Multi-national textbook publisher Grupo SM implements WoodWing Enterprise at all sites
Grupo SM, a multi-national publisher of textbooks, children's books, dictionaries and more, selected WoodWing´s multi-channel publishing system Enterprise as its first company-wide workflow solution. The group, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, deployed the system in nine countries, including Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The system enables the publisher to significantly streamline its local and international processes, to establish an efficient workflow to repurpose content and to pave the way for digital book offerings for tablets. At Grupo SM, Enterprise is integrated with SAP and remote authors are using the system via Citrix.
Despite the scale and the international shape of the installation, the implementation of WoodWing Enterprise at all sites of Grupo SM proceeded smoothly.
Zaandam, The Netherlands (March 25, 2014) – Grupo SM, founded in 1938, maintains a catalog of more than 12,800 titles and supports five languages, including Spanish and Portuguese, plus local languages in Spain such as Basque, Catalan and Galician. The group, which was honored in 2010 with the UNICEF award “Culture for children,” serves more than 40,000 schools and 8,500 libraries in Latin America. The company also maintains a strong online presence with more than 100 Web offerings as well as more than 75 profiles on social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Tuenti – a social networking platform in Spain.
Supervised by Epyx Media Solutions, a leading WoodWing Solution Partner in Mexico and Brazil, the SM subsidiary in Mexico took the first steps in early 2013 to evaluate WoodWing Enterprise, aiming to increase the efficiency and reliability of its processes.
“Implementation quick and easy”
Despite the scale and the international shape of the installation, the implementation proceeded smoothly. “Installation, configuration and fine-tuning of Enterprise is quick and easy,” said Oscar Howell, CTO and Director of Global Technology Center at Grupo SM. “The ease of use as well as the high level of openness and flexibility enabled us to deploy the system in nine countries in less than a year, including the training of users.”
Today, each subsidiary runs its own installation of WoodWing Enterprise but is part of the international setup, collaborating with the head office in Spain and other international subsidiaries. Textbook publishers usually work with many external authors. At Grupo SM, these contributors are using the system remotely through Citrix.
Enterprise integrated with SAP
WoodWing Enterprise has been integrated with the SAP system Grupo SM uses for the planning and budgeting of books during the production cycle – from initial planning to delivery. When the team launches the production of a new book, the title is created in SAP and all information relevant to the publishing process data is shared with Enterprise.
Streamlined workflow and effective reporting
“WoodWing Enterprise enables us to develop a globally standardized workflow, helping us to share editorial resources worldwide,” Howell added. According to Howell, the company has seen a significant increase in productivity in all countries, as well as process-controlling benefits from the centralized and standardized reporting enabled by Enterprise.
“At Grupo SM, our publishing system Enterprise was able to prove some of its key benefits,” said Roel-Jan Mouw, CEO of WoodWing. “In addition to flexibility and openness, its capability to manage a complex distributed workflow has been crucial for this successful implementation. We are very pleased that the launch of Enterprise at Grupo SM worked so well - it´s a lighthouse example for the entire textbook industry.”
Digital offerings via Enterprise
WoodWing Enterprise also enables Grupo SM to pave the way to offer its titles in digital form on tablets. The group runs a pilot in Brazil to produce their digital offerings within the Enterprise workflow.
About WoodWing Software
WoodWing Software develops and markets a premier, cost-efficient multi-channel publishing system, Enterprise, and the next generation digital asset management system, Elvis DAM. WoodWing’s solutions are aimed at magazine and newspaper publishers, corporate publishers, agencies and marketing departments to reach their goals for quality, economy and time-to-market.
WoodWing’s publishing system Enterprise – including the editorial management application Content Station – coordinates and streamlines the process of creating, managing and publishing static, dynamic and interactive content for all media channels – print, Web, social, smartphones and tablets. Elvis DAM enables users to securely store and efficiently manage the increasing collection of rich-media files.
WoodWing Software, founded in the year 2000, has its headquarters in Zaandam, The Netherlands, and has regional sales offices in Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. Customers are served locally by over 90 selected partners in more than 100 countries. WoodWing’s long-standing relationship with Adobe as a Technology Partner and its close cooperation with a large number of other technology vendors worldwide, confirm WoodWing’s position as one of the leading suppliers of publishing software. WoodWing is a privately owned company, with all founders actively engaged. Additional information regarding WoodWing's products and services can be found at www.woodwing.com.
Press contact
Stefan Horst
PR Manager WoodWing Software
T: 49-151-12 72 63 62
E: sho@woodwing.com
Tags:
