues, and consolidate that one into the unified model first. Use the 90-day rollout we covered in how to build a video strategy from scratch. Once one function shows the operating model works, the others come in voluntarily.

What changes about how the in-house video team works

The in-house video team owns brand, strategy and creative direction across all six functions instead of just the function that hired them. The role gets bigger, not smaller. The production volume is absorbed by the partner. The in-house team becomes the brand custodian for video across the entire business.

Function leaders who used to argue with central about access to the video team now have direct access to a workflow that ships in 48 hours. Central comms gets to focus on the strategic decisions that matter (brand, voice, sign-off chain, executive content) without bottlenecking the rest of the business. We covered the working pattern in how a video partner extends your in-house team.

Frequently asked questions

What if one function refuses to consolidate?

Common at first. The fix is usually not to fight the function, but to make the consolidated model the obviously better option. A function that sees marketing get 48-hour turnaround, brand-locked output, and consolidated reporting will eventually opt in voluntarily. Forcing consolidation produces resistance; making it attractive produces adoption.

How does pricing work when six functions share one program?

Two common patterns. Either a single annual program priced at total volume with internal cost-recovery split across functions by usage, or function-level sub-tiers inside one MSA. Procurement and finance usually have a strong preference between the two; we adapt to whichever fits the internal accounting.

What does each function need to do differently?

Less than they expect. They keep their briefs, their outcomes, their function-specific approvals. What changes is the production workflow, not the function's strategy. The first project usually feels familiar enough that the function leader does not feel they have lost control of their own video work.

Does this work for highly regulated functions?

Yes, often better than separate vendors. Regulated content (financial services compliance pieces, pharma adverts, government communications) needs disciplined version control and audit trails. A consolidated operating model with one platform and one approval chain is easier to defend in audit than 5 separate vendor relationships.

What about regional functions that operate independently?

Regional teams brief into the same workflow but use the regional Shootsta hub closest to them. Sydney handles ANZ, London handles EMEA, Singapore handles APAC, San Diego handles the Americas. Brand templates and approval chains stay global. Local execution stays local. We covered this in how to scale video across global offices.

How long does it take to fully consolidate?

For a mid-enterprise moving from 5 or 6 vendors to one operating model: typically 6 to 12 months to fully transition. The first function usually moves in 90 days. The remaining functions follow over 2 to 4 quarters as their existing vendor contracts roll off. Procurement appreciates the staged approach because it avoids a single big procurement event.

How we built the numbers in this post

The function-by-function volume ranges and the consolidation benchmarks here are drawn from Shootsta's own enterprise customer base plus procurement audit work. Sources by claim.

• Central comms underestimates total business-wide video volume by 40 to 60%. Shootsta benchmark from pre-consolidation procurement audits. The under-count is concentrated in sales, L&D, recruitment and customer success, where each function often self-sources video outside the central program.
• Annual video volume by function. Marketing 12 to 36, sales 24 to 72, internal comms 12 to 48, L&D 24 to 96, people/recruitment 6 to 24, customer success 12 to 48. Shootsta benchmarks across mid- to large-enterprise customers. Mature programs sit at the top of each range.
• 90 to 320 total finished videos a year in a typical mid-enterprise. Sum of the six function ranges above. Includes the ad-hoc work each function is doing on its own, which is what central comms typically under-counts.
• 2 to 3x cost penalty when six functions each source their own video work. Shootsta benchmark from procurement audits. The penalty comes from duplicated setup fees, account management overheads, fragmented brand templates and re-shot duplicate content across functions.
• 6 to 12 months to fully consolidate from a multi-vendor stack to one operating model. Shootsta consolidation benchmark. The first function usually moves in 90 days; the remaining functions follow over 2 to 4 quarters as existing vendor contracts roll off.

Editorial standards

• Numbers cited are the most up-to-date figures we had at the time of writing. The "last updated" date on this page is when the numbers and sources were last reviewed.
• External benchmarks come from publicly available salary, labor and industry data. We name the source where possible and summarize where the underlying data sits behind a paywall.
• Internal benchmarks come from Shootsta's own production data across 70,000+ videos delivered for enterprise customers since 2015. Ranges reflect the middle 80% of customer outcomes; outliers excluded.
• Where ranges are given, they cover variability across sector, geography and program maturity. Treat them as starting hypotheses for your own program, not warranties.
• Spotted a number you would challenge? Let our editorial team know what you are seeing in your business and the data behind it. Material updates get credited in the post footer.

Where to go next

For the operating model that supports a multi-function program, read how a video partner extends your in-house team. For the budget framing leadership will ask for, read the business case for enterprise video. For the strategy framework that should sit above the use-case work, read how to build a video strategy from scratch. For the multi-region operating model, read how to scale video across global offices.

To audit the current video footprint across your business and scope a company-wide program, book a free consultation.