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System 7 Version 1.3, Beyond the Basics
In addition to a plethora of minor features and
routine maintenance adjustments, the next release of System 7 Universal
Rights Management will represent a major advance in Ease of Use.
This upgrade will deliver the first installment of two major new user
empowerment features. The first, Contract Builder
is designed to produce an unlimited variety of elegantly formatted
executable agreements while radically simplifying
the contract data entry process. The second,
My Jaguar Personal Desktop, creates an
always-present command and control center
that automatically notifies users of potentially interesting system
events, while providing a highly intuitive drilldown capability to enable
instant investigation, and potentially, immediate action.
Contract Builder
Contract Builder brings System 7 as close as possible
to ease of use of Microsoft Word while maintaining all of the
essential Contract Intelligence that is System 7’s hallmark. Organizations
typically issue and manage a wide variety of contractual documents, varying
from 1 page Deal Memos to 100 page monuments to human creativity. System 7
is designed to handle these extremes, as well as everything in between. An
average Jaguar client may have 20 distinct styles of agreements, each with
their own unique organization and structural issues.
Contract Builder is designed to facilitate anything
from instant creation of a draft sales memo, a production Letter of Intent,
an asset library acquisition, a single title license, to a multi-year output
agreement, with maximum efficiency and accuracy in initial data entry,
ongoing administration and consequential financial processing.
Contract Builder provides a streamlined option that,
based upon a predefined Contract Type, asks only the questions that need to
be answered, and prints out an elegantly formatted signable agreement with
the absolute minimum of keystrokes and decisions
required to complete the process. Everything has been planned out
in advance, the data entry sequence, the questions that need to be answered,
the layout of the printed form, and the approval steps necessary for full
activation of the agreement as a living document within the organization.
The secret of Contract Builder’s power is its Form
Designer. This function provides a graphical utility that gives users
free reign to organize terms blocks, fields within those blocks, and
continuous text fields to best advantage in producing a readable, logical,
executable agreement. In addition, traditional Jaguar Rich Text font and
formatting capabilities are supported. The result is the visual
attractiveness and flow of a Microsoft Word document that can be viewed,
printed, compared, summarized, integrated and analyzed by anyone with the
proper security clearance, company-wide. Contract
Intelligence replaces the epidemic of Contract Ignorance that hampers the
effectiveness and profitability of most intellectual property enterprises
today.
Form Designer instructions are simultaneously
incorporated into the intelligence of the Contract Entry Wizard. The
Wizard automatically presents only those Sections that have been formatted
to appear on that Contract Type form. Most significantly, the Sections are
then presented in the precise order in which they will appear on the printed
page. The user interacts with an entry form that corresponds as closely as
possible to the expected output, and potentially, to source documentation. A
linear Document Assembly process is thus facilitated that
dramatically reduces the possibility of
accidentally omitted business terms or legal language clauses.
My Jaguar
System 7 takes customizability to a new dimension.
Each user is given the ability to predefine their viewing of system
information that is of greatest interest and utility in the performance of
their duties. This information is then automatically and continuously
displayed as part of the user’s Personal Desktop. The process starts
with a Preferences function that gives each password-holder the ability to
personalize their screen background graphics, printer options, remote access
search volumes, and to decide which of the 5 optional Data Views are
to be automatically activated at sign on.
These Data Views encompass all of the primary
functions of the system. Their intention is to provide both convenient
drilldown access to source data and to highlight changes to critical
information that require immediate attention. These views include: My
Calendar, My Contracts, My People, My Assets and My Finance. Each
operates as an intelligent information manager that makes users instantly
aware of new system information that might impact their job performance.
My Calendar brings visibility to System 7’s
integrated Action Management Event-Driven Calendaring System. New
Events are constantly being created and completed through Contract
Administration, Accounts Receivable and Workflow Management; some
items are of global importance, others are specific to a department or an
individual knowledge worker. Easy to use filtering
enables the user to set the controls of My Calendar to restrict displayed
events to only those activity types of genuine interest or concern. Examples
of restrictions include Date (Today,
This Week, This Month, This Year), Parties
(Responsible Individual, Responsible Department, Category, Class, Type), or
Contract Component (Asset, Right,
Territory, Distribution Channel, Function, Agent, Salesperson).
