Success
Story: Lions Gate Entertainment
In September 1999, Lions
Gate Entertainment of Vancouver,
Montreal, Toronto,
New York, Los
Angeles and London,
took delivery of Jaguar's ACE,
BATS, PIPELINE, SCOREBOARD
and WRAP-UP modules.
This investment was made to provide Lions Gate with the contract
administration and revenue accounting core needed to support the ongoing
rapid expansion of its business through corporate acquisitions and
investment in film and television development. Acquisitions have
included Cinepix, The
Movie Group and most recently, Trimark
Pictures.
Lions Gate Films
is one of North America's most successful producers and distributors of
independent motion pictures. Recent hits include AMERICAN
PSYCHO and DOGMA. Lions
Gate Television produces mini-series, movies-of-the-week,
one-hour series and non-fiction programming for the North American and
international marketplaces. The latest highlight is a one-hour dramatic
series called MYSTERIOUS WAYS, which
premiered on NBC on 24 July.
The implementation process started that
same month with a three day series of on-site interviews in Toronto
focused on clerical staff, department managers and senior executives
whose work would be impacted by use of the system or its reports and
queries. Mark Madeisky,
entertainment industry systems consultant and Octavian
Mitrea, Director of Information Services, supervised the
interviews and guided the subsequent analysis and project planning
process.
Concurrently, Lions Gate decided that the
best way to ensure the success of the project was to create a Rights
Licensing System Manager position solely dedicated to
implementing and supporting their Jaguar system. Sandra
Stoll then joined the company to fill that vital role. One of
Sandra’s most important contributions has been developing and
implementing company-wide procedures and guidelines. System users and
non-users alike have found it essential to follow the resulting
blueprint to ensure accurate information capture, optimal communication
flow and a high performance data structure.
Contract data entry for Lions Gate Films
International commenced in December 1999 and was completed in March
2000. More than 1,050 sales contracts
and 100 acquisition contracts were entered and validated in less than 4
months!
Jaguar’s standard is to achieve at
least one key management priority in the first 4 to 6 months of hands on
work with the system. By going live with not only sales administration
(including Availabilities) but also revenue accounting in such a short
period, Lions Gate tied the 4 month record
for a new system implementation set by the NBA back in 1997! In fact,
the system has already been used to assist controllers and auditors with
the fiscal 2000 year-end closing process.
Currently the Legal Department is busy
abstracting agreements for the Canadian (English and French) and US
(Film and Television) operating units. This process is expected to
require 4-5 months. It uses a standard form drafted by Sandra to ensure
that all of the data required by the system is captured on the first
pass. Temporary data entry help will be added to expedite the effort,
with Canadian (in Canadian $) and then US Films and US Television (in
US$) contracts expected to be incorporated into live operation in short
order.
After all of the divisions have been
completely implemented, Sandra will continue to oversee the system and
its users to ensure the quality of data input, provide ongoing support
and keep the operation running like clockwork!
When asked about specific benefits, Lions
Gate’s first response was that they are greatly benefiting from
everything that this highly integrated system has to offer. They then
talked about dramatic improvements in these key areas:
- Accurate
Availability reporting.
- Audit quality Aging
and Cash Flow reports.
- Scheduled Contract
Invoice automation.
- Precise tracking of
contract term dates and invoice due dates.
- Establish library
re-sale values through historical analysis.
We would like to thank Sandra, Octavian
and Mark for setting a standard for others to measure up to. They have
shown once again that with the right resources and planning, Jaguar systems can be
brought into live operation in short order.
System 7 Beta
Release 28 August
System 7 Universal Rights Management is
taking a giant step closer to reality with its first official beta
release on 28 August. Hallmark Entertainment,
National Geographic Society, NBA
and Sesame Workshop are now gearing
up to take delivery of this important milestone in the evolution of
intellectual property systems.
System 7 is a complete redesign of Jaguar’s
industry leading Release 5.5 to take full advantage of state of the art
technology and 15 years of mission critical experience with many of the
world’s largest film and television producers and distributors,
consumer products licensors, publishers and Internet content providers.
System 7 is named Universal Rights Management
to indicate its ability to act as a rights inventory management,
contract administration and finance system for acquiring, developing and
licensing any type of intellectual property.
System 7 pulls together all types of
contracts, business relationships and intellectual assets into a single
flexible structure designed to enable sales,
legal and finance
executives to understand their business from any angle
with the push of a few buttons.
Contract
Types
Development, Production, Acquisition, Release,
Distribution, Advertising, Royalty, Subdistributor
Business
Relationships
Licensor, Participant, Licensee, Sublicensee, Agent,
Salesperson, Division
Intellectual
Assets
Features, MOW, Series, Episodes, Segments, Elements,
Frames, Software, Properties, Brands, Trademarks, Patents, Stock Photos,
Likeness, Music, Voice Over, Teams, Players, Packages, Website Audience…
Key System 7 technologies include Microsoft
Internet Information Server, MS
Visual Basic, MS SQL Server,
MS Transaction Server and Seagate
Crystal Reports. The system features a loosely-coupled n-Tier
object oriented framework that creates a streamlined and exceptionally
customizable user interface. Opportunities abound for efficient
integration with Enterprise Resource Planning, Digital Asset Management,
Email, e-Commerce and many other systems.
A slide show is featured on the home page
of www.jaguartc.com to provide
many additional details about System 7’s functions and technology.
About Jaguar News
Jaguar News is published by
Jaguar Consulting Inc.
Pasadena, California
Lincoln Center, New York
For additional information: Visit http://www.jaguartc.com
Or contact Sylvia
Rodriguez 626/796-1955 x204 srodriguez@jaguartc.com
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