Case Studies > Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade Publishing Optimizes Operations with MicroStrategy

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade Publishing Optimizes Operations with MicroStrategy

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

MicroStrategy
INsight

Tech Stack

Business Intelligence (BI) Platform
Mobile BI Application
Interactive Dashboards

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Customer Satisfaction
Digital Expertise

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization
Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)

Applicable Industries

Software

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing
Business Operation
Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Inventory Management

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services
Training

About The Customer

Founded in 1832, the Trade Publishing division of global learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH Trade), is one of the oldest trade publishers in the United States. Since publishing some of the best-known works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the mid-1800s, HMH Trade has become synonymous with America’s finest intellectual and literary talent. Today, its distinguished author list includes: 10 Nobel Prize winners, 48 Pulitzer Prize winners, 15 National Book Award winners, and more than a hundred Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, and Sibert Medal and Honor recipients. HMH Trade has published many distinguished authors such as Philip Roth, Temple Grandin, Tim O’Brien, Umberto Eco, Lois Lowry, Chris Van Allsburg, and David Wiesner. HMH is also home to The Best American series®, The American Heritage® and Webster’s New World® dictionaries, Betty Crocker®, Better Homes and Gardens®, How to Cook Everything®, The Gourmet Cookbook, and other leading culinary properties. Other titles include the Peterson Field Guides®, CliffsNotes™, Curious George®, The Little Prince, The Polar Express, books by J.R.R. Tolkien, and many more.

The Challenge

To manage an extensive list of titles effectively, HMH needs full visibility into all aspects of the publishing lifecycle. From monitoring publicity, to tracking sales and stock levels of key customers, to overseeing warehouse inventory, decision-makers require access to critical information in order to meet demand for popular titles. Also, the time and costs associated with reprinting and shipping are high, so staying aware of demand while monitoring supply levels is key to achieving the full sales potential of a given title. There are many challenges to tracking sales activities while simultaneously monitoring the publication, production, and reprints of book titles. Editors, Sales Managers, and Executives need easy access to up-to-date information about every customer, title, author, and product line.

The Solution

HMH’s enterprise-wide business intelligence strategy has evolved over time, and today centers on putting real-time, actionable data into the hands of its employees and customers. To act on this vision, as tablets became the preferred method of sharing information, in 2010 the HMH Trade team distributed iPads to its sales and editorial management teams. Historically the HMH Trade team relied on ad-hoc and standard reporting mechanisms, but as their requirements changed, a proposal was made to acquire a BI platform that would provide interactive dashboards and mobile applications. After searching for a vendor that met the requirements of the Trade division, the Operations team selected MicroStrategy. Since implementing MicroStrategy, HMH Trade has been able to optimize overall performance by improving the flow of information throughout their organization. Today, HMH has a user community of over 400 employees, 90 of whom access their mobile BI application every day. The most recent success came in 2015, when HMH won the prestigious Ventana Research Technology Innovation Leadership Award. HMH earned this recognition for the success of INsight, the MicroStrategy Mobile application that the company uses to drive efficiency and productivity throughout their enterprise.

Operational Impact

HMH Trade used MicroStrategy to pull from enterprise technology systems and integrate multiple data sources to create a single application that provides a holistic view of Trade operations. The goal was to replace over 300 reports with one highly integrated, user-friendly application. HMH Trade uses the MicroStrategy app to equip each employee with easily accessible dashboards and reports. With these tools, HMH Trade executives monitor product line performance against prior year actuals and current year budgets. They also review daily updates of top selling titles and customers, as well as incoming business for the current month and year.
The Trade Sales management team uses INsight to navigate unstructured data and gain a full view of all HMH Trade customers, products, sales territories, and more. Account reps monitor progress against their sales goals and drill down into Customer Dashboards, where they can track customers’ orders and identify what top-selling titles their customers have yet to purchase.
HMH also used MicroStrategy to build a forecasting model for sales reps to provide market intelligence on how new book titles will perform in their respective territories. This application allows sales reps to project initial order quantities for their specific customers and sales channels, based on the sales activities of ‘comparative’ titles. The Supply Chain group uses these forecasts to identify optimal print order quantities, based on the field sales intelligence gathered using the MicroStrategy application.

Quantitative Benefit

HMH has a user community of over 400 employees, 90 of whom access their mobile BI application every day.
HMH won the prestigious Ventana Research Technology Innovation Leadership Award in 2015.