Zizzle
Looking to capture a piece of the $20 billion toy market, Zizzle is placing its hopes on innovative new ideas that will help fuel demand for its products.
Zizzle is a start up company based in Bannockburn, IL, about an hour's drive north of Chicago. It was founded by Roger Shiffman, 52, who helped make Furby a hit for Tiger Electronics and then sold the company to Hasbro in 1998. After the successful launch of its new toy sensation, ‘IZ’, the company has since launched several new lines including the Disney Collection Series and the Marvel Heroes Zizzlingers. Its most recent success is action figures based upon the hit movie Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest for which it has secured a master toy license. Zizzle has also released a line of Disney and Marvel handheld electronic games.
The Solutions
Zizzle worked with Dynamics-GP partners Access Technologies and selected ERP software by Microsoft Dynamics™ GP for their solution. During the evaluation, Access Technologies included the Eclipse Royalty & Rights Management System. “During our review of Zizzle’s business requirements, we realized that royalty accounting would be a significant part of their requirement”. Lindy Antonelli, Gregg Block, and Dionne Thies of Access Technologies consulted with Samuel Mathew at Eclipse Computing to include the Eclipse Royalty & Rights Management System into an end-to-end ERP solution at Zizzle. “I was very impressed with the capabilities that Eclipse’s software incorporated into their product and knew it would be essential to our overall solution at Zizzle.” States Lindy Antonelli. “Initially, the accounting was pretty straightforward but we had already anticipated the contracts that would be in place in 2006 and beyond,” said Al Ellsworth controller for Zizzle. “What impressed us most about Eclipse was not just the product design but their understanding of the royalty accounting issues we faced. Even after the conversion, whenever we discovered new requirements, Eclipse was willing to work with us to meet our needs. Their system is very flexible and they have really gone beyond the norm in providing excellent post implementation support and guidance.”
