Case Study

How do you stay in tune with transformation without missing a beat?

Learn how EY and Microsoft helped APRA AMCOS build a world-first licensing platform to ensure artists get paid faster.

Authors

A photographic portrait of Kellie Blackall

Kellie Blackall

Partner, Technology Consulting, EY Australia

Photographic portrait of ruta-makareviciute

EY Regional AI-enabled Automation Leader, Oceania

1

The better the question

What does it take to bring harmony to a complex music licensing system?

For nearly 100 years, APRA AMCOS has been the backbone of the music ecosystem in Australia and New Zealand. Representing more than 124,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, the organisation ensures music creators are paid fairly when their work is performed or copied.

But over time, layers of history, multiple rights and legacy systems were increasingly out of step with the tempo of the digital age.

For venues and businesses, securing a licence had become slow and paper-heavy. For staff, disconnected systems meant excessive manual effort was required to pay creators and offered limited visibility into customers.

To return more royalties to its members, APRA AMCOS set itself a bold challenge: become a digital-first organisation with a unified platform that could simplify licensing, enhance the customer experience and scale to meet the demands of a fast-changing industry.

We want to make sure our members’ music is protected and that they’re paid for their work. This new platform is a big step towards making licensing simpler and faster for businesses to ensure creators get what they deserve.

Kirsty Davison

Chief Customer Officer, APRA AMCOS

Band performing live music with guitar, drums, and microphone in a studio setting

2

The better the answer

Placing people, not platforms, at centre stage

With EY as business adviser and technology implementor, and Microsoft as technology partner, APRA AMCOS delivered a world-first deployment of Microsoft Dynamics 365 alongside revamped customer facing portals.

Bringing licensing into a single digital platform required both respect for history and a commitment to the future.

The Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) began in 1926 with performance rights. The Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) followed in 1979 to oversee reproduction rights. In 1997 the two organisations created a one-stop licensing service, and in 2019 partnered with the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) to launch OneMusic, simplifying copyright for businesses and ensuring artists are paid fairly.

But while the business model had modernised, the systems behind it had not. Legacy platforms slowed licensing, delayed payments and made it difficult for staff to manage customer lifecycles or generate insights.

Transformation, then, meant more than installing new software.

Our partnership with APRA AMCOS – founded on trust, transparency, respect and commitment from every member of the project team – has enabled a true business transformation and unlocked further opportunity for creators to receive their dues. APRA AMCOS has unlocked new pathways for music licenses to be simplified and automated key end-to-end business processes.

Ean Evans

EY Oceania AI-enabled Automation Leader

Person recording audio in a professional music studio with microphone and headphones

3

The better the world works

Hitting the right notes through digital transformation

EY–Microsoft Alliance

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Before deploying Microsoft Dynamics 365, APRA AMCOS relied on ageing, disconnected systems that couldn’t keep pace with the volume and variety of licensing.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 brought everything together by integrating finance, sales, marketing and customer service into a single platform.

For the first time, staff have a unified view of customers, businesses can apply for and manage licences online at any time of day, and royalties can be calculated and paid with greater speed and accuracy.

For businesses: An easy online path to licensing with options for monthly billing, self-service ecommerce and faster approvals.
For members: Faster, more accurate royalty payments thanks to automated billing, real-time insights and streamlined processes.
For staff: A single source of truth, removing duplication and manual tasks, and freeing time for more meaningful engagement with members and licensees.

As APRA AMCOS' Director of Business Transformation Josephine Perjanik notes: “Our end-to-end sales process has been reinvented. Dynamics 365 is supporting the ingestion of thousands of clean leads, and this will only continue to increase.”

The results speak for themselves:

90% uptake of subscription billing.
Sales conversions five times faster with automated communications.
Queries resolved in one day instead of a week thanks to unified customer views.

Transformations are costly, high risk and generational. It's why more than 80% fail.  At APRA AMCOS, we've proven that with the right structure, the right partners, the right engagement and a shared customer first vision, even the most complex transformations are possible.

Josephine Perjanik

Director of Business Transformation, APRA AMCOS

Five lessons from APRA AMCOS’ digital transformation

APRA AMCOS is one of the first performance rights organisations globally to implement an end-to-end Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform – positioning it as a digital leader in music licensing.

Now, as APRA AMCOS looks to expand its AI-enabled automation program, the project team’s transformation learnings may strike a chord with other businesses aiming to lead in automation.

APRA AMCOS' executive team were hands-on throughout the transformation journey. Product owners and executive sponsors stayed close to the detail, collaborated across functions to make key design and implementation decisions that maintained project momentum.
Effective working relationships with EY and Microsoft helped APRA AMCOS solve problems quickly. Open and transparent communication, a ‘talk straight’ philosophy and a focus on team delivery built trust and created an environment where successes were celebrated together.
The project began with a simple question: how do we return more royalties to members? Only then did the team turn to technology. This clarity kept Dynamics 365 and the end-to-end to end solution in service of the business challenge, not the other way round.
APRA AMCOS' product managers and change leaders created an environment where staff and managers had multiple chances to see, touch and experience the target solutions. This built familiarity, aligned expectations and encouraged adoption post go-live. When it comes to change, there can never be too many ‘showcases’ of the solution in progress.

A century-old institution has shown how innovation, people-centred leadership and purposeful technology can keep it in tune with the future.

By implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365, we’re making it easier for everyone to manage music licensing without unnecessary delays.

Rik Irons-Mclean

Chief Technology Officer, Enterprise Commercial, Microsoft ANZ

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