What are some common change obstacles? Trust and confidence in adopting a new system is scary. The industry has been intolerant of mistakes (but they happen all the time) and slow to change. The case study on Netflix is a perfect example of a company who is innovating with exponential growth while the old studio system gets blitzed. The majority in Hollywood need to start embracing risk and learn how to make calculated mistakes. It is hard to believe in an industry such as entertainment that the culture has such an aversion to change. “It takes the determination to fight the natural human aversion to risk and the fortitude to engage in creative abrasion” (Hill & Davis, 2017, p. 109).
Another obstacle is a lack of urgency in how to solve the production pains that paper technology creates. Two of the most common questions I get are, How do we implement this new system? How do we get the crews to buy in? While others still doubt the relevance of a digital system. I find many people need to see to believe which is why in these posts I weave change questions with our solutions. No one else in the entertainment industry has this type of tool which helps 99% of the crew track payments on a production. ALineProducer, also helps the 1% of production accountants in the industry do their jobs better. ALineProducer can give a weak accounting department a backbone. It gives a novice crew the ability to track their finances like a pro, and for those big studio jobs it will devour information and documents giving crews more time for their craft.
Reading one of my favorite publications, Harvard Business Review, I came across this article that said, “Focus on High-Impact Problems, One of Langer’s mantras when choosing projects is: Consider the potential impact on society, not the money. The idea is that if you create something that makes a major difference, the customers and the money will come” (Prokesch, 2017, p. 136). The article goes on to talk about multidisciplinary teams, embracing turnover, leading without micromanaging. Does your company poses the skills to lead and ask the right questions to make a bold move?
What is one of the pains of the current paper workflow in Hollywood? Financial transactions are required to have supporting documentation which must be approved by one or many people who may or may not be in the same office, in the same city, or in the same country. ALineProducer, was built to connect people on a production so they can share and collaborate the financial information and documentation of a project in real time.
Keeping track of the documentation, making sure it is legible, turning it into accounting, getting it approved, have and still are a major pain when using paper technology. Emails, Production Assistants, cars, fuel, and FedEx, are only some of the costs associated with using paper technology. Not to mention the time it takes to circulate paper. When crews are shopping around town, scouting locations around the world, ALineProducer is there helping them become financial super heroes. Who thought something so complicated could be reduced to something so easy? We have eliminated the stove pipe communications of financial information on a production.
Two minutes is all it takes to record and document a transaction. This claim has been timed using a mobile device to log in cold to the site, select the project, select the line item to add a payment, add supporting documentation, any notes if necessary, and add to the system. When you do more than one entry at a time the rate of new entries decreases and becomes an average of about 45 seconds per entry. The hours that are saved for the Crew, Accounting, and Producers is enormous. For example the picture below is from the payments section of our application. A crew member logs in and records their transaction(s) which is then shared and collaborated with Producers, Accountants, and other Stakeholders on the production.
Does your company care about it’s information? Does your company and employees care if they can reduce work on accounting transactions by weeks per project? “Standing still or waiting to see how things turn out are not considered serious options in today’s often tumultuous environment” (Hill & Davis, 2017, p. 104). Contact us and we will show you a world so engaging that you will wonder why you didn’t make the move to digital sooner.
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REFERENCES
Hill, L. A., & Davis, G. (2017, November/December). The board’s new innovation imperative, Directors need to rethink their roles and their attitude to risk. Harvard Business Review, 95(6), 103-109.
Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Prokesch, S. (2017, March/April). The Edison of Medicine lessons from one of the world’s most productive and profitable research facilities. Harvard Business Review, 95(2), 134-143.
Tysiac, K. (2017). We have to be bold. Journal of Accountancy, 224(5), 18-22. Retrieved from journalofaccountancy.com