Ocean Advertising is a medium-sized advertising agency based in Dublin providing its clients with a wide range of services including brand development, print design work, Point-of-sale design, direct marketing, web design and development and PR. The company was established in February 2003 and now has 23 employees and turns over approximately €2.8m per annum.

Ocean purchased Paprika in September 2006 and went live 12 weeks later. Tim France, the Managing Director at Ocean spoke recently about the experience.

Why Paprika?

"Before installing Paprika, Ocean had no integrated management system. The tasks of purchasing, tracking cost and profit and invoicing were managed manually by account managers using a series of Excel templates. The opportunities for human error were very high.

Before the installation of Paprika, monthly invoicing used to take a team of three people approximately two days to complete and the incidence of human error was high. The high incidence of error affected our business in two main ways, firstly, it simply meant that not everything that could be billed out to clients was billed out, and secondly it lead to frustration and irritation amongst those of our clients that received incorrect invoices.

Paprika had all the functionality that Ocean was looking for

The sheer amount of time that invoicing took also affected our business less directly by tying up key members of staff who could better be employed in other areas of the business. Account managers tended to work longer hours during invoicing periods in order to minimise the impact of the additional workload on their day-to-day account management duties.

It became clear that a permanent, integrated management solution was needed."

Paprika to the rescue

"Paprika offered our company the delivery of an all embracing management software solution that centralised and integrated all our various systems and thereby improved efficiency and reduced the opportunity for human error. The ease and accuracy with which we became able to record and report time to our clients has improved agency efficiency and enabled Ocean to review and improve several client relationships.

Paprika had all the functionality that Ocean was looking for, including time management, media buying, quoting, purchase ordering, invoicing and accounting as well as the facility to generate customised reports on any of the above."

Benefits to Ocean

"The adoption of Paprika has brought many benefits to Ocean. The main benefits are related to efficiency and accuracy. Invoicing, for instance, is now a monthly process that occupies two members of staff for less than one day, saving us thousands of Euros in time.

Human error has been greatly reduced, particularly in the calculation of the complicated arrangements for media commission and rebate that we agree with clients. This is hard to quantify, but roughly, the incidence of errors have reduced from two or three per month to almost zero.

The ability to record and report time so easily and accurately has lead us to develop an entirely new charging model for two of our clients. This has improved the efficiency and profitability of both accounts.

During the period that Ocean has been using Paprika, the company has almost doubled its turnover. Whilst there are obviously many factors that have contributed to the company's growth over this period, Paprika has certainly assisted and partnered Ocean in its recent business success."

The learning and support process

"The process of installation and training was managed extremely well and took place over the course of two or three site visits.

The adoption of Paprika has brought many benefits to Ocean

Telephone technical support has also always been very well managed. When we have experienced problems, they have always been dealt with immediately and thoroughly using a combination of telephone and emailed advice. On one or two occasions there has been a requirement for us to send our Paprika data file to the technical support department for adjustment. This has always been done very quickly in order to minimise disruption to Ocean's operation."

Recommendation

Paprika has certainly assisted and partnered Ocean in its recent business success

"I would recommend Paprika to another agency. Paprika was directly responsible for us earning some fees that we would previously have been unlikely to earn. The fees came about as a result of our ability to accurately report time to a client and earned us, coincidentally, almost exactly the amount we have paid in licence fees for Paprika. So Paprika paid for itself, in our view, right then and there."