Why switch to a database assisted workflow for B2C documents?

1. The publication contains numerous product references (more than 3.000). Part of the product data (prices for example) can be found in existing systems and is time consuming and error prone to update manually.
2. As for many catalogues, between 10 and 30% of the content is changing with every edition.
   This rework is very time consuming and can be split in 2 different job profiles:
   • An administrative part consisting of getting all new relevant data concerning the changes (data and pictures). This job should be done by product specialists at ease chasing the missing elements throughout the organisation and the external suppliers.
   • A creative part to be done by graphic artists with DTP skills.
   A workflow, that could separate those 2 task profiles better, would bring valuable organisation changes.

• One has been able to reduce the elapsed time for a new edition from 6 to 3 months (while at the same time switching from manual to semi-automatic workflow)
• The cost/page for the first edition was not significantly higher than outsourcing the old way. For subsequent editions it is foreseen that cost/page will be about 50% of a 100% manual workflow.
• Database driven content allows tracing errors faster and with more different techniques than just reading the document once again.
• Drafts of pages can be generated without waiting for the final layout. Any person of the team working on the new edition can at any time assess the status of a (set of) page(s). It is then easy to desynchronise the input of data and the output of creative work. Managers don’t have to wait for a creative output to get a first draft and creative people don’t have to wait for administrative input to work on a page.
• Communication is structured through the database instead of flowing through several classical channels inappropriate for efficient transfer of data (e-mail, telephone, post-it, pen etc…)