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Overview

Country or Region: United States

Industry: Media & Entertainment

Customer Profile

Founded more than 60 years ago, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (R&H) represents, through its theatrical, concert, and music publishing divisions, a wide variety of entertainment copyrights.

Business Situation

R&H had three different systems to track its finances and the operations of its concert and theatrical licensing. None of the three shared data with the others.

Solution

A Microsoft® Dynamics™ AX solution combined all the core functions of the company—from generating license terms, contracts, and shipping labels, to royalty payments—into a single system.

Benefits

■ Dependable business information

■ Complete view of operations

■ Faster response to customers

■ Easy to learn and implement

| | |“We can access one resource and truly know that we’re seeing the entire picture.”

John Elmer, Director of Finance and IT, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization

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| | | |Formed to manage and administer the licensing rights to some of the most famous properties in |

| | | |entertainment, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization had used three systems to manage finances and |

| | | |licensing. The company switched to a single, integrated business management solution: Microsoft® |

| | | |Dynamics™ AX, formerly known as Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta®. This switch allowed the company|

| | | |to gain new control over both its financial and business operations. With enhanced features developed|

| | | |by partner, Cole Systems, the solution boosts efficiency by reducing manual data entry and improves |

| | | |customer service by creating licenses and contracts while customers are on the phone. No matter how |

| | | |complex the licensing agreements with the company’s customers might be, Microsoft Dynamics AX gives |

| | | |both managers and customer representatives the information they need, instantly and accurately. |

| | | | |

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Situation

The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (R&H) was founded more than 60 years ago by two of the most celebrated musical talents of the 20th century. The composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II collaborated on such works as South Pacific, Oklahoma!, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. The business they founded controls and administers the copyrights of the two founders, as well as other musical and entertainment giants such as Irving Berlin, Lorenz Hart, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The company employs just under 50 people and consists of theatrical, concert, and music publishing divisions. Each year, the company issues tens of thousands of licenses for both professional and amateur productions of the beloved musicals, and hundreds of licenses for performances or recordings of copyrighted songs.

The complex business of issuing theatrical licenses, renting scripts and orchestral material, and tracking royalties was almost impossible to administer with conventional accounting and finance tools.

R&H eventually had three separate systems for running its business:

■ An IBM AS400 system for managing theatrical licensing

■ A custom application using a Windows® operating system interface to administer concert licensing

■ A standalone finance and accounting package that ran the company’s general ledger and accounts payable functions

None of these three disparate systems connected to any of the company’s other business systems.

In addition to the intellectual property business, a separate group at another site is responsible for packing, shipping, and receiving the rental material needed for theatrical performances: scripts, scores, and orchestral material. Employees at this location manually entered packing and shipping information into yet another standalone system.

“Our disparate systems made reporting very time consuming,” says John Elmer, Director of Finance and IT for R&H.

As a result of the three systems not being connected, getting a clear picture of the business was often a challenge.

Solution

To address these issues, R&H polled the marketplace for suggestions. They were directed to Cole Systems, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner with extensive experience implementing and enhancing Microsoft Dynamics™ business software.

After preliminary discussion with R&H, Cole gave R&H a demonstration of how Microsoft Dynamics AX could meet its specific needs.

“The demo really convinced us that they knew our business and understood the things that make us different from everybody else,” Elmer says.

Says David Weiner, the Microsoft Dynamics Practice Manager for Cole Systems, “We were able to prove to R&H that Microsoft Dynamics AX was a flexible solution that could meet the company’s industry-specific needs with just a few enhancements. We showed the decision makers industry-specific functionality, but we were also able to demonstrate how well the solution worked with other Microsoft products and technologies. The ability to leverage their current understanding of Microsoft applications was very attractive to them.” The Microsoft Dynamics AX user interface matches the Windows XP operating system. Weiner also comments on how Microsoft Dynamics AX integrates with Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client, Microsoft Office Word 2003 word processing software, and Microsoft Office Excel® 2003 spreadsheet software.

R&H gave Cole the assignment to build a single system that would integrate every aspect of its business. After an analysis phase and a five-month implementation process managed by Weiner, R&H now runs its business on Microsoft Dynamics AX.

“Our original thought was that it would take 18 months to implement a custom solution that met our needs,” Elmer says, “Our Microsoft Dynamics AX solution’s implementation lasted about half of the time—exactly on our budget target.”

The solution included a full range of other Microsoft technologies including Microsoft FRx® software, Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Active Directory®, and Windows® SharePoint® Services. In addition, two third-party tools were used: AXIP Royalty Accounting for Microsoft Dynamics AX by United ERP and UPS Interface by BKD Technologies.

The implementation required using the built-in Microsoft Dynamics AX customization tools to meet R&H’s specific requirements. “The way R&H recognizes revenue is unique,” Weiner says. “R&H may license a show and collect revenue on behalf of their clients well in advance, but they cannot recognize the revenue from that sale until the actual performance of that show.”

Further, Weiner knew that a central element of R&H’s business is the ability to calculate royalties that are due to various contract participants (underlying rights holders, composers, librettists, producers, and so on). Each participant’s contract has its own unique terms and complicated payment structures that must be quantified in order to determine the correct royalty. For this complex and vital operation, the team included United ERP, a Microsoft Certified Partner experienced in working with similar media, merchandising and publishing companies. The Microsoft Dynamics AX solution for R&H uses the AXIP component to handle all royalty accounting, accruals, statements and reporting.

