so far ahead - xerox · so far ahead of our competition ... client bookstores ... what remains of...
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Xerox Content Management Solutions: Success Story
MBS Textbook Exchange
Gets Smart About Business
with Xerox Content
Management Solutions
“ We’re so far ahead of our competition.”
X E R O X O F F I C E S E R V I C E S Real People. Real World Solutions.
Content Management Applications:• Digitize business processes in Systems, Direct, and Wholesale Divisions
• Provide online course materials for students of institutional customers
• Manage technical changes and specifications
Content Management Challenges:• Speed delivery and access to proposals and contracts for 3,000
client bookstores• Provide accurate technical updates for AS/400 Point-of-Sale systems
• Eliminate costly errors
• Make information quickly available to sales reps and customers
• Speed and facilitate interactive content sharing for
distance-learning customers
• Reduce paper clutter
Xerox Content Management Solution:• FlowPort - Xerox Image Routing Software for image capture
and workflow control
• DocuShare - Xerox Document Repository Software for document
management, storage, and retrieval
MBS Textbook Exchange Benefits:• Competitive advantage
• 24 x 7 access to information by MBS Textbook Exchangestaff and clients
• Time saving and better workflow control• Reduced costs
• Better ability to meet deadlines
MBS Textbook Exchange
Summary
“Delivering our products on time is crucial to our business,” says
Flanagan. “In the past we were always getting the customers’ input
materials late. Now they can get materials to us on their schedule.
They just drop their documents into DocuShare folders, and our DocuTechs
print the materials. Everything flows so much more efficiently through
our systems now, and costly back ordering has been eliminated.”
As of January 2002, the Direct Division will give students the option of
digital delivery of course packs versus hardcopy documents, allowing
a reduction in cost for those who prefer receiving their course materials
in electronic form.
With Xerox Content Management Solutions, “We are so far ahead of our
competition,” Flanagan concludes. “That’s why we chose DocuShare
and FlowPort – they were unique products that no other vendor offered.”
“There were files and paper everywhere.Nobody knew where anything was – and ifsomebody was out sick and had locked theirdesk, forget it!”
Dennis Flanagan
Executive Vice President, Corporate Marketing
and New Business Development
MBS Textbook Exchange
Columbia, Missouri
SummaryMBS Textbook Exchange Benefits
C U S T O M E R P R O F I L E
Columbia, Missouri-based MBS Textbook Exchange is the nation’s largest
supplier of new and used textbooks to college bookstores. The company
traces its roots to 1909 and a shelf at the University of Missouri coffee
shop where students exchanged used texts. Soon, the Missouri Store
Company was selling books and classroom supplies to schools throughout
the state. By the 1920’s, the company began to wholesale textbooks
nationally – a business which grew until, by the end of the century, it
was supplying textbooks to approximately 3,000 higher-education clients.
Today, what remains of the original retail business is the Wholesale
Division. MBS Textbook Exchange includes two additional units to serve
special needs of the academic market. The Direct Division supplies
distance-learning colleges and universities with online customized
packaging of books and “course packs” – collections of special materials,
articles, and reprints selected to supplement texts for specific classes.
In addition, through its Systems Division the company sells and
services computer-based point-of-sale systems designed for
academic bookstores.T H E C O N T E N T M A N A G E M E N T C
H A L L E N G E
The rapid business growth spawned by the addition of the Direct and
Systems Divisions brought an urgent need for effective computer and
web-based content management tools. Old ways of handling documents
and workflow were simply not productive. Dennis Flanagan, Executive
Vice President, Corporate Marketing and New Business Development,
describes that era’s hardcopy world as “like living out of a shoebox –
with files everywhere and paper everywhere.”
The Direct Division, for example, was producing and shipping tens of
thousands of course packs per year, requiring a massive hardcopy
scanning and distribution operation. “With our large volume of input,
not every page would scan correctly, so we sometimes ended up with
errors and missing pages in our documents, which was a huge productivity
barrier,” Flanagan remembers.
In the Systems Division, the need for a more efficient workflow was
equally urgent. “Our business was growing, and we were running out
of room to put all of our paper documents,” recalls Lois Ahrens, Systems
Marketing Representative. “We have a variety of spreadsheets that
track things internally, and people needed instant access to them. Most
importantly, our marketing reps, who sell our IBM AS/400-based point-
of-sale systems to bookstores, needed to have the very latest information
on models, configurations, and features. Technical information changes
regularly. Updating our reps and customers by e-mail, fax, or snail mail
was much too cumbersome and slow.”
MBS Textbook Exchange Benefits
Xerox Content Management Solutions have added significant value
throughout MBS Textbook Exchange. In the Wholesale Division, the
firm’s traditional business and largest revenue generator, FlowPort -
Xerox Image Routing Software and DocuShare - Xerox Document
Repository Software provide an orderly way of managing the firm’s
proposals and contracts with bookstores – contracts which represent
vital business relationships with some 3,000 customers.
“We’ve set up ‘Virtual Bookstores’ – folders in DocuShare – for each of
our clients. They just ‘drag and drop’ their electronic document from
their desktop to the DocuShare folder,” reports Flanagan.
The Systems Division now uses DocuShare to manage the flow of
technical updates for the point-of-sale computer systems they sell.
And in the Direct Division, DocuShare helps manage the production and
sale of course packs for a half-million students in 300 schools.
DocuShare’s capacity to manage documents and workflow has ushered
in a powerful new way of content management that is both more orderly
and more expansive. “From our customers’ standpoint, DocuShare
makes doing business with us very easy,” says Flanagan.
In addition to benefiting MBS Textbook Exchange customers, Xerox
Content Management Solutions have driven down costs and improved
efficiencies throughout the company’s internal operations. “We were
digging up files and faxing them to someone else who needed them,”
recalls Lois Ahrens. “ Now, DocuShare puts that knowledge where they
can get it themselves, 24 hours a day.”
“I used to have to make 20 copies ofeverything and mail them. Now, I simplyscan one signed copy. FlowPort directs
it where it needs to go, and whoeverneeds the contract can go to DocuShare
and retrieve it.”
Tammy Banks
Administrative Assistant,
Wholesale Division
MBS Textbook Exchange
Columbia, Missouri
MBS Textbook Exchange Gets Smart About Business with Xerox Content Management Solutions
C U S T O M E R P R O F I L ECustomer Profile H A L L E N G EThe Content Management Challenge
MBS Textbook Exchange BenefitsMBS Textbook Exchange Benefits
X E R O X O F F I C E S E R V I C E S
Success Story