When Kogan Page moved from its legacy system, it needed to find a robust solution that provided regular upgrades. After reviewing other software available the Virtusales’ BiblioLIVE Bibliographic and Production modules were chosen.
The Challenge Martin Klopstock, Digital & Operations Director, outlined the following reasons for wanting to change Kogan Page’s publishing managing system:
Digital supply chain fast fragmenting
and eBook publishing models and couldn’t be upgraded
Legacy systems not adapted for fast evolving hybrid print
How to exploit the IP we own?
More work and data entry to manage increasing eBook list and increasing metadata requirements
Need for a new website that could be automatically updated with bibliographic information
The Solution BiblioLIVE: Bibliographic and Production Selection Process Kogan Page reviewed all the main publishing systems available including Klopotek, Ingenta, Avatar and Virtusales. Each vendor was requested to follow a number of pre-prepared scenarios and demonstrate how these could be completed using their software. This gave users a fantastic opportunity to understand the ease of use and practicality of each software option. After benchmarking each of the vendors, Virtusales’ BiblioLIVE publishing solution was selected. "You're not just buying a system for today, but for the future." Martin Klopstock, Digital & Operations Director, Kogan Page Why Virtusales
Proven history working with independent publishers
Ease of use and practicality
Fully hosted solution
Complete management package including servers, back up, disaster recovery and upgrades
Robust upgrade path, while Kogan's legacy vendor had terminated software updates
Unexpected Benefits Martin comments, “Something that really impressed me with BiblioLIVE is the grouping functionality which allows you to group elements such as titles, costs and contacts. This supports analysing costs, managing publication lists, catalogue production and mailing lists. We use this every day and totally underestimated the value of this functionality.”
Acquisition Process
The first step in the process for Kogan Page is assessing the profitability of potential projects. Before BiblioLIVE this was very time-consuming but BiblioLIVE’s powerful estimating engine imports supplier scales and uses them to automate the process. Kogan Page can review various specifications and suppliers to quickly and accurately produce P&L for a single book or multi-book project. The scales management also enables Kogan Page to change specifications throughout the production process and automatically recalculate production costs and P&Ls. Title appraisal scenarios and cost estimating options for the development of project P&Ls save Kogan Page 15 minutes per estimate. Following up from this, BiblioLIVE automatically creates the project proposal for the acquisitions meeting saving a further 15-20 minutes per proposal.
Managing Bibliographic Data
One of the most important elements for Kogan Page and the service it offers to authors is maintaining rich and accurate metadata. Martin adds, “We use our high service levels for current authors to win new authors.” BiblioLIVE’s ONIX wizard is a sophisticated piece of functionality that allows users to check the status of a title and its data, identifying where data is missing and allowing users to click into the wizard and input the required data. BiblioLIVE is an integrated solution so data is only entered once, leading to improved efficiencies for staff. There is functionality in BiblioLIVE that enables the automatic synching of metadata between linked editions, meaning that you can develop multiple formats of a book (e.g. print and eBook) but only set up the metadata once. Once this is done, the metadata for all editions are automatically in sync, even if changes are only applied to one of the editions.
Metadata and Marketing
BiblioLIVE supports sales and marketing through the automatic creation of title information sheets saving around 15 minutes per title to create. Producing catalogues has become much simpler, with the process that previously took at least four hours now being achievable in 20 minutes. Producing six catalogues per year, these are great efficiency gains for Kogan Page. Martin outlines, “Aside from the time saving, it is the accuracy of the data that is the most important part of BiblioLIVE. Based on the maintain-one/output-many principle, the same data is used in catalogues, websites, ONIX feeds and TIP sheets. Before, there was a good chance each of these had some different information in them.” Prior to BiblioLIVE, Kogan Page had to rely on its software vendor to complete their ONIX feeds but now this is automated and in its control. Kogan Page send a monthly full feed of ONIX data to eight third parties followed by daily ONIX feeds for titles that are new or titles where fields have changed. This is automated without Kogan Page touching anything. "Aside from the time saving, it is the accuracy of the data that is the most important part of BiblioLIVE. Based on the maintain-one/output-many principle, the same data is used in catalogues, websites, ONIX feeds and TIP sheets. Before, there was a good chance each of these had some different information in them." Martin Klopstock, Digital & Operations Director, Kogan Page
Production Management
Once the title is acquired, Kogan Page can take advantage of the sophisticated production management functionality available in BiblioLIVE including scheduling and automated re-flowing of schedules along with cost management and purchase order creation. Apart from the automated production estimating and P&L creation, the key benefits revolve around managing front list cover production and schedules. It is very easy to see, for example, how many front list covers have visuals, because interactive reports show the cover thumbnails and allow users to click into gaps and upload an image. Equally, as schedules are regularly maintained, supplier load reports, schedule progress reports and front list publication program management have access to live information at any time. Maintaining purchase order delivery details and generating POs is also automated and the CRM module in BiblioLIVE integrates with the Production module, so that all third parties are only present once in the system.
Reporting BiblioLIVE
Martin outlines his thoughts on BiblioLIVE reporting, “I cannot emphasise just how good the reporting engine is in BiblioLIVE. Users can report on any field in the database and create and edit their own reports without IT.” "I cannot emphasise just how good the reporting engine is in BiblioLIVE." Martin Klopstock, Digital & Operations Director, Kogan Page
Benefits of BiblioLIVE
PRODUCTIVITY GAINS
Increase from 150 annual print-only books to 150 print and ebooks without extra staff
Significantly increased ebook sales
TIME SAVINGS
Ability to automate legacy processes
50% time saving preparing catalogue data
50% time saving preparing title information sheets and jacket image creation
300 hours saved annually through efficiencies gained in the use of production functionalities such as automated acquisition estimates, scheduling and PO management
250 hours saved annually in updating other systems and third parties with the latest ONIX data
IMPROVED DATA QUALITY
ONIX metadata compliance and BIC Data Excellence award within four months of going live
ABILITY TO CHANGE QUICKLY
Tools to respond effectively to market trends and changes
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