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Walsworth Publishing Graduates to a New Level of Business Intelligence With Information Builders
Delivers Targeted Information to Customers and Staff Members
| Source: Information Builders
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - September 29, 2009) - Information Builders, the leader in business intelligence (BI)
solutions, was tapped to build a unique information system and create
internal dashboards and reports for sales, manufacturing, and finance
personnel at Walsworth Publishing,
a printing industry leader that specializes in school yearbooks. Walsworth
helps students preserve memories via a Web-based BI system that tracks and
organizes pages submitted electronically throughout the year. Thanks to
Information Builders, data such as the status of printing jobs, proofs, and
deadlines can now be accessed electronically, enabling students to monitor
page submissions, streamline administration, reduce printing costs, and
review page proofs.
Walsworth Publishing has been producing yearbooks and other print materials
of exceptional quality for nearly 80 years. With roughly 3,700 schools as
customers, it's one of only four major yearbook printers in the industry.
As its business grew, Walsworth decided to replace a hodge-podge of reporting and data management tools with a unified BI
environment built using Information Builders WebFOCUS platform.
"Our reporting systems weren't scalable, they weren't flexible, and they
couldn't keep up with our growth," said Sherri Pickman, finance and cost
accounting manager at Walsworth. "We purchased WebFOCUS to stabilize our
reporting environment. We needed a strong and flexible business
intelligence system, and we were confident that WebFOCUS could easily reach
into different types of data and create a common platform for reporting."
In addition to creating the customer-facing BI system, Walsworth used
WebFOCUS Developer Studio to develop a sales dashboard for about 170
yearbook salespeople and managers. Previously, these employees had to
manually combine information from multiple systems. None of this
information was interactive, parameterized, or updated more than once per
week. Now, WebFOCUS synthesizes relevant information into one continuously
updated dashboard that displays key financial and production metrics to
authorized users. Salespeople have parameterized reports that allow them to
segment the customer base and create targeted promotions. For example, they
can look at all schools with yearbooks in a certain pricing program, then
automatically export the data to an Excel spreadsheet to identify the best
revenue opportunities.
Walsworth plans to update the sales dashboards with forecasting reports
that will help sales managers and executives devise more accurate revenue
projections. In addition, Walsworth is using WebFOCUS to create finance
reports for about 200 people charged with tracking monthly expense budgets
along with key performance indicators and dashboards for executives in
finance, human resources, information technology, yearbook sales, and
commercial sales.
"Walsworth publishing is on the cusp of an emerging trend in information
management, commonly known as self-service reporting," said Gerald D.
Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders. "Instead of reacting to
events based on limited insight, they are helping customers and staff gain
self-sufficiency by locating and analyzing the information they need,
boosting productivity, reducing costs, and creating a more competitive
organization."
About Walsworth Publishing
Walsworth Publishing Company strives to produce the highest quality product
while providing exemplary service to our customers. We do this by employing
a knowledgeable and courteous staff that uses the latest technology and
production methods to assure that we accomplish our goals and deliver a
superior product to our customer.
About Information Builders
Information Builders' award-winning combination of business intelligence
and enterprise integration software has been providing innovative solutions
to more than 12,000 customers for the past 30 years. WebFOCUS is the
world's most widely utilized business intelligence platform. It provides
the security, scalability, and flexibility needed at every level of global
extended enterprises. Its simplicity helps create executive, analytical,
and operational applications that reach dozens to millions of users.
Information Builders' iWay Software suite provides state of the art,
multi-purpose, pre-built integration components that address all SOA, application, data and information management
requirements. Its integration adapters have been adopted by the leading
software platform providers. Information Builders also offers solutions in
the performance management, business
activity monitoring, and
enterprise search markets. The company's comprehensive enterprise
product offerings give Information Builders' customers the ability to grow
and innovate according to their needs.
Information Builders' customers include most of the Fortune 100 and U.S.
federal government agencies. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices
worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business
partners. More information is available at
http://www.informationbuilders.com.