Global publishers get 20/20 vision with our business intelligence solutions

The challenge

Collecting data from around the globe

Our client had started to embrace the world of online publishing and also acquired several smaller publishers. This growth meant the company was producing more useful data than ever before. After seeing other publishing houses cut costs and boost sales, the company knew it could achieve the same.

 

The publisher’s existing data warehouse was integral to the company’s operations. However, this system couldn’t handle the volumes of data being produced. The client had thousands of employees spread across offices worldwide, with a seemingly endless amount of data to manage. Staff needed a way to analyse data from stock to standing orders quickly.

 

Without central access to data from offices around the globe, several challenges arose:

 

• human error in data entry was commonplace
• duplicated data made reports unreliable
• non-technical staff could not understand data

 

To stay a leader in the publishing industry, our client needed to improve its business reporting process.

The solution

Creating a BI solution for publishers

To help our client stay ahead of the game we created a core system which would display data reports in a non-technical format. All members of staff, regardless of department or location, could access the data and use it to their advantage. 

 

We used our ETL expertise to create an Oracle database which could extract, transform, and load data from global servers. In this way we entirely automated data collection from the publishing offices worldwide. With the implementation of SAP BusinessObjects, the company could access in-depth reports with ease, gaining valuable insight into past sales. 

The benefits

Effective sales strategy

Global publishers gain a 360-degree view of business with our ETL management

The challenge

Legacy software was hindering data flow

At the time of this project the publisher had begun to embrace online publishing, as well as acquiring several smaller publishers. This growth meant the company was producing greater volumes of data than ever before. And in a world where data is the new oil, the company couldn’t afford to let this data go idle. Seeing how other publishers were using data to cut costs and boost revenue, our client wanted to achieve the same.

 

However, the publisher’s existing technology was not able to handle the volumes of data being produced. Not only did they have thousands of employees spread across offices worldwide, but they had a mountain of data to control. Staff needed an easy way to report on everything from stock to customers and payments to standing orders.

 

The lack of a central access point for managing and reporting on company data had the following drawbacks:

 

• duplicated data was producing inaccurate reports
• costly licensing fees due to multiple types of software
• high risk of human error caused by manual data entry
• difficulty managing data due to lack of central access

 

To maintain its competitive position in the publishing market, our client needed to find a modern data integration solution.

The solution

Uniting global data through ETL solutions

The publisher approached us on the basis of our work for well-known publishers such as Hachette and Oxford University Press. And with our in-depth data integration experience, we had the skills to help them turn their data into reports.

 

Instead of starting from scratch, we decided to build on the client’s existing system. This approach would ensure maximum value with minimum disruption. We identified Oracle as the ideal ETL tool due to its ability to manage multiple databases on a single server.

 

For the reporting side, we integrated Oracle with an SAP BusinessObjects tool. The client used these intuitive BusinessObjects reports for everything from accounting to predicting purchasing trends and measuring customer loyalty.

The benefits

Boosting productivity and efficiency with our ETL solution

Publisher launches online checkout through order-to-cash integration

The challenge

Checkout had no access to customer data

With digital disruptors like Amazon seizing a large share of book sales, today’s publishers have stiff competition. These market pressures made a compelling case for our client to diversify into online sales.

 

At the time of this project, egforit’s software engineers had developed an online checkout portal for the publisher’s customers to buy magazine subscriptions. The last piece of the puzzle was to connect this online checkout, built in a Microsoft Azure cloud, to the customer data that it needed to place orders.

 

However, there was no in-built connectivity between the cloud-based checkout and the company’s on-premise customer relationship management (CRM) software, from AdvantageCS. For this reason, this order-to-cash integration effort required some in-depth expertise with Azure Integration Services.

 

Without that CRM data integration in place, the company faced the following obstacles:

 

• the need for sales staff to manually check and update customer data
• a high risk of inaccuracy and duplication in customer and sales data
• low customer satisfaction due to the lengthy purchase process

 

In light of these issues, it was clear that an order-to-cash integration solution was critical to the company’s growth.

The solution

On-premise CRM data integration with the cloud

This publisher knew of egforit’s integration work for publishers like Taylor & Francis, Hachette, and Oxford University Press. And having demonstrated our Azure expertise in building the online checkout system, our team was ideally placed to deliver the customer data integration as well.

 

The solution concerned a common integration challenge, namely how to connect an on-premise system to the cloud. Our decision to use Azure technology to achieve this was based on this platform’s low-code, top-security, and high-value features.

 

Because of the complex queries that the checkout needed to perform on the on-premises CRM, a pre-built Azure connector was not sufficient. Instead, we took the approach of developing an on-premises API that would query the customer database.

 

Breaking the project down into two halves, on the Azure cloud side there were:

 

• the online checkout portal
• an Azure Logic App
• a custom Azure connector

 

And on the on-premises side we had:

 

• an Azure on-premise data gateway
• an ASP.NET Core API
• and, of course, the AdvantageCS CRM

 

With all these elements in place, the online checkout system was automatically updated with accurate data from the company’s CRM. And when a customer placed an order in the checkout, the CRM automatically received that data. In this way, the order-to-cash process had become smooth and self-sufficient for both customers and the sales team.

The benefits

Growing sales with customer data integration