Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Britain’s national orchestra
Company Overview
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) was founded in 1946 by Sir Thomas Beecham, one of Britain’s greatest musicians and most flamboyant characters.The RPO is London based but is renowned throughout the world for its quality, versatility and the sheer diversity of its activities.
Concerts range from the popular ‘Here Come the Classics’ to the very best in the mainstream repertoire. Previous seasons have included a Beethoven Cycle with the RPO’s Principal Conductor, Daniele Gatti, at the Royal Festival Hall.
As resident Orchestra at Cadogan Hall, the RPO perform regular concerts with well-known classical artists. In addition to a series of concerts at the Royal Festival and Royal Albert Halls, the Orchestra performs throughout the UK and abroad, regularly records for film and television and has also launched its own record label. It also has a highly successful Community and Education Department which specialises in work with disadvantaged members of the community.
The Story
“As a charity, one of our long term aims is to build the value of the brand by balancing high art, loss-making concerts with the moneymakers” says Richard Huxtable, Financial Director at the RPO.
To illustrate this statement he goes on to explain how the performances are broken down. “Basically we have three types of performance; really high profile concerts at the Royal Albert Hall with top international conductors and soloists, community work with disadvantaged people and our range of light classical and popular music. Of these three only the last actually makes money.”
“Our reputation depends on the quality of our performances so it’s not easy to save money on our biggest cost, our musicians. Keeping track of costs and balancing the books is a day-to-day process and requires input from managers throughout the company” he says. “When I got here, two years ago, managers were overseeing events on separate spreadsheets. In effect we had several sets of books running resulting in issues of data ownership and a highly inefficient process.”
“I set about choosing a new accounts system and a supplier to implement it.We went through an exhaustive - and exhausting - process with our consultants and chose Access from a shortlist of eight companies” says Richard.
“We came to our decision using a variety of criteria,” he goes on to add,“in addition to the obvious factors, such as competitive pricing and an analysis of the responses to our requirements which we called the ‘No’ list, we also considered the ease of tailoring the solution, and the ease of integration with Excel and other SQL databases.”
“Now, with Access we have 20 pairs of eyes all looking at the same (up-to-theminute) data all at the same time.”
“This includes event fixers and on-site event coordinators who work remotely. We use Access’ unique web based Executive Desktop for users to interface with and it’s working really well. Executive Desktop presents our financial reports as an internal website. It’s very easy for nonfinancial managers to use – a few minutes explanation is all that is needed. I have seen other methods of showing this type of report but Executive Desktop seems the most user-friendly.
When we get questions on the information presented in Executive Desktop they often relate to entries we have made in the last day or so.This is the best time to sort out any queries – straight away.This has helped us to make the accounting process much more efficient, and the issue of data ownership is no longer there.” Furthermore, with Executive Desktop, Richard is now able to customise all of the company’s reports and how their information is viewed.
When asked how the implementation went, Richard commented.“I liken the whole process to moving house.You see the house you want to buy, that’s the bit where we decided on Access, but no matter how much you plan, moving all the stuff you need and getting it to fit can be stressful.We’ve still got some boxes that we haven’t opened yet but Asyst are proactive and helpful with great support staff. It’s meant that I can now get information to and from anyone, and they don’t need any special training, which means they can get on with what they’re employed to do…put on great music.”
Executive Desktop
This revolutionary system instantly delivers fully formatted, personalised and up-tothe- minute information on every aspect of your business...straight to the Windows desktop of every decision maker in the company.
And even those with little or no direct experience of accounting procedures can master it in minutes. Executive Desktop sits on your Windows desktop, without impacting on other software.There is no need to launch a separate application - it is ready and waiting the moment you turn on your computer. It presents each authorised member of staff with a customised menu, listing (in plain English) their chosen reports, including any ‘Favourites’. Simply click on the appropriate item and the required information will be displayed.
These reports - or ‘Executive Summaries’ - offer extensive analysis, including trends and statistics, far in advance of anything available in standard financial packages. They present information at summary level, using tables and graphs, but they also incorporate active links to the underlying accounts records. Clicking on a link will automatically reveal this detail.
Executive Desktop will
change the way you
view, use and even
think about your key
business data.”
Customer Case Study Browser
