Berkeley helped PRS define their IT requirements, by defining the likely future business scenarios for their industry and providing them with a flexible and deliverable IT strategy.
Where were they?
PRS for Music collects licence fees and pays royalties to composers, authors, and publishers when their musical works are recorded, broadcast or performed publicly.
PRS – and the music industry in general - was facing a period of enormous change: digital TV and radio channels and the growth in digital music downloads were generating massive increases in transaction volumes; recording-industry margins were reducing significantly, with consequential pressure from their membership to reduce costs; and new EU-legislation had introduced the ability for societies to offer pan-European licences, giving members the opportunity to “shop around” for the best deals.
Amidst all this uncertainty and change, the IS department needed to plan ahead and develop a business-driven IS strategy.
How did Berkeley help?
During a three month project, Berkeley worked closely with the PRS management team to develop this strategy. Through a series of workshops and interviews, a number of future business scenarios were developed and analysed to focus in on the most likely future business drivers for the Alliance.
These helped to determine high-level business requirements, and establish the functional footprint that IS needed to support. Berkeley worked alongside technology specialists from DMW Group to turn these requirements into a target IS application portfolio and technical architecture recommendations, and to develop a flexible business case and implementation roadmap.
This has given PRS a costed and prioritised series of projects that can now be progressed in a sequence which maximises business benefit and minimises delivery risk.
Where are they now?
PRS has now embarked on an exciting Joint Venture with STIM, their Swedish counterparts, to establish and run a back-office shared service centre for Copyright data management, as the first phase of the implementation of this roadmap.
Working with Berkeley was fun, interesting, challenging and ultimately incredibly useful. Berkeley's no-nonsense approach brought clarity to some of our most complex business strategy challenges. Their advice was always considered, frank, constructive and informed by their experience, and has helped ensure that our strategy can be implemented rather than sit on a shelf.
Chris Gardner, Executive Director, IT, PRS for Music