Turpin Distribution MD Lorna Summers tells Exec about the challenges of open access, industry consolidation and the slow but steady evolution from print to web
Written by James Hurley and Produced by Paul Radbourne
A leading international book distributor, journal subscription fulfillment and circulation management specialist, Turpin Distribution provides a range of services that can be tailored to suit the needs of its clients.
It currently works with over 50 international publishers, including Brill, Kluwer Law International, OECD, the British Library, the British Psychological Society, the American Association for Cancer Research, the United Nations, and Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. “We process books, journals and magazines across print and e-content,” explains Turpin’s MD Lorna Summers. “We cater for professional, academic, scientific, technical, medical and not-for-profit publishers.”
Lorna, an affable Scotswoman, has worked in the industry for 30 years, having originally trained in hotel management before turning to a career in distribution. She took over the company with a partner in 2005, bringing in her own management staff and controls and managing its impressive subsequent growth.
Print to web
Turpin provides customer care, order processing, multi currency billing with account collection and full warehouse services on a global basis, with premises in both the UK and the US; its purpose-built UK head office is located in Biggleswade, close to the A1M and two international airports, while the US office is based in Connecticut. Turpin employs 100 members of staff, the majority of whom work in its customer service, finance and warehouse departments.
Crucially, it operates using the publishers’ own policies, prices, discounts and currencies. To this end, it has developed its own in house computer systems to meet the specific needs of publishers; the company’s Information Systems Director, Chris Ingram, re-wrote the systems and is involved in a continuous improvement programme that ensures the evolution of Turpin’s systems in line with changes in the industry.
While the general principles of distribution apply, there are some considerations specific to book and journal distribution that Turpin has to bear in mind. “The carriers that you use obviously have to be reliable and offer track and trace - it’s even better if they have knowledge of the book and journal industry. And in the warehouse, temperature and humidity have to be controlled,” says Lorna. “Most importantly though, publishers demand more than they used to and openness to orders is key – they want bang up-to-date information and the web is key to delivering this.”
Indeed, she has already seen numerous changes in the industry as it moves from a print model to a web based one and this is likely to be of increasing importance to the business over the coming years. “Progress is slower than we thought it would be, but electronic ordering and e-books are now taking off in the journal and book businesses. We’re not big on e-books yet - but we will be. The speed and delivery to market is key and high on publishers’ agendas; with journals, there has been a marked move away from print to on-line during the last few years.
Open access
The market itself is changing with this employment of technology; Lorna tells me that a web based principle called ‘open access’ has the potential to change the underlying publishing model. Currently, consumers of a peer reviewed article pay for the information in the article by making a subscription to the journal. Open access says that the author should pay for the research to become public and once they’ve paid for the publishing of the article the access of that becomes free to everyone.
That’s perceived as a challenge to the existing publishing model, for both publishers and distributors. When I spoke to Mike Fenton of Blackwell Publishing (now Wiley-Blackwell of course, more of which later) last year, he said that this threatened the value that publishers and academic societies bring to publishing; the peer review process. “If there’s little distinguishing between raw research information being put on the internet and that which has gone through the peer review process, which is a quality assurance, it’s difficult to distinguish what the valuable information is from all the background noise,” he said.
Yet publishers and distributors currently cautiously welcome open access models that allow high quality society publishing to continue to flourish. For Turpin, Lorna says that widespread adoption of the open access model would represent a sea change – albeit one that the company will plan for as the market dictates the change: “If payment at article level and for individuals instead of companies was widely adopted, we’d have to re-write our systems. We have the flexibility to cope but we’re not there yet. The model in the market is very traditional. If it is to be updated, all the trading partners need to work together, setting up working parties so that everyone understands the changes in the same way,” she says.
Industry consolidation
Flexibility is at the core of Turpin’s business model and applies just as much to its core activities as it does to its state of preparedness for potential changes to the industry. “We own our own systems, which allows us to adapt to market requirements,” says Lorna.
“All deliveries are subcontracted by a client manager who’s constantly reviewing services and prices.” The company has invested heavily in supplying sales reports to clients and is also committed to investment at warehouse level. Bar coding and computerised stock control help customers monitor stock levels within the warehouse via an internet link, and while there is some automated handling, the vast majority of picking and packing operations are still done manually and Lorna doesn’t anticipate this changing due to the niche nature of Turpin’s operations. This also impacts the company’s recruitment and training policy: “We promote from within, investing in people where we can; the knowledge you need in this industry is difficult to find so we promote our own people. Our work requires very specialised information and technical research so in-house training is crucial and we try to involve the publishers in that.”
The big challenge that Turpin Distribution faces comes not from the competition, but from the trend for consolidation amongst the scholarly publishing community. A milestone was reached when John Wiley & Sons acquired Blackwell Publishing for £572 million at the end of 2006, forming Wiley Blackwell. “The threat is that larger publishers will use their own distribution networks,” Lorna says.
However, Lorna remains upbeat about Turpin’s prospects: “In the three years we’ve been private, I’ve seen a lot of growth. We win business where publishers do not want the expense of their own warehouse and backroom support when they’re anticipating the evolution of the online market - and even big players often don’t want the overheads of their own distribution network, so there are plenty of opportunities for us.”
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