Universal Publishers head office is located in Macquarie Park, a growing business district about 20 mins north of Sydney’s CBD. Today the company is Australia’s largest publisher of mapping and travel related products and has been publishing for more than 75 years.  Gregory’s and UBD® are two of Universal Publishers’ brands, both instantly recognisable throughout the country.

The company has come a long way from the days when Cecil Gregory produced his first street directory with hand-drawn maps back in 1934! Marcus Perks, CEO is at the helm of this growth business.

Tell me a bit about your product range in 2007.
The company publishes a wide range of street directories, atlases, maps, and guide books (including travel, fishing, 4WD, and other leisure pursuits).

In Australia, its publishing program includes 49 street directories, 101 maps for Universal Publishers, 37 maps for the RACV, 50 maps for oil companies, 6 atlases of Australia, 18 guides and 3 DVD mapping products, plus an extensive “front list” (publishing term for new products) of over 70 titles this year. In New Zealand, the Universal Publishers’ portfolio includes 3 street directories, 2 atlases and 17 maps.
 
How do you service the country from your office in Sydney?
There are offices in Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, each with cartographic researchers and sales teams.

Our Customer Service team is based in Sydney and handles calls nationally.

We also work with overseas distributors to sell Australian products throughout the UK, USA, Asia and New Zealand for consumers intending to travel to Australia.

What challenges has the company faced as it has grown?
When I first started with the company 9 years ago, all orders were taken manually, then entered into the computer system. Now, we accept orders by email, fax, spreadsheets and electronically. But there is still room for improvement, by moving into a fully electronic system.

What’s next?
We are trialling a web-enabled system to ensure greater visibility of the most up to date and high quality data possible, with a view to going live early next year. Customer interactions will be enhanced and the cost savings will be considerable especially given the time saved on manual data entry. We will have increased productivity and efficiency, as well as improved accuracy from not having to re-key orders. We have also improved our transaction processing, and web and mobility services.  

The new e-Catalogue can be easily managed and will be a great advantage for our retailer customers (particularly in remote regional areas) who will have access to our system to view promotions, order-tracking, product catalogues, new release information and online payment facilities.

The next phase will be to have this facility available to our overseas customers, planned for mid next year.

How do you maintain good systems?
Regular communication is key. We have regular meetings to review our progress and ensure we have the right systems in place. It’s important to review constantly and be prepared to make changes to stay ahead of the game!

UBD® is a registered trade mark of Universal Publishers Pty Ltd.

To read more about marketing systems download your own copy of Chapter 4 of Small Business, Big Opportunity.