IOP devises strategic roadmap for its data

IOP Publishing is central to the Institute of Physics, publishing over 60 publications through which leading-edge scientific research is distributed worldwide. Around half of these journals are co-owned by IOP Publishing and its 20+ partners. IOP Publishing currently uses a number of separate IT systems for information management, with the result that data management is unnecessarily time-consuming. With a strong desire to improve its reporting therefore, IOP Publishing sought an external consultancy that could show how to achieve a single, consistent view of its data across all areas of the business.

Based upon its expertise in information management, business intelligence and its particular experience with similar organisations, IPL was selected to provide such consultancy. This project will help IOP Publishing to design and implement a strategic roadmap that will allow for flexible and responsive reporting capabilities to be developed, alongside a robust data management approach.

Michael Bray, Group Finance Director at IOP Publishing, comments, “The mechanisms for distributing published material are constantly evolving, while the volume of content is growing even faster. Coupled with this, we had a variety of systems that produced data on all of our business’ activity, which was reported in different ways, depending on the division that it was relevant to. For instance, the sales system would deliver one version of our sales activity for a particular period, whereas the finance system would deliver a slightly different version. As a result, there was no single, consistent view of activity across the business.

Bray concludes, “IPL’s long-standing presence in the world of information management and past experience with other publishing companies make them the ideal company to work with. From the roadmap that IPL is helping us complete, we should be able to identify the next steps necessary to help us design a business intelligence structure which will enable us to better manage, promote, distribute and report on our content. From this, we will be able to ensure that we are aware of the information being requested, by who and when – and what repercussions it has with our partners. Such benefits will help the business, across all of our departments – especially finance, sales and of course IT itself,”

About IPL

IPL says: “IPL – Information Processing Limited – is a software development and Consultancy Company, established in 1979, based in Bath and has over 280 employees.

IPL prides itself on its professional and reliable approach to software development, delivering ‘right first time’ solutions which significantly reduce Total Cost of Ownership.

IPL’s quality, environmental and information security management systems are certificated to ISO 9001/TickIT, 14001 and 27001.

IPL provides enterprise level solutions for major industry sectors including aerospace and defence, banking and finance, emergency services, government, telecoms and media.  IPL’s clients include Nationwide, Nokia, Lockheed Martin, Everything Everywhere and the Highways Agency.”