Publisher

We have put together teams specifically for publishers to meet your individual needs. These teams are led by your personal customer manager. Your customer manager and their team work tirelessly for you and advise you on all matters related to the organization and control of the flow of materials, money and information.

What we can do for you

Your VVA publishing company team is available as a competent partner for communicating with retailers regarding information on your program or orders.

Frequently, there are also questions pertaining to logistic or organizational processes. In these cases, our customer support for publishers, which addresses these requirements very closely, is also available. We also make use of centralized key account management to support major customers. In this way, we ensure that our customers’ needs for various publishers are also optimally addressed.

Furthermore, we can support you in tapping new markets. In addition to booksellers, we have more than 12,000 retail customers, which include department stores, supermarkets, computer shops and other supplementary markets, even gas stations. This is how we get your products onto almost every shelf.

And if you wish to distribute directly to readers, we make sure (from behind-the-scenes, if you wish) that they receive your books and CDs as quickly as possible and in your name

Our services

• Publishing company support by experienced teams
• Personal customer manager
• Excellent contacts to traditional retailers, department stores and other supplementary markets
• Support for private customers
• Comprehensive range of services for retailers and private customers

Your benefits

• Competent contact partners
• Optimum customer loyalty from retailers and private customers thanks to seamless service
• Access to new markets that you tap with the help of VVA and VM

VVA and VVM offer publishing companies an extensive package of financial services, the effectiveness of which is recognized within the publishing industry. With our help, you can save a great deal on administrative tasks and thus on costs, while at the same time notably increasing your financial security and liquidity

What we can do for you

We can take over your whole accounts receivables accounting: from checking the creditworthiness of your customers to account management, debt collection and reminders through to legal proceedings..

As a factor, we also ensure that you receive your money quickly and securely and that you acquire additional liquidity. We purchase your retailer accounts receivable from you after invoicing and then pay them out by a set date even if your customers have not yet paid them. So instead of many thousands of accounts receivable, you have only one – VVA. As a factoring specialist, we have a central accounts receivable account for each retail customer where invoices and credits for all publishing houses are accounted for. In this way, we ensure greater clarity and minimize administrative expenses. The bookseller can pay all VVA invoices in just one transaction.

Our reminder system, with delivery blocks that can be implemented at different levels, has resulted in retailer payment practices to VVA that are far better than the industry average. Upon request, you can also take out separate del credere insurance that protects you 100% against defaulted payments.

Our services

• Accounts receivable bookkeeping, including reminders and legal proceedings
• Payment of receivables on pre-set date
• Ongoing creditworthiness monitoring of established and new customers
• Factoring
• Contingency reserves
• Confidentiality and data protection

Your benefits

• Savings on personnel resources, administrative and material costs
• Reduced complexity: Instead of many accounts receivable, you have only one – VVA
• Greater transparency through simplified liquidity planning
• Minimum default risk

As a VVA customer, you avoid large investments in your own logistics, because we operate three state-of-the-art distribution and logistics centers for you in Gütersloh, Verl and Gilching (Munich). We manage the distribution of more than 20,000 shipments from these centers to retailers and private customers every day. As one of the leading service providers in our industry, we are able to support you with a high level of expertise in all logistics-related matters – in a personalized manner and under economically favorable conditions.

What we can do for you

We are not satisfied until your customers are also satisfied. Therefore, we have developed special logistics services for the specific needs of the industry. For example, we optimize shipment by bundling your products and those of other publishing companies into cost-effective shipments for the bookseller.  

Retailers also achieve bundling effects using our VVA parking model. For this we park very small orders, as specified by the individual retailers, so that we can send them in one shipment. If the retailer needs a rush customer order the next day, we utilize our VVA fast track: Goods ordered by noon go out the same day on the fast track.

Our flexibility does not end when the eight-hour work day is over. We have developed models for working hours that meet the specific needs of the publishing and book industry. Whether it’s the summer slump or the holiday season, we adapt flexibly to demand. In this way, your customers always receive your products reliably and quickly.

Our services

• State-of-the-art logistics centers
• Logistics advice with expertise acquired over five decades
• Sufficient personnel resources at all times thanks to fine-tuned models for working hours
• VVA fast track in place all year
• Bundling for various publishing companies
• Punctual delivery even during seasonal peak times and special campaigns

Your benefits

• Excellent price-performance ratio
• You can focus on your core business
• Highest quality due to fast and accurate deliveries
• Lowest small-package rate in the industry thanks to bundling for various publishing companies and the VVA parking model

With our software platform BIC media, we deliver digital content such as e-books, e-journals, audio books or any files in ZIP containers to retailers and end customers. Our BIC media team provides the interface both internally for physical delivery as well as externally to our publishing customers and their online trading partners.

