Chenelière’s rapid business growth results in uptake of IBS Bookmaster software

Customer Story

Montreal-based Chenelière Education (CE) required an IT system that would help the educational publishing company keep pace with its growth. IBS Bookmaster, developed for the publishing industry, is helping CE turn a new page in streamlining operations.

Company background

Founded by Michel de la Chenelière in 1984, Chenelière Éducation (CE) began as a simple book packager for publishers. Today it has grown to become the fourth largest Canadian educational publisher and is particularly committed to publishing texts for Francophone students across Canada and French immersion students outside of Quebec. CE has been on a fast track to business expansion since launching its publishing and book distribution operations through an aggressive rights acquisition program in 1989, including the purchase of the French publishing assets of McGraw-Hill Ryerson in 1995. Sensing that the industry in Quebec was ripe for consolidation, CE brought onboard a financial partner, Borealis Capital Corporation, in 2002. It then went on to acquire three separate companies to almost double its sales.

Today, CE has over 160 full-time employees and has a catalogue of over 5,000 titles for all segments and subjects of education in the French language in Canada. The company’s sales are in the CAD 50 million range.

Business issues

Business growth in the last 10 years has brought with it challenges such as continuing to provide high levels of service, especially as CE’s book distribution and fulfilment activities were outsourced. To make things more difficult, its third-party distributor had recently moved control out of Canada to the USA, which left CE vulnerable to the possibility that its supply chain could be compromised. Furthermore, the 2005 acquisition of Groupe Beauchemin Editeur Itee required CE to integrate disparate business rules and systems into one single entity. This would enable the company to centralise control over its different business areas and streamline its entire operation. As a company that mainly markets direct to customers such as schools and universities, CE was also looking to improve its direct marketing campaigns, enhance service levels and provide better support to its on-the-ground sales team.

Based on these issues, CE decided to establish its own warehousing and book distribution facility. The company also decided implement a new publishing software solution that could handle modern distribution requirements while being able to anticipate the specific publishing requirements of a growing company.

Solution and capabilities

After conducting an exhaustive analysis of its requirements, CE decided to invest in the IBS Bookmaster system. Because IBS Bookmaster is a publishing-specific distribution system, CE believed that it would be easier to implement and use. The company was also reassured by the publishing industry expertise of IBS Bookmaster personnel. IBS Bookmaster software is well received in the publishing industry, as it has been designed over 20 years in partnership with publishers and book distributors around the world. It is a book distribution system that combines the power and functionality of leading financial and distribution systems with the industry-specific features of a publishing solution.

CE believes that IBS Bookmaster software will anticipate many of their requirements – unlike a generic package that would need further investment to obtain the necessary publishing features. For example, CE was looking for a way to automate royalties. IBS Bookmaster comes with a fully integrated Royalty solution, which would accomplish 100 per cent of what CE wanted. 

While CE has only partly implemented IBS Bookmaster software, it will soon take advantage of other solutions such as integrated financials, distribution requirements planning, inventory and warehouse management, returns management, EDI, business intelligence tools and CRM.

CE’s long-term plan is to look at investing in IBS Bookmaster’s integrated Editorial and Book Production system. As the company continues to expand, it also aims to implement the Advanced Warehouse Management system.

Benefits and value

The company foresees many benefits once IBS Bookmaster software is completely implemented, both in the short and long term. One of the major issues for CE is that they were essentially running three separate businesses. This means orders were separated at the customer service level to make sense out of them and then processed through three different systems. Once all three business units have been fully consolidated onto the IBS Bookmaster system, CE anticipates that solid productivity gains will be generated. Order processing, billing and accounts receivable will be streamlined; many current tasks will be eliminated and orders will be processed faster.

The automated Royalties system will enable CE to handle complex royalty contracts and payments effortlessly. It will significantly minimize time and effort required to manage royalties and will enable the company to service its authors and contributors at a higher level.

The company’s investment in IBS Bookmaster’s integrated CRM will take its already strategic marketing efforts to another level. Centralised promotional campaigns will minimise double-handling, while sales staff will have access to accurate information on prospect buying habits and campaign analysis.

In the long term CE believes that as it continues to grow, IBS Bookmaster will be able to handle any business issues, no matter how complex. This is because IBS Bookmaster is a sophisticated publishing and book distribution system utilized by many large publishing companies with international subsidiaries.

Contact IBS for more information. »