Faxon's new business system Teri Harrison 09 Feb 1996 16:15 UTC
Recently a number of questions have been asked over the SERIALST listserv regarding the new Faxon business system, its capabilities, and our decision to introduce it this year. I thought this would be a good time to share with you the logic for this decision. I will try to keep my marketing bias and enthusiasm in check. Faxon's previous system (CICS) was developed during the infancy of the computer age (Faxon was the first agency to automate) and as such, had early year computing technique and architecture. These older systems tended to mechanize manual systems and did not take advantage of automation as we currently know it. Networking and relational database management simply did not exist. This resulted in systems that were very difficult to amend and cumbersome in execution. To fully understand the era in which I speak, Faxon had an operational system 20 years before the IBM PC was introduced. Faxon made a decision to install a new business system (Source) this past fall. The decision followed five years of design and analysis with particular emphasis on where the industry is headed, not where it is currently. The new system is a relational database structure providing open architecture and ease of use for the end user. Given it's modularized construction, the system can be amended to respond to the rapidly changing needs of the information industry. The system also addresses the well-documented problems associated with the millennium date change. While there were some short-term performance problems (that typically occur with the installation of a new system of this magnitude) these issues have been resolved. However, they did create a temporary slow down during our peak ordering period. We are working quickly to minimize the impact of this situation, and appreciate the support we have received from both our client base and publishers. Information technology has changed and will continue to change. We now have a system that is capable of leveraging the opportunities this creates for our clients and for ourselves. While we apologize for any temporary difficulties this may have caused our clients, we would have been negligent in not diligently planning for the future. We hope that if our clients have specific questions regarding their account they will contact their client service representative, so that we may quickly address and resolve their concerns. Roy J. Reinalda Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing The Faxon Company e-mail: reinalda@faxon.com