I am working on a case study on a PUBLISHING Company based in New York that recently outsourced its editors in India for cost saving reason. It is a New York City-based publisher known for its specialization in college textbooks specifically in the Social Sciences and Business. Cases and Exercises in Marketing Management is one of their best-selling texts which is in its seventh edition now and is the fourth best-selling text in the field of Marketing as well.

The Issues

A. All three authors received hundreds of pages of manuscript with no instructions including those written by their co-authors.

B. Sentences and paragraphs were noted with red types but no explanation.

C. Mr. Reddy, editor based in India, was replaced by two new editors who also emailed manuscripts without instructions.

D. There is no proper endorsement of the job from Reddy to new editors.

E. Managing editor was also unclear as to what the Indian editors were asking of the authors.

In summary, there was no clear communication of what to do and timeframe of tasks between the authors and the editors, whom the publisher outsourced from India, as compared to the previous set up where the publisher outsourced editorial work from US based editors.

PROBLEM: A communication gap is identified as the biggest problem between the company and its outsourced editors from India. There is a work-culture gap in both countries people which is creating confusion and therefore, the Indian editors are not clear of the expectations and neither are the U.S. authors. Moreover, the managing editor, authors and the editors from India are using email as a source of communication, which is making communication more muddled.

Proposal / SOLUTION

The first proposed solution is to introduce a step-by-step instruction guide on the editing protocols which will give the editors and authors an insight of how things should be done and by what date. This guide will provide clarity of the procedures. There should be a reliable source of communication which will help to maintain stable and ongoing communication between editors and the authors. Another proposed solution is a synchronous online training program for the management, managing editor, authors, and the editors from India regarding work-culture differences and how to follow the new instruction guide. In addition to these training programs, there should also be training for management on how to outsource in third world countries.

I suggested a PARALLEL Implementation type of Strategy.

QUESTION:

Can you provide me a WBS (work breakdown structure) in which I am going to make a new instruction guide manual for the company. (with all involve from, CEO, president, publishers, editors, authors, etc.)

I NEED the WBS for Instruction guides' initiation, planning, execution, evaluation. and close out phases.

thank you.