BusinessWeek Streamlines Print and Online Operations with K4 Publishing System

After years of maintaining two separate management systems for its editorial and online content, BusinessWeek magazine has unified its print and online operations by using SoftCare of Germany's K4 editorial workflow system.

BW uses a combination of the K4 publishing system and Adobe's InDesign and InCopy programs to manage the magazine's design and editorial workflow, explains Mauro Vaisman, BW's senior director for editorial and operations technology operations. The systems were integrated by publishing software solutions company Managing Editor Inc.

"We implemented the use of these systems for our print operations last November and about three weeks ago for our online operations," Vaisman says. "Making this useful for our online content was our goal all along. We had no idea the process would be as simple and seamless as it was."

For a number of years, BW had used QuarkXPress and Quark Publishing System to produce its print titles and what was called the Open Market Internet Publishing System to produce its Web site. Today, Vaisman says, BW writers, editors, copy desk staff and art team all use the K4 publishing system to manage the magazine's production. "We picked the K4 system because of how easy it is to learn and how flexible it is to use. It's very user-friendly," he says. "We configured the systems, set up some training classes for our editors and we were on our way.

"We had been doing a lot of e-mailing and dropping files into a server," Vaisman continues. "We had talent that was spread all over the place. Tech-wise, it made a lot of sense to have everyone using one system."

BW spent less than $1 million in purchasing the systems, training its staff and licensing, Vaisman says. Although the magazine hasn't determined exactly how much money it's saving with unified print and online operations, Vaisman says he knows it's saving his team a significant amount of time.

"All of our work is done and no one even needs to get up from their desk. This frees us up to begin using our resources in a more positive way," he says. "This really is the way to go."