Dependable Solutions

Can you give us some background to your business – when you began, what led you into this sector etc as well as an idea of staff and offices that you have?

We found consumer product licensing automation a wonderful refuge after Marty sold his music industry licensing company back in 2002. At that time music was in a downward spiral so switching industries was the best idea. We built Dependable Solutions, Inc. from the ground up with a fresh code base geared to brand owners, agents and even licensees. Our initial success as our founding year of 2005 with Jesse James. He had West Coast Choppers on TV at the time and all his licensing rights through his business manager at Paragon Business Management. Well, a divorce from Sandra Bullock and loss of his TV show meant that we kept Paragon and Jesse only for a couple years. Today, we have 32 full-time employees around the globe sup

porting clients across 10 countries and four continents.

Can you give us some information about the services that you offer in terms of contract management, product approvals, contract approvals and royalty reports?

- We provide licensees, licensing agents, brand owners, and music & media companies with the most comprehensive and reliable software in the industry. - We streamline the day-to-day tasks in your licensing operation to help you build a smarter business – and stop drowning in time-consuming tasks. We handle the entirety of the licensing process, ranging from development to design and approval to retail sales – while ensuring contract compliance and royalty tracking with detailed reporting. - We boost revenues by automating all the tasks involved in implementing and overseeing a brand licensing program, hence improv

ing communications among departments, and enabling top management to make strategic decisions through better business intelligence. For Licensees, we improve the accuracy and speed of reporting to brand owners while taking advantage of all available deductions.

What other services does your system offer eg audit tracking, data management, brand protection etc?

- Using APIs, our solutions can integrate with clients’ internal ERP systems. - Single-sign-on security to ensure more secured access to the system - Helping clients set up with data entry and consulting

Are there other areas that your system covers?

Besides our modules for contract management, royalty tracking and product development and approval management system, our system also covers:

- Digital asset management and... - Participation manager/ third party payout - Royalty tracking solutions for Music &

Media companies - Business analysis and detailed reporting

How do you deal with counterfeit in terms of security systems?

- Integrate with third party authentication vendors - Working with Counterfind.com to shut down online infringers - Optimizing clients’ e-commerce sites with

Hingeglobal.com, such as Walmart.com,

Amazon.com

What good, or bad, impact has the coronavirus pandemic had on your business?

It has freed up all travel time, saving on expenses for hotel and airfares, as well as eliminating physical tradeshows to free up marketing expenses and time spent on the road for at least year 2020. However we have been unable to connect with 32 employees and 65 clients physically, limiting in-person meetings and interactions. We have stimulated creative ways to interact with clients and internal teams. As the pandemic has increased web-based productivity since almost everybody is working from home, we have stimulated creative ways to interact with clients and internal teams to stay connected virtually. We have participated in Licensing Week Virtual and our teams have enjoyed connecting with the licensing community. We are looking forward to reliving the same success in the Festival of Licensing, coming in October.

Technology changes continuously. How do your systems guarantee to keep up to date with the latest available technology?

We ensure constant improvement to optimize approvals and digital assets. We have ongoing security optimization to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. We refresh underlying code to stay current with the latest browsers and mobile devices.

What are the unique selling points of your system that you believe make it stand out from others in the market?

We are the most experienced consumer product and entertainment licensing team. We offer high tech security practices and controlled access to DRM system, including encrypted communications. We have comprehensive capabilities to handle complex agreements and deals, and limited

access to confidential data and permission to trusted third parties to access the system, such as licensees reporting back to licensors. Our Dedicated Client Services team in Europe, US & Asia provide local support and ongoing training to ensure highest quality of the services we provide as a solutions company. We have hosting servers in the USA & Europe to protect personal identifiable information.

How do you see your system and business developing over the next few years?

Licensing business needs more analytics and better business intelligence. We are prepared to empower our users with better security and broader access. Our system ensures improvement in trend analysis through informative dashboards, more flexible workflows and access across the web and mobile devices. We expect brands to continue to dominate consumer behavior with less traditional advertising in print, TV and tradeshows. Most of the promotion will occur through consumers and get influenced online through reviews and brand advocates. It will all be about nimble and creative techniques to engage your audience while we travel less and enjoy our friends and families more due to safe distancing.

Brandgenuity is a global licensing agency who gets excited about great brand extensions. The right licensing partnership, beautifully conceived and executed, can elevate a great brand and delight its existing fans while engaging new ones. Beginning 16 years ago, Brandgenuity had one dream: to help strong brands unlock their potential through licensing. They think of licensing as business development, and Brandgenuity’s been truly privileged to develop businesses on behalf of world-class brands over the years. They have created products and services that are aligned with brand goals, brand values and brand DNA. They’ve been successful by acting strategically, minding the details, developing customized solutions for their clients and providing a one-stop, comprehensive agency solution for markets worldwide. Brandgenuity has offices across Europe, North America and Asia. In 2016, Brandgenuity knew they needed a change to improve their licensing operations. They had explosive growth with multiple clients and more and more licensees coming onboard. They also grew their internal operations with more offices around the world all working to help their clients build better brand operations. Their international expansion provided a strong need to seek out web-based, integrated licensing solutions to pull together all parts of the licensing process from contract management, product approvals all the way through royalty administration. Product approvals drove systematizing workflow processes where clients had multiple touchpoints and wanted to see each other’s comments. Brandgenuity choose DSI to provide different modules all integrated to help improve their relations with clients and licensees. They needed a robust process management tool. They also knew that established local client support in Europe was critical with a team who knew how to implement in key markets in their local time was very important. “Throughout the relationship, we have been able to influence how new functions work, es

pecially in the financial operations,” says Andy Topkins, Partner, Brandgenuity. Brandgenuity had experience with an internal brand system through their clients making them a very informed buyer after experiencing the pros and cons of several different vendor solutions. Once automated, Brandgenuity was able to do a much better job staying on top of licensee management. They analyze sales by category and country to significantly improve their ability to manage brands across each territory. Their reporting process became much tighter with access to each SKU by licensees with line item detail by SKU reported in royalty statements. This process flagged products not approved or sold outside the terms of each contract. “One of our bigger clients, BMW, appreciated the added integrity, especially for their brand protection efforts. to better manage their brands more effectively. DSI brought more consistent processes to manage 100s of contracts and thousands of SKUs,” stated Andy.