My Contracts presents summary information on a
selected range of contracts. System 7’s Universal Contract Database
capability allows centralized access to all
contract types: Development, Production, Acquisition, Internal
Use, Sales, Royalty-bearing, Agent and Sub-Distribution. Contracts may be
filtered by Type, Party, Asset, Territory, Right, Date, Status, and many
other options. Instant access to contract editing, form printing, queries
and reports for a selected contract is accomplished in just two mouse
clicks. With My Calendar and My Contracts, timely
contract administration is easy.
My People provides visibility to one of the
most important aspects of any business: relationships. Active filtering
presents constantly updated information on individuals, companies and
departments that are of interest. Instant access to in depth, graphing,
pivoting queries places everything that is known
about the relationship, past, present and future, in view. My
People also operates as a convenient way to
directly launch emails to frequent contacts.
My Assets enables the managed exposure and
monitoring of key Properties and Titles without the drudgery
of redundant searching and possible confusion of similarly named assets. The
first step is to identify the Assets that are of interest. They are then
continuously listed and updated as part of the Personal Desktop. With proper
security clearance, Assets may be instantly edited
as new information is developed. In addition, Asset-related
events, such as Release in a Territory, may be defined to later
automatically trigger global multiple contract invoicing and other system
functions.
My Finance provides a continually updated
listing of all current payments and invoices by department, division or
other criteria. In addition to drilling down to detailed queries, My Finance
streamlines data entry and contract processing activities by automatically
filling in data entry forms with default information. Queries, Reports, Cash
Receipts, Credit Memos and Debit Memos are facilitated.
New invoices and payments are automatically flagged
to ensure reliable expediting of critical accounting events.
System 7 Advantages - Comprehensive
Functionality Suite
System 7 is a fresh, ground-breaking design aimed at
completely revolutionizing the experience of using a fully integrated
intellectual property management system. The challenge faced in
characterizing the accomplishments of this 5 year, seventh generation
development effort is that they are far too numerous to discuss in a
single newsletter, or even summary sales literature! The following will be
the first of 6 Jaguar News articles aimed at rectifying this situation.
Please see the November 2002 Jaguar News under News at
www.jaguartc.com for the entire
System 7 Advantages outline.
System 7 integrates a broader range of functionality
than any previous generation of Jaguar’s world-leading systems.
Organizations find that System 7 both meets their top priority needs today
and easily accommodates future growth and potential changes in business
plan. The Digital Media Age has both opened up a huge new diversity of
intellectual property delivery channels and spawned a new era of
pay-as-you-go mass distribution. Combined, these two vital realities create
an administrative and accounting nightmare
for companies that in the past were able to manage their rights and process
payments by either stretching traditional
computerized accounting systems (ERP)
or abusing personal productivity tools such as Access,
Filemaker Pro, or the ever-present Excel.
Event-Driven Contract Administration
One viewpoint of System 7 is that it consists of three
fundamental information flows, each of which must be fully integrated with
the whole to produce positive results: accounting
transactions, agreement terms
and contractual dates. Successful
contract administration requires that all three types of information be
instantly available in precisely the organization and format most beneficial
for the purpose of the moment. System 7’s Executive Query function
provides an illustration of the potential of System 7 to deliver on its
promise. The Contract Query displays the entire contents of the
agreement (including legal language and financial terms), an attachment of
the actual signed agreement, historical financial performance data, pending
invoicing and guarantees, past contractual events, pending contractual
events, and most important, the ability to
drilldown into any contractual component to see how it relates to connected
financial, date or legal terms and activities.
Bi-Directional Rights Management
Many attempts at producing a rights management
solution take shortcuts that ultimately hamstring the accuracy and
reliability of their results. They make assumptions such as “all rights
are owned,” “all territories are fixed,” “all sales are non-exclusive,”
“assets are fundamental to rights,” “this department handles only these
specific rights,” and many others. System 7 makes no such assumptions.
