Why do publishers outsource book fulfillment services?
In a previous post, we discussed some organizationally driven reasons why publishers outsource their fulfillment services. In this post, we continue this topic by exploring why publishers may outsource in order to advance their business and further their offerings, or:
Improvement Driven Reasons
Here are the major questions to consider:
- As a publisher, how do you improve your operational performance?
- Do you have a warehousing industry viewpoint for operational expectations?
- Do you regularly send people for warehousing efficiency training?
- Is the organization more interested in developing great content or in fulfillment service excellence?
By outsourcing fulfillment services, you can obtain expertise, skills and technologies that your company does not already have. Many publishers do not have the volume of activity to recruit top talent inside the warehouse. When capital budgets are limited, it is often difficult to determine where to spend your technology dollars. You may need to sacrifice the ability to invest in a state of the art warehouse management system.
Within an organization, different divisions often compete for limited resources and management time. This can decrease the amount of time your organization has to dedicate to offering best in class warehousing services. Another challenge publishers may face due to limited resources is whether or not to hire a key executive to manage the warehouse because there is uncertainty of whether or not those salary dollars could have a higher impact on the business if they were allocated differently
Outsourcing fulfillment services can improve risk management for the company. Part of risk management is diversification. When your warehouse facility is in a different location, you are decreasing your risk for fire and other possible natural disasters. You are also increasing other factors, such as pools for selection of employees and access to the market.
Outsourcing can also help inspire innovative ideas. It can help you find answers to tough questions: Does your organization continually improve its warehousing function? Is your mission to be the best warehousing company available? Do your managers wake up in the middle of the night thinking about how they can improve your warehouse?
A relationship with a superior third party fulfillment service partner will improve your credibility and your image as a whole. We all want the ability to do business with successful partners. When you associate yourself with an industry leader, such as Ware-Pak, you are positioning your company as a quality business.
Thank you for reading! Can you think of any other improvement or advancement driven reasons why publishers may outsource? We’re interested in hearing from you; let us know in the comments below!
Please check back next week for the next article in the series, when we will discuss the cost driven reasons that a publisher may decide to outsource fulfillment.
*Ware-Pak is a full service warehouse located in University Park, IL with over 59 years of e-commerce fulfillment experience. If you’d like to learn more, please contact us.