Sunset cuts a path toward up-to-date computing

Abstract

A year ago, when Kevin Allard signed on with Time Publishing Ventures (TPV) to direct Sunset magazine's IT operations, he found that the company's primary data processing operations - book fulfillment and accounting - ran on an IBM AS/400 and dumb terminals. Allard wanted to get the whole company connected to e-mail, which meant replacing terminals with personal computers as well as putting systems on the desks of employees who had none. He was also convinced that a client/server system was needed. The problem was that Sunset and TPV did not want to increase the IT budget. Allard decided to jettison the AS/400 and redirect the funds for its care to pay for a new infrastructure. He chose a Hewlett-Packard Co. HP 9000 server to replace the AS/400. Completing the network are 7 HP NetServer PCs running Windows NT, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SNA Server. On the desktop side, Sunset now supports 450 Apple Computer Inc. Macintoshes and 150 HP Pentium PCs.

WHEN KEVIN ALLARD signed on at Time Publishing Ventures (TPV) a year ago to direct Sunset magazine's IT operations, he might have imagined he'd been transported back in time to the early '70s.

The employees of the 98-year-old "magazine of Western living which covers gardening, cooking, and other subjects from a West Coast point of view, were almost complete strangers to the personal computer.

The company's primary data processing operations -- book fulfillment and accounting -- ran on an IBM AS/400 and dumb terminals. In 1993, Sunset invested in Macintoshes to implement desktop publishing for the first time, and there were some DOS-based PCs in the operations divisions running Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect.

The advertising salespeople had E-mail, as did Sunset's editorial group. But no other group did, and there was an entire building in the Menlo Park, Calif. campus that wasn't wired for a network. Many employees had nothing but paper and pencil on their desks.

Allard wanted to get the whole company connected to E-mail, which meant replacing terminals with personal computers as well as putting systems on the desks of employees who had none.

He was also convinced that a client/server system was needed because he wanted to connect Sunset to the Internet, to advertising offices located around the country, and to other Time Inc.-owned magazines and divisions under the TPV umbrella.

But the problem was how to make all these changes without spending a lot of money. In fact, Sunset and TPV did not want to increase the IT budget.

Launching a solution wasn't easy. But by paying attention to his users and rethinking IT'S role, Allard has brought Sunset up to date technologically. And he's done it while saving the magazine money and giving users a significant amount of control and increased productivity.

WRITING THE OUTLINE. Allard believes the most important part of redesigning information systems -- more important than budget size -- is to look at business processes and see where things are not working.

So he set up a task force and spent 60 days taking inventory and interviewing every division about what they needed and wanted to do with information systems.

Having been asked to evaluate their business processes, each division became motivated and receptive to change. This approach is far more effective than mandating new systems from the top, Allard adds.

"We let them tell us what they wanted, but we guided them in the right direction," Allard says.

During this period, it became obvious that IT was spending almost all its money on back-end processes. The IS group had seven employees, and six of them were full-time programmers and system operators dedicated to keeping the AS/400 running. (The seventh employee handled desktop support.) Besides absorbing the efforts of almost the entire IT department, the AS/400's disk drives crashed every two months and had to be replaced by IBM each time.

In addition, business managers in remote offices had no way to dial indirectly to the minicomputer. If they got a call from a vendor asking if a bill had been paid, they'd have to hang up, call or fax the accounting department in Menlo Park, and wait for accounting to look it up. Then, finally, they could call back the vendor with the answer. If a business manager wanted to run a financial statement, he or she would have to call Menlo Park with the request and wait to receive the printout via Federal Express the next day.

OLD SOFTWARE, NEW HARDWARE. Allard decided to jettison the AS/400 and redirect the funds for its care and feeding to pay for a new infrastructure He chose a Hewlett-Packard Co. HP 9000 server to replace the AS/400 because Sunset needed the client/server capabilities of a Unix machine to run its accounting software and WAN and to hook into the Internet.

