Publishers Lunch
Penguin Random House US
announced internally "the first steps in the gradual integration of the
company’s Credit
and Customer Service
departments," an evolutionary process that will consolidate Penguin
Group's separate credit and customer service functions into the company's
Westminster, MD facility. By the end of that process, functions outsourced by
Pearson to India will be relinquished and they will "bring both of these
activities for the combined Penguin Random House entirely back to the US."
In the short term, by the end of the first
quarter of 2014 Pearson will relinquish their transition services related to
credit for Penguin, and an outsourcing arrangement with IBM that had some of
that work done in India will terminate. But the company underscores that
Penguin's existing, separate credit system will be maintained separately
throughout next year, with the aim of going live with a consolidated Penguin
Random House system in early 2015. (Similarly, the Random House credit system
will continue to operate as is until that planned merging in 2015.)
A unified companywide customer service team
is expected to be ready at the same time. At that point, in 2015, Penguin's
customer service operation in Old Tappan, NJ "will be discontinued"
and a separate services arrangement with IBM will end. The company's "goal
[is] to transition as many of our Old Tappan colleagues to Westminster as
possible as we work to expand the team there."
Spokesperson Stuart Applebaum declined to
indicate the current staffing count at Old Tappan but noted "as said in
the memo, we sincerely hope that as many of our Old Tappan colleagues as possible
will continue as members of the expanded team come 2015." He added,
"As we are just in first days for the Customer Service transition
evolution it is way premature for speculation about specific relocations."
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