Quote-to-Cash ControlSolving Complex Pricing & Processing Challenges for Major Publishing House
A multi-billion dollar publishing house sought a solution to their quote-to-cash journey across their research journals. Complexities around pricing and buying groups combined with evolving market dynamics for how people access research meant they needed to prioritize power and flexibility for a solution that could meet their needs now and in the future.
The Business Challenge
Publishers charge for research via two methods, either a subscription paid for by the reader or where the author of the research pays to have it published and it is made available for free, referred to as Open Access. In both cases, the individuals may have some or all of their costs covered by an institution (such as Columbia University) or by a consortium of institutions (such as the Ivy League consortium). This ever-evolving business and pricing model complicated efforts to build a scaleable quote-to-case system within the publisher's existing IT ecosystem. The ERP system lacked the flexibility, performance, and uptime to make it a viable solution while commerce or subscription systems lacked the depth of capabilities to handle the complexities within the pricing and ordering structures.
The Solution
The viax Process Engine’s strength in order, pricing, and workflow management made it a clear fit for the job. The publisher was able to use an agile delivery model to speed the implementation timeline, quickly onboarding the simpler ordering models and then continuing to layer in the more complex models incrementally. Uptime was a key consideration for improving user experience, with the need for orders to be taken even if the ERP was not accessible. viax’s Advanced Pricing Engine's ability to do the same level of pricing calculations as the ERP (in a much more performant manner) allows the pricing to be replicated directly within the ordering system. viax’s fully API-first nature allowed a headless approach where the publisher was able to build their own custom experience layer.
The Results
The publisher was able to start taking orders less than eight months after the project's kickoff. viax’s ability to quickly onboard new models has allowed the publisher to quickly ramp up adoption, with millions in monthly revenue flowing through the system shortly after the initial launch. The success of the project was not just with the technical aspects of what viax provided, but also viax’s methodology for working with clients and implementation partners to break down complex requirements and get alignment across the stakeholder landscape.
“We used to think about trying to solve these problems with years of ERP or custom development work. With viax, we’ve been able to rethink how we handle complexity in our architecture and are we’re delivering in months.”