Edward Wates, Wiley-Blackwell

Edward Wates is Global Journal Content Director for Wiley-Blackwell. He reflected on the Wiley-Blackwell experience at the ALPSP seminar on Outsourcing, providing insights into what to consider when outsourcing and insourcing, as well as lessons he has learnt.

The wider context for outsourcing is the changing environment. We are in a period of rapid change. There is a reduction in growth, digital transformation of business, with growth in open access that means lower revenue per article. There is restructuring and reinvestment in growth and innovation. Wates believes that you need to invest in article enrichment - they want their content to do more, and they want to use it in a more interesting way.

He noted that journal contract renewals is a competitive matter, often associated with improved royalty payments to keep the business. This will be the case for all publishers. All this has an impact on the cost base, so they have a responsibility to think about this.


You should use a range of financial metrics including cost of sale (typesetting, PP&B), plant costs (copy editing, project management), direct expenses (overheads), and releasing funds for investment. Production insourcing at Wiley-Blackwell has an ethos of 'manage more, do less'. They focus on workflow development, specification, purchasing, training and support, relationship management and project management.

Their content strategy is now multi-channel (web, mobile, ebook and print), multi-product, user focused containing multiple combinations. They also focus on discoverability. Underpinning principles set the framework for think about how they deliver these things. Wates was clear about the need to win hearts and minds internally when outsourcing. If colleagues aren't fully on board they can undermine the work.

The benefits of outsourcing include:

• increased productivity and cost savings
• redeployment of in-house staff
• speed to market
• efficiency
• access to competencies
• access to tools.

Often, you may face a challenge at senior level, where there is lack of understanding of process and tools. This has led them to focus on tools for content management. Other areas to consider are the commoditization of production services, how vendor expertise is developing and widening, flexible approaches and ways of slicing the functions to outsource.

Perceived downsides of outsourcing have to be taken into account. These can include concerns around loss of control, quality and time zone factors. The impact of growing economies and exposure to exchange rate fluctuations, staff turnover,  as well as takeovers and company failure are also areas of concern.

And what about quality issues? It helps to pin down exactly what they are: style, language, layout, timeliness – of these, the most critical is XML. Wates also defined the 'scrutiny effect' whereby the extra attention given to outsourced work may require higher quality levels than previously existed.

In the future Wates believes that speed to market, greater consistency and further standardisation will be critical. New media and enriched content will facilitate a move away from a print-oriented way of thinking about outsourcing.

Richard Fidczuk: onshoring

Richard Fidczuk is Production Director at SAGE Publications. Constant change in both journals and books businesses means the need exists to be able to adapt processes, workflows and systems to meet changing requirements. People are needed to develop these processes, workflows and systems. Managing resources is key. They have developed an insourced approach to offshoring by establishing their Delhi office.

When done well, the benefits are clear: being able to offshore staffing for production has meant reductions of 27% per page costs. Delhi handles SAGE owned journals with society contracts handled from London, due to the complexity of relationship and potential perceived (versus real) issues. He advises not to focus on new processes that are not ready for outsourcing as they are not stable enough.

Growth has enabled them to keep staff after they have off-shored functions. But it wouldn't be large enough alone to cover all staff, so they've looked at the business to change the way they do things so in order to redeploy staff. As their business has been in a state of perpetual change, it has freed them to think about how they can adapt processes to change.

Individual production editor tasks have evolved. They now have end to end responsibility, for online as well as print, with a shift to article based production. SAGE has created a new role - Production Innovation Manager which focuses on the case for improvements to production workflows - particularly around completely new products. They coordinate implementation of changes to processes/workflows and work across departments. They have also established a Global Supplier Manager who handles the relationships with all their typesetting suppliers. Other specialist roles have focused on XML, system specialists/super users, peer review system (using fundref and crossref) and open access expertise (e.g. managing payment interface with finance dealing with licensing issues). They have also used staff to support the training of teams in the Delhi office, to build understanding of the processes that will enable them to work most efficiently.

Other areas that SAGE have successfully off-shored to Delhi include:

• marketing data specialists now based in India with analysis undertaken in London
• production and permissions clearance management for SAGE major works
• journals peer review - SAGETRACK - out to Delhi
• design, book covers and marketing materials 
• IT development.

Kathy Law is a publishing professional with over 30 years' experience in both sales and distribution roles, most recently in business development and publication management at MPS and HighWire Press. She is a member of ALPSP's Professional Development Committee and is a co-opted member of the main Council.

Here, she reflects on the challenges publishers face when outsourcing all or part of their activity.

"For many organisations, outsourcing is not a daily event, but is a major shift for the organisation that can be fraught with potholes for the unwary or unprepared. There is the sense of losing control, where work is not done the way you normally do it. Sometimes, it can seem difficult to get your message or instructions across. And what do you do when you aren't getting the right results?

Poorly defined work specifications and unrealistic expectations about who does what and how much often lead to vendors not delivering what you expected. Confusion over how the outsourced activity will be managed can contribute to an unsatisfactory, and potentially costly outcome.

Sometimes it pays to take a step back and look at the challenges, good practices and pitfalls around outsourcing. There are many functions that can be outsourced. Ask yourself the following:

• Are you going to just outsource the ubiquitous typesetting scenarios? This is a hugely important area and probably the first thing to get outsourced by a publisher. 
• Are you interested in outsourcing sales and marketing functions? 
• What about hosting, content enhancement and conversion? 
• And let's not forget copy editing, proofreading and other editorial functions. 

There is much to learn from talking through your outsourcing with a range of potential vendors and other publishers. The more insight you gain into what can go right or wrong - the good, the bad, and the ugly - the more likely you'll be able to be make sound decisions when selecting and working with your supplier.

Don't forget that it's not just a straight transactional relationship, there are also valuable insights to be had on handling cultural differences. Crucially, think about how outsourcing can be turned into a benefit for your publishing activity by allowing you to re-focus affected staff into positive channels of other activity.

In my experience, the more thought that goes into these areas, the more positive and successful the outsourcing relationship will be."

Kathy will be sharing her experience at the ALPSP seminar Outsourcing: the good, the bad and the ugly on 12 June in London. Book your ticket now.