Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD Grows Publishing Company with Reliable Applications
 
 

Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD Grows Publishing Company with Reliable Applications

  • Oracle Customer:  Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD
    Location:  Woodbury, MN
    Industry:  Media & Entertainment
    Employees:  80
    Annual Revenue:  Under $100 Million

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Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD is the world’s oldest and largest independent publisher of books for body, mind, and spirit. Since 1901, it has been at the forefront of holistic and metaphysical publishing and thought on topics including astrology, tarot, wellness, earth-based spirituality, magic, and the paranormal. Today, Llewellyn also embraces the digital age, from e-books to tarot-themed iPhone apps.

To support its growing publishing operations and reach its goal of achieving $100 million in annual revenue, Llewellyn relies on Oracle Database and Oracle E-Business Suite, which provide the backbone for the company’s publishing enterprise. Employees use Oracle applications and Oracle Database to manage author information, manuscript submission and acceptance, editing, production, distribution, customer relationship management, sales, and finance. The publisher sells more than 3,000 titles via its own Web site and through online book dealers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. Oracle E-Business Suite helps Llewellyn ensure that it can rapidly and efficiently fulfill customer orders.

Since the business relies so heavily on Oracle, Llewellyn uses Oracle Services to ensure the systems are always up and running. My Oracle Support provides a detailed knowledge base to help with new projects and troubleshooting. Oracle Premier Support provides the company with personal assistance aimed at quick and effective resolution to any problems that may arise in the company’s Oracle environment.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD

  • “Oracle E-Business Suite provides a stable base on which to grow our publishing operations, and Oracle Services, including Oracle Premier Support and My Oracle Support, ensure that these vital applications run efficiently and reliably.” – Mike McGrath, Global Applications Administrator, Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD

  • Create a robust enterprise system that will enable the publisher of holistic and metaphysical books to create an IT foundation that will support growth, with a goal of achieving US$100 million in annual sales
  • Gain an integrated environment for managing nearly every aspect of the publishing business—encompassing manuscript submission and acceptance, production and distribution, sales and service, human resources, and finance
  • Enable the company to quickly ship books to individual customers as well as to its distribution partners, such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Created an enterprise platform based on Oracle E-Business Suite to standardize publishing operations and establish a strong foundation for expanding relationships with distribution partners and growing the business overall
  • Leveraged applications, including Oracle Inventory and Oracle Shipping Execution, to manage an inventory of more than 3,000 book and e-book titles and quickly ship them—often within the same day—to fulfill orders to individual customers as well as distribution partners
  • Achieved very high inventory accuracy of 99.96%
  • Gained the ability to efficiently support approximately 3,000 shipping lines daily, a high volume for the industry
  • Reduced production errors and project delays by using Oracle Projects to manage book production and other key publishing processes
  • Implemented Oracle Advanced Collections recently to gain better insight into credit rates for large and small customers, priorities for delinquent accounts, and days sales outstanding
  • Gained the flexibility to institute drop shipment for out-of-print orders by leveraging an interface between Oracle Order Management and Oracle Purchasing, which lets the company send requests directly to printers who then ship the books directly to customers, cutting delivery time and costs
  • Benefitted from alerts in the system that enable the company to quickly address any problems with invoices, payments, purchase orders, shipping charges, and other key processes
  • Facilitated sharing customer information with online book dealers to strengthen these key relationships
  • Leveraged Oracle E-Business Suite’s flexibility to adapt to the recent economic downturn by implementing a prepayment process, which helps ensure a healthy cash flow
  • Gained a detailed product knowledge base with My Oracle Support, which has been instrumental in helping the small IT team complete implementations, such as Oracle iStore and a prepayment process

Why Oracle

Llewellyn chose Oracle E-Business Suite because it wanted a comprehensive, feature-rich software suite capable of supporting the large enterprise it hopes to become.

Implementation Process

Llewellyn selected Oracle E-Business Suite to replace a custom designed pick system in 2005. Throughout its rollout and when it adds new applications, the company relies on My Oracle Support to complement its small IT team’s efforts with an extensive knowledge base to find answers quickly

“A large company has many IT experts. We have only a handful of people supporting our Oracle applications, so we rely on My Oracle Support for that extra help,” said Mike McGrath, Global Applications Administrator, Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.