Walsworth Publishing Reduces Costs for Competitive Edge With Information Builders
Walsworth Teams Up With Information Builders to Deliver Targeted Information to Customers and Staff Members
NEW YORK, NY (September 29, 2009) –
Information Builders, the leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, was tapped to build a unique information system and create internal dashboards and reports for sales, manufacturing, and finance personnel at Walsworth Publishing, a printing industry leader that specializes in school yearbooks. Walsworth helps students preserve memories via a Web-based BI system that tracks and organizes pages submitted electronically throughout the year. Thanks to Information Builders, data such as the status of printing jobs, proofs, and deadlines can now be accessed electronically, enabling students to monitor page submissions, streamline administration, reduce printing costs, and review page proofs.
Walsworth Publishing has been producing yearbooks and other print materials of exceptional quality for nearly 80 years. With roughly 3,700 schools as customers, it’s one of only four major yearbook printers in the industry. As its business grew, Walsworth decided to replace a hodge-podge of reporting and data management tools with a unified BI environment built using Information Builders’ WebFOCUS platform.
“Our reporting systems weren’t scalable, they weren’t flexible, and they couldn’t keep up with our growth,” said Sherri Pickman, finance and cost accounting manager at Walsworth. “We purchased WebFOCUS to stabilize our reporting environment. We needed a strong and flexible business intelligence system, and we were confident that WebFOCUS could easily reach into different types of data and create a common platform for reporting.”
In addition to creating the customer-facing BI system, Walsworth used WebFOCUS Developer Studio to develop a sales dashboard for about 170 yearbook salespeople and managers. Previously, these employees had to manually combine information from multiple systems. None of this information was interactive, parameterized, or updated more than once per week. Now, WebFOCUS synthesizes relevant information into one continuously updated dashboard that displays key financial and production metrics to authorized users. Salespeople have parameterized reports that allow them to segment the customer base and create targeted promotions. For example, they can look at all schools with yearbooks in a certain pricing program, then automatically export the data to an Excel spreadsheet to identify the best revenue opportunities.
Walsworth plans to update the sales dashboards with forecasting reports that will help sales managers and executives devise more accurate revenue projections. In addition, Walsworth is using WebFOCUS to create finance reports for about 200 people charged with tracking monthly expense budgets along with key performance indicators and dashboards for executives in finance, human resources, information technology, yearbook sales, and commercial sales.
“Walsworth publishing is on the cusp of an emerging trend in information management, commonly known as self-service reporting,” said Gerald D. Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders. “Instead of reacting to events based on limited insight, they are helping customers and staff gain self-sufficiency by locating and analyzing the information they need, boosting productivity, reducing costs, and creating a more competitive organization.”
About Walsworth Publishing
Walsworth Publishing Company strives to produce the highest quality product while providing exemplary service to our customers. We do this by employing a knowledgeable and courteous staff that uses the latest technology and production methods to assure that we accomplish our goals and deliver a superior product to our customer.
About Information Builders
Information Builders’ award-winning combination of business intelligence and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers for the past 30 years. WebFOCUS is the world’s most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides the security, scalability, and flexibility needed at every level of global extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical, and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users. Information Builders’ iWay Software suite provides state of the art, multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA, application, data and information management requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading software platform providers. Information Builders also offers solutions in the performance management, business activity monitoring, and enterprise search markets. The company’s comprehensive enterprise product offerings give Information Builders’ customers the ability to grow and innovate according to their needs.
Information Builders’ customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S. federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners.
Source: Information Builders