Benefit and Author Solutions — Redmond Distribution Partner

Partners Enabling Remote Workforce: Benefit and Author Solutions

In 1998, the emergence of DTP, digital printing and the Internet created an unprecedented opportunity for authors: self-publishing. Author Solutions has been at the forefront of this pivotal shift in the publishing industry and continues to be a global leader in self-publishing. Its footprints have helped over 225,000 authors achieve their publishing dreams and brought over 310,000 new titles to market.

Thanks to his partner, he was ready when COVID hit
When COVID-19 hit and everyone was sent to work from home, Author Solutions was able to move all of their US employees home and get them fully operational very quickly. CIO Joe Steinbach attributes this to the significant work Author Solutions had already done with its partner, Advantage Communications Group.

“On the American side,” Steinbach explains, “we moved everyone to the work-from-home situation in three days. We got everyone out, everyone moved out, and it was because of work that we had done with Advantage on our phone system and some of the communication platforms before the pandemic hit.”

Author Solutions’ locations in other parts of the world presented a more difficult challenge. With patchy connections and low bandwidth for many of these employees, the company adopted a hybrid model of satellite offices that were still socially isolated.

“We have a lot of people who want to stay away,” Steinbach explains, “and we solved a lot of the initial problems. have children at home.”

Steinbach then observes, “We’re definitely in a different world order. Before that happens, the concept of a work-from-home environment or not having people directly in the office and all the misconceptions that go into that. related – that people don’t it doesn’t work unless you hover over them and all of that – has been dissipated and there’s a lot more acceptance, and there’s a lot more openness to staying in a work from home or in a remote environment. were more difficult was how to deal with the isolation and the effect on the mental health of people who are separated.”

Steinbach thanks the creative community at Author Solutions for providing virtual happy hours and other activities that have been instrumental in solving these difficult issues.

Take advantage of advice from Advantage
Steinbach appreciates the opportunity to work closely with the Advantage team. He describes how they guided him through the various options available to him when Author Solutions upgraded his communications.

“We didn’t just change the phone system,” he notes. “We’ve actually changed the whole way we interact. The new phone client now allows us to have group meetings, chat and do a lot of things that have become absolute necessities, in a remote work situation. .” These things have improved processes and increased responsiveness throughout their business, including service operations and human resource management.

Sam Riegel, director of enterprise sales at Advantage, recalls that Author Solutions’ original request was to integrate their phone system with contacts in Salesforce to eliminate much of the manual work done to reconcile and update various issues. database. He points out: “If you have up-to-date interactions and you work in multiple teams, across multiple time zones, having only one source of truth where it is regularly available and available, that gives you a lot more power. and flexibility to release these updates quickly.”

Steinbach elaborates on this, adding that the process has improved their security posture, providing secure systems and enabling them to share business information remotely with various resources with superior security.

Riegel observes, “The office has never been more important. If you use virtual offices, you should also consider that you are doing voice and video in real-time communication. The flexibility of users using their own device is also better than ever and can be achieved in a way that is both secure and functional.”

As of this writing, Author Solutions has stabilized its operations with a remote workforce that is fully prepared to do the job for the foreseeable future, thanks to its partner relationship with Advantage.

posted by Howard M. Cohen on November 15, 2021 to 3:02 p.m.