Case Studies
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION PUBLICATION
For a well-established, nationally recognized association, Magellan Media proposed and help implement changes that reduced editorial and advertising lead times by half.
Our client, a U.S. trade association with more than a million members, publishes several periodicals of varying frequency and focus. Its flagship is a monthly magazine whose lead times averaged eight weeks. This extended lead time hurt the association’s ability to attract advertising in several potentially lucrative categories.
Magellan Media was asked to examine editorial, advertising and production processes and propose both immediate and mid-term changes that would reduce the lead time to four weeks. Using benchmarks from other publishers, we established the feasibility of adapting an existing, cost-effective gravure printing configuration to meet the tighter schedule.
Working closely with editorial staff, we mapped the current and proposed closing processes and linked major steps to a revised schedule. Magellan Media also highlighted an opportunity to configure a copy-flow system already in place to help staff manage several publications simultaneously.
Anticipating greater ad volume as a result of the changes in schedule, our client looked to Magellan Media to review and strengthen its ad handling processes. New roles were created and documented, and the staff affected by the changes were briefed collectively and individually by members of the consulting team.
ONLINE STARTUP
To test the delivery of new distance-education services, a respected university established a for-profit online subsidiary. Magellan Media was asked to assess the size and growth prospects of the online and distance education markets. Data generated from this review informed the unit’s start-up strategy.
Facing a significant time crunch, our client asked for a detailed review of the data available to characterize the current and expected markets for online education services. Magellan Media undertook a short-term, focused assignment to define and project trends in these markets.
We reviewed available data, much of it from commercial and government sources. Members of the team also benchmarked available projections against similar publishing and online start-ups to develop a blended projection of future opportunities. Magellan Media then presented these blended estimates to the client in a preliminary review.
Client feedback guided the second part of the assignment, in which Magellan Media translated market estimates into a draft business plan. Market data was used to inform the upside (revenue) potential of a new player in this market space.
The product mix associated with growth in this area was also assessed, providing the client with a first-draft look at the new unit’s likely profitability over time. The for-profit unit launched three months after Magellan Media completed its review.
REFERENCE PUBLISHER
An internationally known nonprofit with significant intellectual property archives asked Magellan Media to help establish the approach, technology platform and priorities for digitizing intellectual property for both external and internal purposes.
Our client, a not-for-profit reference publisher with intellectual property (IP) assets dating back to its founding in the 1800s, looked to Magellan Media for recommendations on investments it could make to streamline product development, facilitate research and reduce operational costs.
In a two-phase project, we worked closely with staff at all levels of the organization to create an inventory of available IP by content, media, platform and owner. Using this inventory, we developed use cases that helped to define the range and value of various applications of the client’s IP assets.
The use cases provided a basis for evaluating competing priorities among IP digitization opportunities. Magellan Media consultants worked with client staff to confirm these priorities, assess the cost and operational implications of these opportunities and prepare a business case to justify the staged digitization of the client’s IP assets.
As a final step, Magellan Media provided the client with the structure and content of a digitization request for proposal (RFP). As a result of this RFP, the client implemented a new platform whose architecture proved consistent with our recommendations.
