IBS appoints Vice President of IBS PublishingNews & Events 2006-11-24 IBS International Business Systems has appointed Mike Irving to the position of Vice President of IBS Publishing. His main responsibilities will be the strategic planning for the publishing vertical within IBS and the management of the overall global marketing, development and support of the IBS Publishing solution, Bookmaster. “We have established IBS Publishing as a major vertical within the company and intend to be the leading service provider to the publishing industry worldwide. Mike has the publishing industry knowledge and the skills necessary to make this happen,” stated Erik Heilborn, CEO and President, IBS Group.
As the Vice President of IBS’ Publishing vertical, Mike will continue to focus on building a network of Publishing specialists within each major region around the world that can sell and support customers locally.
“We have already established regional centers of excellence in the UK, USA and Australia as well as developing resources in Sweden and Iberia.” stated Mike, “We need to ensure that these centers have competent staff to support any new and current customers.”
“We are working with IBS offices around the world to ensure that they attain the appropriate training and knowledge of the IBS Bookmaster product to be able to offer it to their respective markets and we have already doubled the number of Publishing consultants worldwide since the beginning of 2006.”
“There has been a huge amount of interest in the IBS Bookmaster product around the world, particularly in the US and Europe,” said Mike, “and we have already welcomed 4 new customers in the US this year with our first new IBS Bookmaster customer in Europe set to follow by the end of the year. We are also continuing to strengthen our strategic partnerships with the large multinational publishers such as Pearson and McGraw-Hill.”
From a product point of view IBS plans to continually improve IBS Bookmaster as has been done in the past. The publishing specific system has a huge advantage as it started with a very strong base of tremendous book distribution functionality and then best of breed solutions such as editorial and book production and royalties functionality were developed and integrated into the system. Additional areas such as business intelligence, e-Commerce and CRM make IBS Bookmaster a complete integrated solution for publishers and book distributors.
“We continue to look to the future,” said Mike, “and are looking at many issues such as Rights & Licensing Management and RFID. We are also collaborating with large international printers to look for supply chain improvements and options around digital asset management as well as looking at how to best implement book industry standards.”
IBS Bookmaster was developed by an Australia company, TMS Tailor Made Systems, and was acquired by IBS in 2005. Mike initially joined TMS in 1999 and moved to the UK this year to lead the expansion of IBS Bookmaster into Europe. Mike has solid expertise and experience in the publishing industry, both as a publisher and a book retailer in South Africa and Australia prior to joining the company.
For more information, please contact:
Mike Irving, VP IBS Publishing
Tel: +44 208 327 1400
mike.irving@ibsuk.com
John Womack, Senior Vice President Communications and IR
Tel: +46-8-627 24 99
john.womack@ibs.net
IBS is a world-leading provider of automated solutions for publishers and book distributors with editorial and production, royalties, subscriptions, e-commerce, warehouse management, financials and business intelligence key components. IBS delivers measurable value through its industry-specific software, services and hardware offerings. Cambridge University Press, Gyldendal/NBC, HarperCollins, Harvard University Press, LexisNexis, McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education and Penguin Books are among IBS’ 5,000 customers in 40 countries.
IBS corporate headquarters: +46-8-627 2300
info@ibsbookmaster.com
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