Case study: DAZN

What’s the story?

DAZN was one of the earliest adopters of Oracle Cloud Financials Suite, implementing the platform in 2015.

Perform Group, which owned DAZN at the time, had opted to become one of the first global organisations to implement Oracle Cloud. Such a decision inevitably comes with an element of risk; the technology was still brand new at the time and, to a large extent, unknown.

DAZN had been working with a major systems integrator, which was struggling to achieve its objectives within the tax space of the ERPEnterprise resource planning (ERP) is a type of software that organisations use to manage main business processes.. It soon identified the need for a specialist indirect tax technology provider to help it unlock the full potential of the Oracle functionality it had acquired.

That’s where Innovate Tax came in. Based on our rich heritage in Oracle R12 and early lead on Cloud, we were selected by Perform Group in 2016 to work with the system integrator and assume responsibility for all areas related to sales tax and VAT.

The project

A manual approach had proven to be inadequate in managing the complexities DAZN’s tax processes entailed. It was clear that automation was the only way the business would maximise the performance of Oracle Cloud.

Our team of functional tax technology consultants integrated our automated indirect tax determination solution in DAZN’s Oracle Cloud ERP, enabling the company to automate an overwhelming majority of transactions.

This also freed members of its Finance team to focus their attention on the very small number of complex scenarios that still required human intervention. Meanwhile, in the background, technology would seamlessly process millions of transactions each year, ensuring optimum accuracy and compliance every time.

Our solution has been developed over the last decade to bring Oracle-specific content – including built-in tax logic for over 150 countries around the world – to a business’ tax engine. Having installed this for DAZN, our team worked to build the bespoke functionality and automated processes it also required, many based on the extraordinary mix of intricate global business lines it covered.

DAZN selected 32 countries for its implementation, including all the world’s largest sports markets; we installed our solution to focus on these nations, automatically calculating tax liabilities in accordance with local laws, rules and rates.

From inception to go-live, the implementation was completed in just three months.

The results

By working closely with the system integrator and DAZN’s tax professionals, we enabled DAZN to make the most of the Oracle functionality within its ERP. Our solution allowed it to:

• Benefit from immense flexibility, meaning rate changes, new exemptions and updates to regulations were all adopted immediately without any further development. As a result, DAZN ensured 100% compliance, even when countries announced tax changes at short notice.
• Meet local tax regulations in 32 countries, including the US, Canada, Germany, the UK and Japan.
• Make frequent updates and upgrades to its tax technology over the last four years as part of our ongoing support.

With factors such as the economic response to Covid-19 and Brexit causing uncertainty and countries already introducing new taxes and rates to combat these threats, the responsiveness of our technology continues to help the company adapt and remain fully compliant four years later.

As well as enjoying the time and financial gains of automation, relying on technology has taken all the stress out of tax for the DAZN team. Instead, its Finance team benefits from complete peace of mind that all tax liabilities are being met.

What’s next?

Since initially being chosen by Perform Group to oversee the implementation of our tax technology in DAZN’s Oracle Cloud suite, we have developed a strong relationship with DAZN itself. That’s why we’ve continued to work with DAZN even after it was sold by Perform Group in 2018.

As DAZN embarks on a period of growth that includes entering new and exciting markets, our team of tax technology experts are working to help the business deal with any indirect tax concerns and tailor our solution to meet its changing requirements and specifications.

We are now able to easily update DAZN’s Oracle Cloud set-up as the business continues to grow. For example, adding more countries to DAZN’s solution would be relatively straightforward, each offering immediate compatibility with the existing system and country-specific tax logic.