BookSource – IBS Bookmaster is knight in shining armor
In 1995, the Scottish Publishers Association (SPA) heard a rumor that a book distributor who was servicing various Scottish publishers was about to go bankrupt. When this was established to be true, the SPA was asked by its members to become involved in the legal battle that ensued. What was at stake was publishers' cash and stock.
Once the smoke cleared, the SPA walked away victorious and publishers breathed a sigh of relief, happy to have their stock and money returned. Unfortunately these publishers, many of them small to medium sized companies, were now left without a distributor.
In the tradition of knights in shining armor, the SPA came to the rescue once again and formed BookSource. Its primary aim was to service small to medium-sized publishers throughout Scotland. Today, BookSource provides a comprehensive distribution service to over 60 publishers throughout the UK.
A knight's sword
A strong sword comes in handy when fighting dragons or, in the case of BookSource, fighting for its client-publishers on a tough and competitive publishing terrain. This means being able to offer modern yet cost effective distribution services. The sword BookSource wields to achieve its aims is IBS Bookmaster, a publishing software solution designed specifically for the needs of publishers and book distributors.
"IBS Bookmaster has been built around a functional and robust core distribution and financial ERP system." Davinder Bedi, Managing Director of BookSource, stated emphatically, "IBS Bookmaster is our core tool."
"We can't make a commitment without the system we use. It's the system we chose five years ago that has brought us this far. We strongly depend on IBS Bookmaster."
IBS Bookmaster has been fundamental in supporting our business through this period of change and as a business solution for a book distributor or publisher, it is about as near to perfect as you can get.
Davinder Bedi
Managing Director
BookSource UK
New possibilities and services
The IBS Bookmaster Publishing System has armed BookSource with many advantages that usually only a large publishing house or book distributor would have access to.
Mr. Bedi talks about life before IBS Bookmaster: "We were working on a stand-alone DOS based PC. We took copies of the data and put it into other PCs, purely for information.
Because of this, the services that we did offer were limited to basic invoicing, credit control and dispatch – and it could only be offered on our terms."
"In 1998, when we implemented IBS Bookmaster, our whole way of doing business changed. All of a sudden IBS Bookmaster's integrated modules allowed us to offer a whole range of services to our client-publishers.
Importantly, we were able to offer it to them on their terms because IBS Bookmaster is so configurable and is business-rule driven."
"We are now able to say this is what we want. Can the system do it? Yes. Fantastic, let's get it delivered! For example, one of the services that we wanted to offer our client publishers was to allow them to log onto the system and download spreadsheets of their data and IBS Bookmaster gave us the capability to do just that."
"It's not just that client-publishers can download their own data but more importantly IBS Bookmaster's reporting features gives them access to a whole range of information in different forms on sales, stock, and financial figures."
Mr. Bedi enthused, "Our range of reporting is absolutely fantastic compared to what it was." "IBS Bookmaster has been fundamental in supporting our business through this period of change and as a business solution for a book distributor or publisher, it is about as near to perfect as you can get," Mr. Bedi added.
Sophisticated e-business
The sophisticated level of services BookSource can offer its customers can be seen by the implementation of a web shopping basket that their client-publishers use. This is a great service as it means that publishers don't have to expend development costs to do that individually themselves.
As BookSource's Managing Director, Mr. Bedi stays abreast of industry changes and is providing services to keep up with new requirements. He explains, "It's hard for small publishers to get into the shops to sell their books. Because of this, we've seen a shift towards direct marketing.
Sometimes it can be more profitable because publishers are selling products at a lower discount and customers are paying for the post and package. We looked at this situation and said how can we facilitate this?"
"We developed this functionality that can sit alongside IBS Bookmaster, so that (simplistically) we give our client-publishers the 'buy me' button, which allows their customer to go onto their website and buy their book. At the very end it says 'thank you: your books will be dispatched by BookSource,' etc. The order is then (invisibly) and seamlessly integrated into IBS Bookmaster."
"This also means that from our end we don't see these orders any more. It's all handled automatically by the system.
The first time we know about it is when IBS Bookmaster notifies our pick area. Not only has this benefited our client-publishers, it benefits our business as we aren't handling any paperwork or utilizing staff resources to sit and key the orders in or authorize credit cards."
100% automated warehousing
Another important feature that IBS Bookmaster brought to BookSource was the discount hierarchy. "With our old system we had to base a discount on one publisher and then remember to change it for every other publisher as we went along. This is now automated 100 percent, saving time while also ensuring our discount structure is correct for every client-publisher," said Mr. Bedi.
According to Mr. Bedi, implementing the integrated Warehouse module was a huge culture change for BookSource as previously the warehouse had operated on an entirely manual system. "Everything is much more efficient now and I know everything that is going on in the warehouse. When our customers call they are now provided with very precise information on the placement of their order.
In addition, once we implemented IBS Bookmaster, our annual stock-take went from five days to two, a real plus as it meant less down-time at a busy time of the year."
"We also boast about our order turnaround targets. We are committed to dispatching 85 percent of bookshop orders within three working days and IBS Bookmaster greatly assists us in keeping that promise to customers," Mr. Bedi asserted.
Phenomenal growth
When asked what he considers to be the major benefit of implementing a system like IBS Bookmaster, Mr. Bedi stated positively, "IBS Bookmaster has allowed us to take the company to the next level, so much so that we've seen a phenomenal amount of growth since 1998. What I love about IBS Bookmaster is the scalability. We have the same product that Penguin in Australia has," he says.
"They may have many more users but the functionality is the same. What you find in the UK is that most small distributors of our size have had to use smaller, more limiting systems. We, on the other hand, decided to invest in a system five years ago that is very advanced. With every new release of IBS Bookmaster, we've been able to take advantage of new developments that allow us to continually offer our clients more advanced services to help their business prosper and our business grow."
"Our aim is to excel in providing the range of services that our competitors offer, and even some they don't, and this is mainly dependent on what we can do with IBS Bookmaster."
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