• Success Story: Kushner-Locke Company
• System 7 Beta Release 2 Coming 9 October
• Release 5.51.03 is on the Website
• Upgrade Support with Adobe Acrobat
• People on the Move
• About Jaguar News

Senior Management Support is Key

Over the past year, Kushner-Locke Company has realized their dream of achieving a level of information systems synergy that is outstanding among Jaguar clients and incomprehensible elsewhere! How they did this is a fascinating story of executive initiative, scheduled management involvement, resource planning and close vendor relations.

Today, Corporate, Operations, Accounting, Finance, Business Affairs, Sales Administration, Marketing, Sales, Post-Production and Servicing all share and cooperate in a virtual symphony of contract administration, rights availability management, revenue accounting and participations. Powerful instant queries combined with comprehensive decision support reporting, has pushed daily use of the system to exceptionally high levels within the executive suite.

From the beginning, support for the vision of a fully integrated Jaguar system at K-L came from the very top. Peter Locke, Co-Chairman, was the key champion for the project, with direct personal involvement during the crucial initial phases when priorities were assigned and departmental participation levels were established.

Perhaps Peter’s most lasting contribution was supervising the assembly of the core management and administrative team to accept day to day responsibility for the system’s ultimate success. Steve Rosen, EVP Operations and Finance, Sharyon Cobe, Senior Consultant, and Dean Cleverdon, Consultant and Jaguar Specialist. Dean came to K-L to lead the data entry efforts with two years of Jaguar contract administration and rights management experience at Live Home Video. Sharyon, well known as a three term AFMA Board Member and current chairman of its Industry Relations Committee, accepted leadership of the project as an independent consultant. Steve joined the company at the executive level to provide senior management guidance and support.

Upon being passed the mentor baton by Peter, Steve Rosen established the inauspiciously named “Jaguar Conflicts” steering committee consisting of senior executives from Finance, Legal Affairs, Operations, Sales and Contract Administration. Initially the committee focused on ensuring data entry integrity and establishing a formal contract authorization cycle supported by Vaughdrea Harvey, Director of Contract Administration. At the request of Mevelyn Valladares, V.P. Sales Administration, a “Stylized Invoice” customization was conceived and managed as part of a successful transition from Excel to Jaguar invoicing. New technology rights were analyzed and added. Revenue Recognition procedures were initiated to ensure consistency. “Exclusive Warning” and “Co-Exclusive” rights status were defined. Contract Revision A/R Aging conflicts were resolved.

As K-L moved into live operation, the group’s primary activity became a bi-weekly meeting designed to resolve interdepartmental operational issues and contract inconsistencies highlighted by the system’s collision testing function. Most important, these meetings gave senior management powerful insight into the capabilities and limitations of the Jaguar system. The result has been dramatically enhanced cooperation as all involved parties fully understand the impact of their action or inaction.

Now that the live system has reached a level of maturity, Mevelyn and Vaughdrea play a significant role in maintaining data entry integrity for the system. Mevelyn as V.P. Sales Administration maintains and manages all revenue issues within the system (Accounts Receivable and Revenue Recognition). Vaughdrea Harvey maintains and manages all contract data entry. Together, they are instrumental in identifying and resolving day-to-day conflict issues. They play a critical role in bringing to the forefront those controversial issues that require the review of Operations and Business Affairs.

Sharon Cobe’s accomplishments as project manager and system administrator speak for themselves. Jaguar News found the summary of her responsibilities to be an instructive look at the reality of implementing a major mission critical system throughout a corporation:

• Hire and manage the installation project team. 
• Provide system data entry and report generating training for all users. Coordinate and schedule training with Jaguar. 
• Manage the conversion and validation of over two thousand international licensing agreements to the Jaguar integrated licensing management software system. 
• Administer the K-L system and supervise the implementation roll out of each module (the rights management, business affairs, accounting and materials tracking modules). 
• Manage and negotiate software modifications for the company’s special needs. 
• Implement, coordinate and manage policies and procedures for data entry, authorization and approvals for processing data as well as security guidelines for individual users. 
• Administer ongoing data flow policies and procedures inter and intra modules and departments with management advise and consent. Maintain flow chart outlining the pattern and path of data flow. 
• Monitor licensing conflicts (rights licensing window issues, overlapping licensing rights due to action activated contract terms, acquisition deficiencies, etc.). 
• Generate Availabilities reports for sophisticated management requirements (library evaluation purposes, specialized sales, etc.) 
• Coordinate with Accounting and Mevelyn Valladares the identification and acknowledgement of revenue recognition. As well as audit system on a quarterly basis to verify receivables data against corporate accounting’s records for revenue recognition and accounts receivables. 
• Manage retransmission, blank tape, and producer royalty reporting. 
• Responsible for high-level system postings and system utilities processing. 
• Manage acquisition contract data entry and the title table for the system. 
• Manage and monitor service items.

Kushner-Locke would like to give special thanks to Jaguar’s Greg Stadler and Bill Gibbs for their responsiveness, diligence and occasional brilliance in assisting their efforts with system support, consulting, problem solving and software modifications. Thanks also go to John Burke and Donald Rothenberg for their commitment and meticulousness in affecting their success story.

