Anyone who is planning to evaluate or use the Brand Resource Management System should read this guide. It is an introduction to some of the basic concepts you should be familiar with in order to understand and use the application. BRMS is not a traditional Windows application that runs on your desktop--it embraces an entirely new concept, one that is fully-based on Internet technology. This distinction has important implications for how the application works and how you use it. BRMS is an Internet-based, client/server application that runs in a browser. These fundamental characteristics don't just describe the architecture, they define the look and feel of the application and identify BRMS as a unique solution in the licensing industry.
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BRMS runs in a Netscape 4.x or Microsoft 5.x browser. You can use the controls and navigation aids on the browser as well as those within the application. The BRMS user interface is based on modules and tasks. For example, Central Administration is a module and Security and Setup are a tasks. The user interface is dynamically constructed each time you log on and the BRMS page only displays those modules and tasks for which you have access rights. By default, licensor users can access all modules; licensee users cannot access Sales Analysis. See Application modules for more information.
The E-Hub is a link to the Notara network. Notara.com is a comprehensive portal for news, activity, and developments in the licensing industry. It is not an actual module in BRMS. It details newsworthy developments and gives you a heads-up on what to expect in regard to industry trends, opportunities, and technology. The E-Hub is the Notara portal. It capitalizes on the unique opportunity for Notara to bring the isolated elements of the licensing industry together in one place. Until now, companies in the licensing industry have primarily identified themselves with the market niche their products serve, rather than the common business processes that are common throughout the industry.
The advent of the business-to-business Internet commerce has enabled a fundamental change. With a viable mechanism for interconnecting large numbers of corporate entities in a common computing framework, an online, global village has emerged. The Notara network is the "village green" for the licensing community.
Administrator The one member of the licensor organization who is designated as the main user of BRMS. This user can define additional licensor and licensee users within the application.
Central Administration Application module that essentially drives the rest of the BRMS application. Central Administration provides a comprehensive interface for configuring the application. In Central Administration, specific user information is set up, and then accessed by other modules, to automate vital functions like secure user access.
Contract Management Application module that automates the implementation and ongoing management of contract terms with licensees, and also integrates those contract terms with the functionality of the other BRMS modules. Closely integrated with the Product Approval and Sales Reporting modules.
Licensee The clients who use the brand names or property rights owned by licensors, and who use BRMS to manage their business relationship with the licensor. A licensee is any member of the licensee organization who is authorized to use the BRMS application.
Licensor The owners of brand names or property rights who use BRMS to manage the use of brand names or property rights by its client licensees. A licensor is any member of the licensor organization who is authorized to use the BRMS application. Licensors generally designate one or more individual employees as application users with access to all BRMS modules.
MDX Multidimensional expressions are used to query an OLAP database. MDX can be viewed as a set of macros defined on top of the SQL language. Multidimensional expressions provide a structured syntax for database queries. Although these macros are generally useful for querying a multidimensional data source, their precise semantics are defined by means of their SQL language mappings.
OLAP Online analytical processing. In an OLAP database, information is viewed conceptually as cubes, which consist of descriptive categories (dimensions) and quantitative values (measures). A multidimensional database makes it easy to formulate complex queries, arrange data on a report, switch from summary to detail data, and filter or slice data into meaningful subsets.
PivotTable An arrangement of data according to multiple dimensions that typically correspond to different dimensional aspects of the business. The PivotTable uses online analytical processing (OLAP) to represent a three-dimensional array, with a different dimension forming each side of a cube.
Product Approval Application module that lets licensee design and production groups submit concepts directly to licensors for review and approval. Licensors can review, and approve or reject those submissions. BRMS logs revisions, tracks changes, and comments, and tracks the status of a submission throughout the review and approval cycle.
Sales Analysis Application module that helps licensors analyze their sales data using either standardized reports or the PivotTable. The PivotTable shows the data in a three-dimensional array with a different dimension on each side of a cube.
Sales Reporting Application module that lets licensees report sales figures over the Internet based on the specifics of the licensing agreement that was implemented in Contract Management. Sales Reporting streamlines the reporting process, and eliminates the need for licensors to manually re-key licensee sales data.
Template Interactive Adobe Acrobat form for recording data. A standard form that licensees can use for organizing and presenting Product Approval information required by a licensor. The template can be populated with text and graphics, and electronically uploaded.
Tree Java applet that displays information from the database in a hierarchical structure. For example, the product tree shows the complete product offering of an organization typically arranged by product, territory, and distribution channel.
