CMRRA Web Services Publisher Requirements Workshops
Technological evolution is essential to the success of any business. For some industries this simply means ‘out with the old and in with the new’; but in our industry, it means successfully maintaining a delicate balance of the old and the new. Just as music publishers must exploit back catalogues while enabling the creation of new copyrights, music industry organizations such as CMRRA must not only maintain but also seek to improve upon existing levels of client service by exploring new and advanced ways in which to deliver that service.
CMRRA has always recognized that client service is not only of the utmost importance, it – like musical taste – often resides in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, as we look to future phases of development, we want to ensure, when planning and prioritising enhancements to our web services, that we do so with a comprehensive understanding of our publisher clients’ evolving business needs. To that end, we have carried out the first phase in a series of individual web services publisher requirements workshops with the goal of better understanding those needs with respect to CMRRA Direct and the CMRRA-administered CSI Claims Website. During those workshops, we observed and documented the individual user experiences of key licensing and royalties personnel as they demonstrated the ways in which they utilized the portals to carry out their daily and/or quarterly workflow.
The workshops are led by CMRRA’s Business Analyst, Andrea England, who began visiting CMRRA’s publisher clients last fall. Additional workshops are now being planned to cover as broad a base as possible, both in Canada and in the United States. As an active songwriter and music publisher with years of experience in music administration and systems development, and a drive to ensure rights holders can quickly and effectively manage their business, Andrea is uniquely qualified to understand the administrative challenges faced by our clients, large and small, and invested in working to bring about the solutions they need. Indeed, the opportunity to view our web service offerings through the eyes of our clients has proven to be invaluable, and the publisher feedback Andrea has gathered to date has helped to shape our planned enhancements to CMRRA Direct.
We are pleased to outline below a preliminary list of enhancements currently being specified, or already in development, for release in the near future:
We recognize that ongoing communication about the work CMRRA is doing to better serve our publisher clients is also important, and we will continue to provide updates on our progress with regards to new enhancements and ongoing developments in a segment of our Newsletter called “CMRRA Direct News”.
If you are interested in hosting a web services publisher requirements workshop at your office, or participating via conference, please reach out to CMRRA Membership Services.
