Publishing Success

As
part of a major IT initiative, Macmillan India has implemented SAP R/3 from
January 2002 onward. The project was completed in four-and-a-half months,
considered to be a record during that point of time. Macmillan's other IT
initiatives include connecting 25 locations throughout India via 64Kbps IP-VPN
through an ISP (currently HCL Infinet), and the last mile via a 512Kbps leased
line at Chennai.

All applications are serviced through a single datacenter located in Chennai.
The SAP BW has enhanced building on BI, leading to quicker information delivery
to its business strategists. It provided a single window for information
delivery as well. During the implementation of the technology, a flexible,
faster reporting tool was thought to be the solution, which should not disturb
the performance of the transaction processing systems based on SAP R/3. Post
implementation, the ERP service was not hampered.

Before the implementation of SAP BW, processes were tightly controlled and
trustworthy data were collected. However, the strategic teams were more
dependent on the business process operator to produce answers from the business
processes. This

led to distortion of information and strategic decisions contained some
assumptions.

Post implementation, Macmillan's strategists were able to use BI tools and
analyze data in their own way. The tool significantly addressed the needs of
unstructured information. A good scope has thus been introduced to reduce the
level of assumption content in the decision-making process.