construction Accountants

Faced with the most unprecedented economic conditions in living memory, the issue of improving the financial position of a business, whether through cash generation, debt refinancing or cost reduction, has risen to the top of the boardroom agenda.

The challenge for management teams is to ensure that a balance is struck between the immediate need to drive out cost and generate cash, with the longer term aspiration for growth.

Executives that have a strategy to manage through a downturn will be better placed to take advantage of the opportunities available today, and will emerge from the bad times re-energised and fit for the future.

In today’s entertainment and media market, content owners and distributors are competing not only to attract new customers, but also to build loyalty and retention rates among existing customers. Today’s mandate for “reinvention” means the future depends not only on incremental improvements, but on quantum-leap breakthroughs as well. Subscription-based operators are constantly developing strategies to maintain and grow ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) through customer retention, process improvement, and product innovation. In the wider sphere, across the E&M landscape cable and satellite TV operators, broadcast and cable networks, cinema owners, newspaper and magazine publishers, and Internet portals are struggling to enhance their customer care and management operations. Companies are seeking to derive value from the entire customer management value chain, from database interrogation to inform and drive marketing and cost-reduction strategies, to development of powerful people and systems strategies which can deliver the highest level of customer service.

That’s why technological advances and functional improvement programs alone aren’t enough. You need a way to improve your processes and the organisation supporting those processes to achieve performance results which will benefit and be recognised by those who count the most — your customers and stakeholders.

Few major entertainment and media companies can achieve their desired geographic breadth and diversity of operations and revenue streams purely through organic growth. Mergers, acquisitions, alliances and also divestitures will continue to be necessary to enhance growth and to balance the business portfolio effectively between advertising, subscription and consumer product revenues. At the same time, convergence is driving deals between old and new media, and between delivery and content companies, whilst value is also being sought through deconsolidation.

Successful transactions demand access to capital markets, a strategy to attract and retain customers, the ability to identify new revenue streams, and a continual realignment of the organisation and culture. At the same time, the accounting, tax, and legal implications must be validated. The end goal is to improve share holder value while managing financial market expectations.

When it comes to the quality and depth of reporting on key financial and operating metrics, it’s more important than ever for companies to meet and exceed the expectations of Wall Street and major investor communities. In addition, since many entertainment and media companies have public listings on both US and other national stock exchanges, they face dual or multiple reporting requirements in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), European national GAAPs, UK and US GAAP.

A growing body of evidence indicates that companies that fall short of shareholder expectation with regard to disclosure risk an erosion of confidence that can, in turn, do damage to market capitalisation, credit, and liquidity. But along with negative pressures, there are also positive reasons for going transparent. Your company’s non-financial assets — such as brands, market share, customer retention levels, and intellectual capital — are of intense interest to investors. Companies that report more comprehensively on these important non-financial assets can often improve their valuation in the capital markets.

As entertainment and media companies expand their operations and distribute content globally, they face increasingly complex tax issues that can act as a drag on operations and depress profitability.

Clearly, many companies in the entertainment & media industry require support to achieve optimal corporate tax rates and implement effective tax planning and management. Whether they are facing issues related to the taxation of Internet sales or transfer pricing on the sale of content rights internationally, companies need service providers with the tools and knowledge to optimise their tax strategy.

Entertainment and media companies are facing a host of challenges surrounding intellectual property rights, piracy, security and digital rights management (DRM). With pervasive digitisation of content, entertainment & media companies must develop strategies that embrace digital distribution.

But to effectively implement these digital content distribution systems, entertainment and media companies need decision frameworks and operational processes that enable them to control their content over the Internet in terms of security, usage tracking, and how their content is consumed. Additionally, companies need to implement advanced processes and methodologies that help them identify and quantify overpayment of royalties and mitigate risks due to non-compliance with contractual stipulations.

Entertainment and media companies face intense pressure to reduce costs associated with ongoing operations and, in some cases, debt loads associated with transactional investments. Those pressures have only intensified in the current economic environment.
With the heat on, companies are looking to reduce costs in their core businesses without sacrificing service quality and jeopardising revenues. At the same time, executives are being challenged to meet customer requirements while continuing to scale.