Book Industry Study Group

Why BISG is Important to Publishers, Booksellers and Libraries
FTW takes a look at the new shape of the industry

By Eugene G. Schwartz (ForeWord Magazine) -- Ours is an industry whose impact on our culture and society reaches far beyond its size as a business. Publishers and their infrastructure providers felt that they got by very nicely with independent trade associations for nearly a few hundred years, with the freedoms guaranteed under the first amendment, the copyright law and a free market small business infrastructure.

The guardians of intellectual property rights and the free press, associations such as AAP, ALA and AAUP emerged in the early 20th century and provided a home for the informal exchange of information on business practices and distribution issues. It was only 25 years ago that PMA and the various regional independent publishing associations came along to offer a more muscular collaborative environment for entrepreneurial publishers to learn the ropes and market effectively. As traditional publishing consolidated, became more institutional and more global, these independent publishing groups kept the industry on its toes, targeted on demographic trends and provided the farm teams for new authors, new ideas and services to new and special markets.

With the emergence of a more well defined international marketplace, and the almost invisible barrier to entry to the business now made possible by digital technology, the internet and distribution advances, the interests of the large and the small publishers have begun to converge on the field of consolidated distribution, technology and systems. None of the publishing trade associations are positioned to direct their resources to address the nitty-gritty of supply chain systems and management. The very term "supply chain" is a metaphor of recent vintage that helps us wrap our arms around the holistic management implications of the way the industry now works.

Now comes CPFR - mentioned earlier; it means Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment. It is the process that has been going on in a jerrybuilt fashion among trading partners all along. In its conventional form, for example, it means that a production person in a publishing house brings together information about printing schedules and costs for someone in sales or marketing who matches them against the forecasts that they get from their sales force, warehouse and/or distributors, in order to determine inventory levels and needs. The wholesaler, shipper, bookseller or librarian is then at the receiving end of oversupply, just in time delivery, or undersupply, depending on how well this process worked.

Along come such innovators as Mike Shatzkin of IdeaLogical and BookScan with real time cash register systems, LightningSource with book at a time, Amazon with a daily snapshot of sales available to all, just in time ordering by the chains - not to mention long-time standing order programs at B&T or Blackwells, computer to plate and custom manufacturing, and on and on, and a whole set of tools are floating around that can sharpen targets and cut the fat out of inventory control and distribution.

With a critical mass of these systems - opportunities for outsourcing inventory control are emerging in a new form - where any publisher's customer base can be serviced with warehouse and in-store inventory controls backed up by manufacturing (book at a time, demand or inventoried), returns recycling and regional warehouse balancing - all based on vendor parameters set by the publisher. This process can also be outsourced to a wholesaler, a manufacturer or a fulfillment service who can bring purchasing power and oversight of a large number of distribution outlets to the benefit of the entire supply chain. BISG's new Manufacturing interest group - looking for members - will delve into aspects of this opportunity.

Innovations such as RFID chips also become powerful tools for tracking the logistics of a single book. It also makes possible the profiling of a reader's habits and interests -- shades of 1984! Already in use for carton packing and scanning, the industry will soon be piloting embedded chips in individual books. The nightmare future scenario, of course, is a consumer walking past a scanner able to identify in a nanosecond all of the contents of his or her purse and shopping bag. But just imagine the relief on a librarian or bookstore associate's face whose wand can identify instantly books replaced by patrons on the wrong shelf!

So, what to do about all of this. That is the function of BISG and its committees. As a cross-channel trade association - bringing publishing, marketing and manufacturing together with distribution, data management, cyberspace, general retailing and special sales -- it adds substantial value not otherwise possible and defines the shape of the industry.

To subscribe to ForeWord Magazine, visit http://www.forewordmagazine.net/subscribe/