Rights on both the acquisition and production side and the sales and
distribution side of the equation are handled in complete depth. Literally,
anything goes! All rights information is driven directly from actual
contracts based upon the configuration of the
hierarchical, inheritable Custom Rights Framework for
Assets, Components, Edit Versions, Territories,
Local Markets, Sales Channels, Distribution Points, Rights Classes, Final
Formats, Languages, Parties, Participants, Exclusivity, Shared Rights, Fixed
Dates and Contingent Events.
Asset Creation and Assembly
From a business standpoint, the most vital activity
within the organization is the efficient production and/or assembly of
valuable intellectual assets. Production of assets typically entails
contractual agreements with authors, actors, designers, photographers,
directors, illustrators, producers, production partners and owners of
required intellectual properties (trademarks, patents, copyrights,
permissions). These parties place rights restrictions, financial
contingencies, royalty terms and performance requirements that must be fully
integrated into production plans to mitigate the project’s financial and
legal risks. In addition, many assets are actually the product of extensive
licensing efforts to assemble preexisting film clips, articles, or
trademarks into a new synthesis with its own economic life and value.
System 7 brings absolute order to the formerly
impenetrable chaos of thousands of interrelated agreements, many with
potentially conflicting rights, expensive contingencies, performance
deadlines, unresolved options and complex repurposing limitations.
Royalty Earnings and Payables
The computer age has created expanded abilities for
efficient performance measurement that allow participants of all types to
both reduce their risk exposure and maximize their reward opportunities. The
result is agreements of enhanced fairness and dramatically increased
complexity. Enforcement of such agreements becomes a logistical nightmare of
cross-collateralization, guarantee contingencies, alternative royalty
calculation methods, sales tiers, date exceptions, option renewals and
SKU-level detail. By providing perfect integration between contractual
royalty, advance and guarantee terms, and cash-basis financial performance
history, System 7 enables precision validation of incoming royalty
collections and automatic generation of outgoing royalties payable
statements, all as a part of ongoing business activity. Profits are
maximized and errors minimized, to the benefit of long term client and
business partner relationships.
Accounts Receivable/Payment Administration
Timely and accurate processing of Invoices, Cash
Receipts, Payment Requests and Payments is essential to successful customer,
vendor and participant business relationships. 100%
integration of licensee receivables accounting and licensor payment
authorization functions within Contract Administration is the key
to a corporate reputation for intelligence and reliability in back office
operations. Critical to this integration is the ability of the receivables
and payments functions to work at an exceptionally detailed level in all
phases of their operation and reporting. Specifically, sub-transactions (on
both an accrual and a cash basis) identified by Asset, Territory, Right,
Distribution Channel, Party and Contract, must flow through the entire
process so that General Ledger Revenue Recognition, A/R Agings and
Projections, Participation Statements, Invoices and Payment Authorizations
are useful in all corporate automation processes, enterprise-wide.
Contract Revision Audit Trail
Fully automated Contract
Revisions is one of the core values of System 7. Millions of
dollars are wasted each year by ineffective processing of contractual
amendments and their financial impacts. The simple act of researching the
precise revision history of a major longstanding contract is typically
fraught with uncertainty at best and information lost outright at worst.
System 7’s Contract Revision process emulates standard Contract Entry. From
the operator’s perspective, changes to in force contracts are made virtually
as easily as pulling up a screen and typing in the desired change. A posting
process validates that this change does not violate any other active
agreements prior to replacing outdated transactions and information in the
General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Rights Management, Materials
Requirements, Participations and Contract Revision History databases.
About
Jaguar News
Jaguar News is published by
Jaguar Consulting Inc.
Pasadena,
California
Lincoln Center, New York
London, United Kingdom
For additional information: Visit http://www.jaguartc.com
Or contact
Marlene Willett 626/796-1955 x201
mwillett@jaguartc.com
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