• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, December 1, 2009

Harris Corp., a provider of accounting and media-buying software to agencies, on Tuesday said it has entered into a strategic alliance with Facilitate Digital Holdings Limited.

The alliance creates an integrated solution for ad agencies that combines the financial management capabilities of Harris Enterprise Agency Suite Digital software with Facilitate Digital's Symphony Media platform.

The primary function of the integrated solution -- to be exclusively marketed through Harris as "Harris EAS Digital, Powered by Symphony" -- is to provide an end-to-end platform that better supports digital media buying and creative management processes.

Harris EAS Digital software presently supports initial contact with digital publishers to the billing of clients, reconciliation of publisher invoices and payment of publishers.

The automated workflow of Symphony Media digital software, meanwhile, is designed to reduce campaign administration costs.

The integrated solution is intended to eliminate the need for agencies to manually engage in duplicate entry of any data required by either platform -- simplifying the digital media-buying process with efficient, paperless execution.

"Agencies find it difficult to attain reasonable levels of profitability as business processes remain highly inefficient and labor-intensive," Joseph Lampert, managing director of Harris Corporation's Advertising Solutions Group, said regarding digital agencies.

"The lack of fully integrated and automated systems in this space has left the industry awash in paper shuffled around by legions of clerical staff to ensure campaigns are properly managed and tracked, clients are billed and publishers are paid," Lampert added.

Top media-buying software maker Donovan Data Systems has reportedly been battling Chicago-based MediaBank, which offers various automated services for media and creative agencies, while Harris is seen as a dark horse in the race -- and one that agencies have been betting on to develop a better digital media management system.

Harris Corporation recently reported that revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2010 ended Oct. 2, 2009 was $1.2 billion, versus $1.17 billion for the similar period in 2009 fiscal. Net income in the first quarter was $105 million, or $.79 per diluted share compared with $119 million, or $.89 per diluted share, in the previous year's quarter.