West London's Metropolis Studios is the largest independently owned recording, mastering, creative and production complex in Europe. In the 25 years since it was founded, Metropolis has played host to artists like Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones, Adele, Amy Winehouse, U2 and many more. Today, about 50 percent of all UK Top 40 charts go through Metropolis at some point on their way from their artists' minds to the radio waves.
As an industry leader in the fast-paced music business, Metropolis found its business requirements growing rapidly alongside the studio, eventually becoming a large enough burden to require a dedicated system. At first, the company turned to SAP's enterprise-class solution to handle its finance and invoicing demands. However, it didn't take long for Metropolis to see that their new system was not agile enough to keep up with the studio's continuous growth.
Instead, it opted to build a custom system that would better allow it to automate and digitize its administrative processes, giving it more bandwidth to help its clients make music. More specifically, Metropolis needed a solution that would allow it the flexibility to streamline its bookings and reservations, client contact and data capture processes.
As a trial, Oli Sussat, Metropolis' Director of Marketing, Communications and Technology, designed and implemented a program using the FileMaker Platform that would take over all of Metropolis' invoicing, credit and financial requirements from its previous SAP system. After several days of immediate success, Metropolis quickly scaled the solution up to cover its other business needs. The resulting solution handled the all of the booking and reservation operations across Metropolis' four music studios, as well as performed data capture for artists and engineers who made notes or logged information about the audio and video they had created.
"Thanks to the flexibility and easy integration of FileMaker we're a better connected business," Says Sussat. "We're expanding our international credentials and we get to spend more time with our clients, rather than worrying about lengthy administration. FileMaker isn't just supporting our business, it's enabling it."
By switching away from the rigid SAP system in favor of a more flexible, customized FileMaker solution, Metropolis gained fast access to its data across mobile browsers with FileMaker WebDirect, a feature of FileMaker Server 14. Because WebDirect technology is compatible with most high end tablets, the solution could even connect with the devices Metropolis's clients brought in, ensuring they were constantly connected tot he systems they needed.
FileMaker allows businesses to quickly create and run solutions that work seamlessly across iPad, iPhone, Windows, Mac and the Web. At MC Services, we offer FileMaker training, support and custom programming. Contact us today for a free consultation to see how you can benefit from our custom FileMaker services.