Completing the network are seven HP NetServer PCs running Windows NT, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SNA Server. On the desktop side, the company now supports 450 Apple Computer Inc. Macintoshes and 150 HP Pentium PCs.

The company continued to use accounting software from Lawson Software, moving from the AS/400 version to a Unix version.

Now the software runs more quickly, and with a double-click business managers in remote offices have access to all the information they need. And instead of waiting for a next-day Federal Express delivery, business managers need only a few minutes to run a financial statement to check revenues and expenses.

Sunset has standardized on Microsoft Office, which was in use on the Macs it already owned. The magazine also kept the same E-mail package, QuickMail from CE Software Inc., because it offers features that aren't available from other vendors. Luckily, it too runs on both Macs and PCs.

RETHINKING THE IT ROLE. As Allard sees it, the changes made at Sunset didn't involve just trading one hardware platform for another. There was also a big change in how Sunset's IT organization interacts with the rest of the company.

The IT group now negotiates with user representatives each year to determine what level and type of support the users want. User groups are also free to outsource their IT operations if they wish. Now Allard's group supports not just Sunset, but most of TPV's properties, although book fulfillment has been outsourced to a sister company that can handle it more efficiently.

"We wanted to minimize the staff needed in the IT group and instead put staff out into the business units," Allard says. "Our philosophy is to be as lean as possible and get bodies out into the business units, so they can control what [the units] are doing day to day. Our role is to provide the technical expertise and training to support those activities."

This means that Sunset and each TPV publication has its own desktop publishing and production person trained to troubleshoot problems with the Mac-based editorial and desktop publishing system.

User training, as well as managing the overall corporate computing system, is handled by the revamped IT group. Sunset let most of its AS/400 programmers go and replaced them with desktop support people. Now there are five support people scattered across the country, a support manager and a client/server specialist in Menlo Park, and Allard, who divides his time among various sites.

At the moment, the company has about 60 users for every IS employee. The company's heavy reliance on Macs has kept its technical support staff numbers low, Allard explains.

"We probably spend 4 hours on [supporting] a PC for every 1 hour we spend on a Mac," Allard says.

THE FINAL COPY. With these changes, old processes, such as analyzing accounting information, have improved, and employees are now able to do new things with their PCs. For example, to get story ideas, editorial employees can go onto the Internet to see what people are talking about in newsgroups.

E-mail has "flattened" the organization, Allard says. Employees get their jobs done faster and communicate with a broader group of people -- from their own group to employees of other magazines -- including the CEO.

The whole project cost "in the seven-figure range," Allard says. The saved cost of running the AS/400 paid for the HP 9000 in two months, and Allard estimates a nine-month payback for the desktop systems. Overall, the sum Sunset is spending is slightly lower, and the IT group supports more users than before.

"But we're spending it in a way that makes a greater difference to the individual employee," Allard says.

SURFING FOR OPPORTUNITY

Like many publishing companies, Time Publishing Ventures (TPV) is using the Internet to stay in touch with its readers and develop a searchable repository of content, anticipating that one day the company may need to quickly spin off information into new money-making formats.

"No one is making any money off [the Internet] now," says Kevin Allard, head of IT operations for Sunset magazine.

"My motivation in providing the infrastructure that will allow TPV properties to participate is that it's an opportunity to learn, to stay flexible. We're getting ready for what might happen next," Allard says.

Right now, Sunset puts content onto a section of Time Inc.'s Pathfinder World Wide Web site called the Virtual Garden, and it is developing three publications for America Online that will be launched in the fall.

Also, Internet access allows TPV employees to stay in touch with readers by searching newsgroups and by using subject-based E-mail addresses that automatically route messages to the right person.

Someday the company may be able to search its on-line editorial content for recipes with raisins to sell to a cereal maker that wants to create a recipe book, for example, Allard says. The closest Sunset has come to that is its Western Garden CD-ROM.

"The search engine in the CD allows you to search for white perennials that grow well in your zone, whereas in the book, you have to look through each plant entry individually," Allard explains.

Cate T. Corcoran is a free-lance writer based in San Francisco.