Jaguar is grateful to Kushner-Locke Company for providing superb inspiration to our present and future clients. Please see Jaguar News contact information below if you are interested in additional information.

System 7 Beta Release 2 Coming 9 October

System 7 Universal Rights Management is taking another step closer to reality with its second official beta release on 9 October. Hallmark Entertainment, National Geographic Society, NBA and Sesame Workshop will be achieving yet another milestone in their drive to break in the new standard for intellectual property systems. System 7 does the tough jobs that create powerful synergies within the organization. It will be shown to the public for the first time at a seminar on 1 December in Pasadena.

System 7 is named Universal Rights Management to indicate its ability to act as a rights inventory, 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 encourage creative, sales, legal and finance executives to better understand their business from any angle with the push of a few buttons. Highlights include:

Contract Administration 

• Universal Contract Database with the flexibility to capture all types of complex agreements. 
• Event-Driven Calendaring and email for options, expirations, payments, revenue recognition...

Rights Availability Management

• Hierarchical Availabilities that analyze definable multi-level asset, right and territory groupings.
• One Step Amendments convert contract revisions into an update to A/R, G/L and Availabilities.

Accounts Receivable

• Component Receivables by Contract, Asset, Territory and Right for precision reports and projections. 
• 4 Tier Multi-Currency for corporate, division, contract and royalty to fit any corporate configuration.

Royalties 

• Guarantee Shortfall Invoicing takes cross-collateralized agreements to the bottom line transaction. 
• SKU Level eRoyalties uses the Internet to effortlessly capture the ultimate in performance detail.

General Ledger

• Cash Profit Participations is built upon Cash Revenue Recognition to streamline data gathering. 
• G/L Auto-Generation uses rules to populate each segment: main, sub, asset, right, territory, division…

Technical 

• Loosely-Coupled Framework supports multiple databases, component objects, custom interfaces… 
• Custom Rights Structure sets labels and levels for assets, territories, rights and distribution channels.

Key System 7 technologies include Microsoft Internet Information Server, MS Visual Basic, MS SQL Server, MS Transaction Server, Seagate Crystal Reports, eHelp RoboHELP and Oracle 8i (S7 2.0). 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.

Release 5.51.03 is now on the Website

Jaguar’s third Version 5.5 update of 2000 has been made available under the Support section of www.jaguartc.com starting 1 September. Installation will require about 15 minutes to complete. A document in the Support Knowledgebase is available for anyone desiring to take a look at the details of Upgrade Wizard operation.

This release includes 24 enhancements made on behalf of Jaguar R&D, Warner Home Video, Global Media Distribution, Cinar, Discovery Communications, Southern Star Group, Sesame Workshop, Winstar TV & Video, Atom Films, NBA, Name Withheld and National Geographic Society.

Upgrade Support with Adobe Acrobat

As most of our clients know, when it comes to clearly communicating the details of a service request to Jaguar, a picture can be worth more than 1,000 words. Several of our clients are now using Adobe Acrobat as a tool to send us clear, detailed examples of report issues and questions so that we can hit the ground running on receipt of new service requests.

The key feature of Acrobat that we like the most, is its ability to allow any Windows application to print to an Adobe Acrobat PDF file by selecting Acrobat instead of a printer. The result is that any Jaguar report or form can be printed to a PDF file, which can then be easily emailed to us as an attachment. At our end, using the Adobe Acrobat Reader, these files display beautifully on our screen or as a printed report.

In the past, most of our clients have typically faxed us their report samples. Because of the shaded blocks and the inherent quality limitations of faxing, they are usually very difficult to read and analyze. Phone calls are frequently required to verify the report data and fully understand the problem.

If you already have Acrobat or would consider acquiring it, we highly recommend that you use it as a tool for creating and sending us Jaguar report examples. It’s just as easy and surely faster than printing to a printer and faxing. For your information, this product is currently available from www.buy.com for $197.95.

Our service relationship will significantly benefit from the associated efficiencies of using this product. Our own internal experience shows that you can also expect to find other valuable uses for Acrobat in your day-to-day operations as well.

People on the Move

Bonnie Enzinna has been promoted to Director, Law, Business & Governmental Affairs at National Geographic Society from Manager, Contracts Administration.

Bonnie and her close associate Kerry Mysiak, have been at the center of the Jaguar success story at NGS since installation of the system in 1994. Bonnie has played the key role as project manager and system evangelist for the past 5 years, for which we are forever grateful!

This much deserved promotion is recognition of her continually expanding responsibilities at the organization in automating rights and distribution practices, first at National Geographic Television and subsequently at NG Channel, NG Licensing, NG.com and NG Publishing, with no end in sight!

Amy Nakano, former Senior Consultant at Jaguar and present Director of Business Management, Domestic at Sesame Workshop delivered Katherine (Katie) Hope to father Frank and sister Miki on 21 August at 11:51 PM. Katie weighed in at a healthy 7 pounds 10 ounces, stretching to 20.5 inches!

Heart felt congratulations from everyone at Jaguar to a wonderful family.

Bob Lasiewicz has been named Vice President of Sales at Creative Planet, Inc. a Los Angeles-based provider of technology solutions and on-line resources for the media production industry. Bob is a co-founder of ShowBiz Expo, an entertainment production trade show that Jaguar exhibited at for a number of years.

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