In the theatrical division, every show license requires a variety of rental material, so an R&H representative needs to ask customers a series of questions. For the representatives, Cole created a series of screens that automatically calculate the cost of royalties and rentals and generate the appropriate licensing documents. (See Figure 1.)

In addition, show performances may need to comply with restrictions created by previous contracts. Cole built a software component that calculates the mileage and time restrictions placed on a show and tells the representative whether or not R&H can agree to a customer request for a particular show to be performed on a specific date at a certain location. (See Figure 2.) With one click of a button, Microsoft Dynamics AX can check for any restriction that may apply to a particular performance.

All the financial and operational data from the theatrical, concert, and rental groups flow together seamlessly.

Benefits

R&H managers were surprised and pleased at how well the Microsoft Dynamics AX solution solved their business needs. “Our business is very complex. For 20 years we’ve always run custom applications,” Elmer says. “Until now, we’ve never found anything off-the-shelf that accommodated anything but a small component of what we do.” The Microsoft Dynamics AX solution has both improved R&H’s financial reporting and also the company’s core business operations.

Dependable Business Information

Availability of the company’s information has noticeably and significantly improved. “Information can be entered into the system only once, and it’s immediately available wherever it’s needed,” Elmer says.

This information availability also helps improve the speed of creating reports. “It used to take us about 45 to 60 days to close a quarter,” he says. “Now, the company can close the books on a quarter in about a week.”

Complete View of Operations

An even more important benefit of the Microsoft Dynamics AX implementation is that company managers now have a complete, accurate, and up-to-date understanding of all company operations and enjoy a higher level of control over the business. “We can access one resource and truly know that we’re seeing the entire picture,” says Elmer. “In the past, we were always extracting information from a multitude of sources and putting them together manually.”

Now, R&H managers can log on to the system in the morning, produce the reports they need, and access a wealth of information in any form that they want, from summary data all the way down to individual transactions.

“Now we have direct knowledge of how much business we’ve booked, and what’s in the pipeline. Before Microsoft Dynamics AX, our inventory management for rental material was loosely based on analytics,” Elmer says. “Now it’s completely quantitative, so there’s no doubt.”

Faster Response to Customers

Business processes have significantly improved. “The lives of our customer representatives have changed dramatically,” Elmer adds. Representatives no longer need to re-key information several times. “Now, the license can be created while the customer is on the phone, and the representative can create one or many different licenses for different shows with different configurations very easily. They can e-mail out the license agreements to the customer. The customer gets the documents while they’re on the phone with the representative. All in the same interaction, the customer can discuss the cost or modify the terms. The reps can now focus their time on selling rather then data entry.”

Thanks to the enhancements and custom features added by Cole Systems, Microsoft Dynamics AX calculates royalties, creates licenses, and sends packing slip information directly to the shipping department. The company can now be assured that it always knows which scripts or orchestrations are on hand and what’s available for rental.

Accounts receivable information is readily available and collections are significantly easier, even in complex situations where, for example, one high school in a district has a credit balance and another school is overdue in its return of materials from a show.

Easy to Learn and Implement

Finally, the user interface and the close integration with other Microsoft products make Microsoft Dynamics AX easy to learn and easy to use.

R&H employees frequently paste data from the Dynamics AX solution into Microsoft Excel® for ad-hoc analysis. In addition, they create documents in Microsoft Office Word, which allows users to made modifications before sending to the customer, all the while keeping a centralized copy of the document in the system.

“Some of our least-experienced people are taking the most advantage of the system,” Elmer says. “They’re finding out what it can do and taking advantage of new features to improve the way they work.”

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success. 

 

For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:

dynamics

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“Now we have even more knowledge of how much business we’ve booked and what’s in the pipeline. The information is in real time and complete.”

John Elmer, Director of Finance and IT, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization

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Figure 2. The R&H solution Check Restrictions Screen.

No Business Like Show Business© Copyright 1946 (Renewed) by Irving Berlin

© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Active Directory, Axapta, Excel, FRx, Microsoft Dynamics, the Microsoft Dynamics logo, Microsoft Servers, Outlook, SharePoint, and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Document published July 2006 | | |

Figure 1. The R&H solution Configure Show Screen.

| |Software and Services

■ Microsoft Dynamics

− Microsoft Dynamics AX

■ Microsoft Office System

− Microsoft Office 2003

− Microsoft Office Excel 2003

− Microsoft Office Outlook 2003

− Microsoft Office Word 2003

■ Microsoft Servers

− Microsoft Exchange Server 2003

− Microsoft SQL Server 2000

− Microsoft Windows Server 2003

■ Windows XP

■ Partner Solutions

− AXIP Royalty Accounting for Microsoft Dynamics AX by United ERP

− UPS Interface by BKD Technologies

|Services

− Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services

− Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services

− Windows SharePoint Services

■ Technologies

− Active Directory

− Microsoft FRx

Partner

■ Cole Systems Associates, Inc.

| |

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For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information about The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization products and services, visit the Web site at:

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