essence - Case studies » EMI Music Publishing

EMI is the world’s leading independent music company. It operates directly in 50 countries, with licensees in a further 20 and employs around 5,500 people. For the year ended 31 March 2007, EMI Group reported revenue of £1,751.5 million and £62.7 million in underlying profit before tax. The company comprises two divisions EMI Music, one of the top global recorded music companies, and EMI Music Publishing, one of the world’s leading music publishers.

EMI Music Publishing owns one of the largest catalogues of songs in the world, containing more than a million contemporary and classic titles. Its roster of songwriters is unparalleled and the company has won and continues to win more industry accolades and publisher of the year awards than any other music publisher. Its catalogue of best-selling songs includes Bohemian Rhapsody, I Heard It Through The Grapevine, New York, New York, Over the Rainbow, the James Bond theme, Singin’ In The Rain, Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, Wild Thing, We Will Rock You, Angels, Baby Love, Crazy in Love and Daydream Believer and is home to many of the world's best songwriters including Arctic Monkeys, James Blunt, Cathy Dennis, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Pink, Usher, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse. With offices all around the world, EMI Music Publishing has about 640 staff and in the year ended 31 March 2007 generated £401.3 million in revenue.

Skilled consultants and developers from Essence International ensured consistency of sophisticated solution. This solution enables all branches using financial, purchase, sales, analytics, consolidation or report tools due to the legislation in each country. As part of the implementation, there is an on-line web-services based integration with other systems used by EMI Music Publishing for royalty calculations.

EMI Music Publishing is an example of a modern and dynamic company that makes use of all market opportunities for its future development. The ability to adapt quickly and react to eventual changes is a necessity for the system and also for those who implements the solution.

Chris Rogers, Project Manager at EMI Music Publishing, described the cooperation as follows: „EMI Music Publishing is implementing MS-Dynamics as an enabler on many fronts – from the standardisation of Technologies and Accounting processes across our European operations to providing a unique platform to interact with our Music Copyright and Royalty management systems. Our well-defined relationship with Essence and their rapid and efficient turnaround of development requests is taking us ever closer to our vision of one strategic set of IT platforms serving our diverse operations in their very different markets. The payback on our investment is expected to be in terms of tighter controls, increased transparency, standardisation and improved analytics, all of which are critical in continuing to provide excellent service to our writers.“