www.niit-tech.com

De Agostini had three core applications that required re-writing and support in

.NET technology. These applications, originally custom written, remain the

most important part of the business systems as a whole. The applications are

closely coupled with each other, two of which are used for sales forecasting

and financial reporting.

Another application provides the framework for creating partwork products,

specifying their particulars and modeling their lifespan. Once completed,

calculations can be made based on quantities and costs, to provide a

projection of how successful a product might be. This is vital to the

organization as the popularity or uptake of a partwork publication

determines print runs, over mount manufacturing, and the overall profitability

of the launch.

Business Need

The solution delivered by NIIT Technologies provides an easy yet,

comprehensive method of projecting sales of partwork publications. It has an

intuitive user interface that makes viewing, comparing and projecting sales

curves very simple. Sales can be modeled and changes can be made to the

model to produce favorable results, in a feedback loop. It also provides

guides for production quantities and costs, which are then fed back to other

core applications.

Business Solution

De Agostini is a leading Italian publishing house and world number one partwork publisher with its head office in Milan, Italy. Partwork publications are a series of periodicals on a given topic, designed to form a ready reckoner. Founded in 1901, the group employs over 2000 people and publishes in 33 countries. De Agostini group’s consolidated net revenue amounts to 2.9 billion euros. The company has a range of products that are published weekly or bi-weekly and built into a complete work of reference on a given subject. Partwork deals with subjects ranging from art, history, geography, cooking guides, DIY, language learning, computer courses, cinema, and music collections to multimedia educational series for children and teenagers. The main points of sale for such products are newsstands and kiosks.

“The availability of a large talent pool of motivated professionals coupled with low cost and fast turnaround time enabled us to deliver on our global IT strategy. NIIT Technologies’ dual shore model provided us with an answer to our concerns regarding management of processes between London and Bangalore and any worries we had were soon alleviated during a visit to both Delhi and Bangalore to review offshore facilities,” says Nick Mison, IT Director, while explaining his decision to partner with NIIT Technologies.

He continues, “We have recognized the importance of all people involved in this project and as such have implemented reward and incentive schemes. They aim to provide recognition for the offshore staff and also promote awareness about the contribution that their effort has upon the IT systems within De Agostini.”

The Client

De Agostini and NIIT Technologies Join Forces to Provide Mission Critical Application Re-development

CASE STUDY

Application Development Management

CASE STUDY

Business Benefits

• By partnering with NIIT Technologies to re-develop their core applications, De Agostini has saved an estimated £2 million

• The business has significantly mitigated risk, by investing in .Net technology, and moving away from aging applications that were

not future ready

• De Agostini has the flexibility to scale its IT requirements, in line with business needs, without impacting existing workloads. They

can keep abreastwith new technologies and best practices

• The business has become much more flexible. It offers different regions the functionality of the core systems with the flexibility of

making regional variations. Code tuning has enabled one of the regions to increase the number of jobs being processed

significantly. It has reduced one-man month of work down to one day. De Agostini Incentive Awards and Extra-Miler Awards are

presented quarterly to the offshore team in recognition of their efforts

• De Agostini has saved 50% of annual ongoing support costs

With the migration project being a resounding success, De Agostini has decided to grow its engagement with NIIT Technologies

further yet, by awarding the project of re-writing their web applications. The applications are a suite of reporting tools that interface

with core applications. These web applications include a group reporting tool and an online subscription system. They are used by

De Agostini’s various branches.

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NIIT Technologies Ltd.Corporate Heights (Tapasya)Plot No. 5, EFGH, Sector 126Noida-Greater Noida ExpresswayNoida – 201301, U.P., IndiaPh: +91 120 399 9555Fax: +91 120 399 9150

IndiaNIIT Technologies Inc.1050 Crown Pointe ParkwayAtlanta, GA 30338, USAPh: +1 770-551-9494Fax: +1 770-551-9229

AmericasNIIT Technologies Ltd.47 Mark Lane,London, EC3R 7QQPh: +44 20 7002 0700Fax: +44 20 7002 0701

EuropeNIIT Technologies Pte Ltd.31 Kaki Bukit Road 3#05-13 TechlinkSingapore 417818Ph: +65 6848 8300Fax: +65 6848 8322

Singapore

Write to us at marketing@niit-tech.com

A global IT sourcing organization | 21 locations and 14 countries | 7000+ professionals | Level 5 of SEI-CMMi, ver1.2 ISO 27001 certified | Level 5 of People CMM Framework

www.niit-tech.com

Another core application by NIIT is operations focused and manages;Bills of Materials (BOM)Purchase Orders and Invoice MatchingStock ControlPrint OrdersPublishing Schedules

This application interfaces directly with the accounting system to create accounts data for new products and purchase orders; and

retrieves exchange rates and supplier data. All specific production costs, quantities and billing information as well as some editorial

and marketing information is stored by the application. It enables updating of models in real time (via data exchange), thereby driving

integration with marketing and production.

These applications are centrally managed in UK, and used by De Agostini offices in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Poland,

Russia, Greece, and Japan. The re-written applications have been delivered to each of these regions, many with local enhancements

to cover geography-specific requirements such as interfaces to local finance package.