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Jaguar clients are the premier organisations of intellectual property
value realisation, frequently requiring worldwide solutions. Each
brings their own unique style and priorities in their use of Jaguar.
Some, like National Geographic Society, focus much
of their attention on the assembly and creative reuse of complex
assets such as television documentaries. Others, such as the NBA
emphasise the vast financial flows associated with royalty-bearing
Consumer Products trademark licensing.
Founded in 1989 HIT Entertainment is now among the world’s
leaders in children’s character rights. It operates as a studio
with divisions handling production, distribution, publishing and
merchandising. The company’s largest market is in the US where
HIT characters have achieved enormous success on screen with leading
broadcasters, through video and most recently in the consumer products
market.
TES Consulting were initially appointed to analyse and document
HIT system requirements, review all potential options and recommend
a solution. The Jaguar Contract Rights Management system, Jaguar System 7
was selected by HIT in February 2000.
Lyrick Studios in Dallas were acquired during the latter implementation
stages of the project, which resulted in major organisational and
accounting policy changes. Despite the additional workload involved,
all changes have successfully been incorporated. Implementation
of Phase 1 involved a number of vendor sites in the UK together
with HIT offices in London and Dallas.
The benefits achieved by HIT to date include improved revenue earning
opportunities via company-wide access to accurate and comprehensive
rights availability information. Improved back office workflow,
which continually results in more accurate billing and servicing
of customer contracts and improved customer service through higher
visibility and control of Broadcast materials. Global Real-time
access to a single, consistently reliable information source is
set to continue supporting massive improvements in consumer product
revenue and company growth.
National Geographic relies on Jaguar systems for precision execution
of the administration of more than 50,000 contracts dating back
to “Americans on Everest” in 1964. The total continues
to grow rapidly as the use of Jaguar is expanded to cover every
department involved with the use and exploitation of their vast
inventory of intellectual property rights, including NG Television,
NG Channel, NG Interactive and NG Consumer Products.
By capturing the individual rights restrictions for each element
in its films, administrators are automatically alerted when a prospective
sale is in potential conflict with a participant restriction prior
to execution of the license. This information puts NGS in total
control by enabling them to decide, before commitments have been
made, whether they will pay for a rights extension, acquire additional
rights or edit out the restricted clip to avoid violating acquisition
terms and costly litigation.
The NBA’s Global Deployment was already a success when the
first regional office in Toronto was linked in September 1999. Over
the subsequent 12 months, Jaguar was introduced to more than 120
staff in 11 countries, all continuously online with NBA domestic
offices in New Jersey, New York and Miami. NBA offices are located
in Toronto, Secaucus, New York, Miami, Paris, London, Barcelona,
Munich, Hong Kong, Victoria City, Tokyo, Taipei and Cuajimalpa.
The worldwide linkup to Jaguar provides users with the ability to
access Jaguar at any time while they are at their office or on the
road. Real time data is easily provided in the same efficient manner
that has become the standard in their local offices. Regional staff
no longer have to wait until early evening or the middle of the
night to make phone calls in the hopes of finding someone to provide
simple answers to questions such as: How did reported royalties
compare to paid royalties? What products were reported? What countries
have sales occurred in? Does that licensee have rights to a particular
country, in a specific distribution channel, etc.?
The NBA relies on Jaguar to support its domestic and international
consumer products and television licensing, which together represents
the majority of corporate revenues. The NBA is consistently ranked
in the worldwide top ten merchandise licensing organisations, with
approximately $3 Billion in annual retail sales and correspondingly
huge volumes of cash receipts and royalty report processing, all
handled by the Jaguar system.
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