Country or Region: United States Industry: Media and Entertainment
Customer Profile Pathfire uses satellite technology to distribute digital media and management solutions to the media and entertainment industries. The company is located in Roswell, Georgia.
Business Situation Pathfire wanted to lower the costs associated with its existing business management system. In addition, the company needed a flexible solution that would support its growing business needs.
Solution Pathfire replaced its existing PeopleSoft software with Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains.
Benefits
Reduces business system operating costs by 35 percent
Streamlines processes, increases productivity
Provides a foundation for growth
“In comparison to what we were spending with our previous system, Microsoft Great Plains will help us to reduce our operating costs by 35 percent over the next four years!” Jerry Schneider, Controller, Pathfire
Pathfire is a growing company that uses satellite technology to send digital media to broadcast stations across the United States. With an eye on meeting company goals, Pathfire’s finance department wanted to reduce the costs associated with its existing business management system. The department used PeopleSoft software and faced an expensive upgrade to this system. After researching several possibilities, Pathfire deployed Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains (now part of Microsoft Dynamics) to employees in its finance department. To facilitate the deployment, Pathfire partnered with I.B.I.S., Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified Business Partner. While Pathfire plans to extend its current deployment, the company has already experienced great success, reducing business operating expenses by 35 percent over a four-year period and increasing employee productivity.
Situation
Digital media is becoming a standard in the media and entertainment industry, and Pathfire has created a business around this growing trend. By using a digital IP-multicast distribution system, Pathfire delivers content providers’ media to over 1,100 broadcast stations nationwide.
Pathfire’s customers, who include syndicates, advertising and news agencies, and video release companies, share a common goal: deliver content to the largest number of television sets possible. While Pathfire facilitates how its customers reach this goal, the company has its own objectives, one of which includes reducing its own costs. For Pathfire’s finance department, company goals were influencing an important decision—whether or not to keep its existing business management system.
At the time, the department was using PeopleSoft software, but was facing an expensive and requisite upgrade. As explained by Jerry Schneider, Controller for Pathfire, the department saw the requirement to upgrade PeopleSoft as an opportunity to explore different applications.
“We just weren’t using PeopleSoft to its full extent,” says Schneider. “It was too expensive to maintain, and we were looking to reduce some of our operating expenses.”
Solution
While Pathfire considered the option of maintaining its existing PeopleSoft system, the company also researched the possibility of implementing two different applications—MAS200 and Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains. Pathfire also engaged the expertise of I.B.I.S., Inc., to aid in the decision-making process. I.B.I.S., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, sells and services enterprise resource planning, customer resource management, network infrastructure, network security, messaging and managed services solutions. And in the end, Pathfire’s choice—upgrade PeopleSoft or implement another solution—wasn’t hard.
“Microsoft Great Plains offered the right level of functionality to cover Pathfire’s existing business requirements, yet could be customized to meet the company’s future needs. In addition, Microsoft Great Plains’ tight integration with the Microsoft Office system and its similar, easy-to-use interface supports a more productive workforce,” says Jon Byrd, Senior Account Manager for I.B.I.S., Inc.
The first phase was a combined effort between Pathfire and I.B.I.S. as they deployed Microsoft Great Plains on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. Over a five-month period, the team rolled out five financial modules (General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Bank Reconciliation, and Fixed Assets Management) to employees in the finance department. At the same time, the team also migrated data from PeopleSoft to Microsoft Great Plains, conducted testing, and ran both applications in parallel to verify data accuracy.
In addition to the financial modules, Pathfire implemented Microsoft Business Solutions for Analytics–FRx® Professional for reporting purposes, and two supply chain management modules: Sales Order Processing and Purchase Order Processing. While currently Pathfire is only entering invoices into the Sales Order Processing module, moving forward, the company plans to expand its implementation of Microsoft Great Plains beyond the finance department to become a true business management system. The team of I.B.I.S and Pathfire also plan to roll out Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal–Great Plains, and eRequisition for Microsoft Business Portal to help reduce the paperwork and time associated with expense requests.
Benefits
Since deploying Microsoft Great Plains to its finance department, Pathfire is delighted with the results. Not only has the company reduced business system operating costs by 35 percent, but employees are more productive, and this growing company has a business management solution that will support any future growth and changes.
Reduces Business System Operating Costs by 35 Percent Pathfire’s top priority was to find a business management system that would help the company save money. The implementation of Microsoft Great Plains realized this goal.
Explains Schneider, “In comparison to what we were spending with our previous system, Microsoft Great Plains will help us to reduce our operating costs by 35 percent over the next four years!”
Microsoft Great Plains was also a palatable purchase for Pathfire as a result of Total Solution Financing from Microsoft Business Solutions and Microsoft Capital Corporation. This program is designed to ease the economic burden associated with acquiring and implementing software and hardware, as well as related consulting services. As a result, Pathfire spread the purchase and implementation costs of Microsoft Great Plains over a three-year period. Further helping to ease the cost is the modular implementation approach of Microsoft Great Plains. Pathfire only needed to purchase the modules that will support its current needs and, then, moving forward, the company can add additional modules or customize the application as it wants.
Streamlines Processes, Increases Productivity The ability to process transactions quickly and boost employee productivity is important for any business, and Pathfire is able to make these things happen as a result of its Microsoft Great Plains implementation. For example, at one time the company manually compared and contrasted bank records to ensure that checks had cleared for the right amount. Now the finance team downloads check clearing information from its bank directly into Microsoft Great Plains. In addition, all other bank transactions are available, securely, with the click of a button.
Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager is also making it easier and faster for accountants to upload information into the Great Plains system. Schneider explains, “Uploading assets used to be a manual process. But with Microsoft Great Plains the process is shortened and simplified. For example, one of our accountants recently uploaded twenty-five hundred individual assets into the system using the Microsoft Great Plains Integration Manager, and it only took him 10 minutes. With our old system, this could have taken a day or more.”
In addition to streamlining processes, Pathfire is also enjoying a system that is easy to use. For instance, the finance department team is responsible for providing month-end reports to board members. Microsoft FRx Professional not only simplifies the creation and management of these reports, but also provides the team with the capability to quickly create custom reports to meet the specific requests of board members.
Says Schneider, “Microsoft Great Plains offers so many ways to reduce the time it once took to complete daily, weekly, and monthly processes that our employees are steadily becoming more productive.”
Provides a Foundation for Growth With Microsoft Great Plains, Pathfire has a solution for today and tomorrow. Schneider explains, “Microsoft Great Plains provides out-of-the-box functionality, yet enables us to customize features and add additional functionality to support Pathfire’s future growth.”
For example, as the company moves forward it has plans to extend the Microsoft Great Plains database to become the primary access point for information related to more than 1,100 broadcast television stations around the country, as well as to its existing customers. To do this, Pathfire will make the Microsoft Great Plains database the “master record holder” for all of its other, internal systems.
Schneider sums up, “Microsoft Great Plains is a flexible system that we can tailor to meet our exact needs—functionality that ultimately will help to improve our sales figures and customer support. We’ll soon have a consolidated system that contains all of our customers’ information, gives us better business insight, and a better picture of who our customers are.”