BIC media is closely linked to our commercial processes and systems so that you have all the important sales information – physical or digital – at hand when you need it. If necessary, this data can be transmitted to the publishing company’s own ERP systems

What we can do for you

• We have built up a highly-qualified team to meet the wide-ranging requirements of the digital media world. Your BIC media account manager and their team work tirelessly for you and advise you on all matters related to the digital business, whether you need advice on optimizing your metadata, delivery guidelines for the individual portals and retail partners as well as on all invoicing-related topics.
• Thanks to our intelligent collection systems, it is very easy for our customers to implement streamlined workflows for transferring metadata and assets.
• Using the media asset management system, which we have been continuously developing and expanding since 2009, we are able to store and manage all digital assets safely and ensure that they are available at all times. For this we use system components from Oracle and Google as well as our own software components.
• Our digital delivery platform BIC media provides the interface between publishers, trading partners and end customers. We take into account your delivery requirements as well as the many individual delivery guidelines of your trading partners in terms of metadata and cover illustrations.
• Current and comprehensive information on the course of digital business is a prerequisite for targeted operations on the market. BIC media, the digital delivery platform of VVA and VM, offers you comprehensive online information management with numerous customized and configurable reports.
• Many well-known publishers use the BIC media marketing widget for their own websites, viral marketing, presence in online bookshops, on blogger portals or on social networks such as Facebook.
• VVA and VM offer their publishing customers that also use physical publishing delivery services a comprehensive package of financial services for all aspects of digital media logistics. With our help, you can save a great deal on administrative tasks and thus on costs, while at the same time notably increasing your financial security and liquidity.

Your benefits

• Your digital titles can be managed conveniently and delivered to all relevant trading partners
• Our reliable and intuitive administration backend ensures the safe transmission of content to dealers.
• The transmission, collection and processing of all data is logged – which provides clarity about the respective delivery status.
• We advise you on the subject of enhanced e-books and processing of the content for tablet computers.
• You can upload or deactivate e-book titles in real time.
• Our cockpit allows you to see all relevant information at a glance.
• You can easily maintain your master data, customer-specific connection data or additional individual data.

Learn more about our digital services

Qualified information on the course of business is a prerequisite for goal-focused activity on the market. VVA and VM therefore offer you comprehensive information management, with includes time-tested standard reports as well as individual analyses that we carry out according to your specifications.

What we can do for you

• We offer you up-to-date data on turnover, customers, titles (physical and digital), warehouse, rep sales, campaigns, discounts, etc. And you will find every individual process that we carry out for you reflected in detail in your analysis. Our eBIS information system, an especially efficient distribution management system, is available to you via the Internet.
• Together with publishing companies, we developed eBIS as a central information interface between publisher distribution management, publisher external sales and VVA. eBIS provides you with online information about all distribution and sales processes. We offer you standard analyses as well as individualized reports in accordance with your wishes. Your representatives can use eBIS via laptop to gather order information and inform and advise your customers comprehensively on-site.

Our services: we provide you with qualified information about ...

• Revenue
• Titles/ebooks
• Stock
• Customers
• Rep sales
• Up-to-date standard or customized analyses
• Shipment tracking including documentation of delivery

Your benefits

• Up-to-date information that allows you to act quickly based on the market
• Shared access by internal and external sales as well as VVA to a consistent data pool
• Your external sales staff will work more effectively
• Continuous support and ongoing development of your information system
• Complete transparency of the flow of goods

Do you supply the end customer directly with your products? That’s no problem for us! We have decades of experience and can also cover this business area fully with our services. We offer all services from a single source – from order acceptance to fulfillment, through to accounts receivable management.

What we can do for you

When the reader orders your product from us, we remain behind the scenes and send a notification on your behalf. Just as reliably as we dispatch goods by the carton or pallet to retailers, we make sure every single one of your books arrives directly to your readers’ homes. There your goods are delivered on your behalf with invoices.

It does not matter how the order reaches us. In this way, you can, for example, transfer customer and order data to us from your web shop in real time via our web service interface.

Once an order has been received, we store the customer data in our exclusive address pool after checking for duplicate entries. All necessary documents which are designed based on the layout specified by you and which may include customer-specific additions such as logos and advertising text are generated and enclosed with the package.

Upon request, you will be given direct access to our private customer IT system in order to view the contact management and contact history, or to use the mail merge functions for direct marketing activities.

Our services

• Seamless customer experience across all channels
• Telephone hotline for your direct customers who contact us on your behalf
• Qualification and enrichment with customer attributes
• Shipping of the order with individually designed invoice forms
• Full accounts receivable management and dunning processes

Your benefits

• Own software not necessary for private customer business
• Standardized inventory for retail and private customer businesses
• Comprehensive evaluation and direct marketing options

The VVA magazine service concentrates on support aimed at target groups of magazine subscribers and offers an extensive full-service package for this purpose. It begins with data processing, including database management, and continues through magazine distribution to the complete processing of payments.

What we can do for you

We support your subscribers and readers individually, entirely in accordance with your special requirements. We always act in your name and ensure that your subscribers remain or become your readers over the long term.

We take care of the entire subscription life-cycle, from address and subscription processing to invoicing, distribution and direct contact with your readers. In addition to providing all relevant statistical information, such as advertising success and shelf-life statistics as well as statistics from the German auditing institution IVW, our IT system can be used to perform address selection of target groups and direct marketing based on this selection.

Our services

• We take on all address maintenance and qualification tasks as well as all tasks concerning management of the subscriptions.
• Supervision, consultation and support in all areas for you as our client as well as for your customers.
• We reliably commission, compile and deliver your magazines and advertising rewards.
• Our team takes on all accounting tasks for you, from invoicing to reminders and collection processes
• Nonqualified distribution and dispatch to varying target groups as well as management of inserts for a portion of orders
• We offer you a broad range of IT-based marketing tools as well as numerous statistical analyses

Your benefits

• No need for your own IT infrastructure
• We support your subscribers and readers individually, entirely in accordance with your special requirements.
• Consistent customer view: Subscribers and private book customers in one system with one customer number