A Step-by-Step, SeamlessOnline Integration

Thieme uses its Web site to provide order entry and processing within 24 hours, and same-day turnaround on inquiries. The Internet is used to conduct annual customer and staff surveys, direct sales, e-mail promotions, and to present Thieme’s electronic catalog.

Thieme’s entire catalog—containing 1,200 titles, updated weekly using a proprietary central database—is on its Web site. This includes the company’s “brain atlases,” which Scanlan says are considered “landmark works in the field” of medical publishing.

Using a Singapore-based technology partner, A*Star, Thieme has developed an electronic version of its “Brain Atlases” and licensed them to neurological equipment companies. There are more than 1,000 installations of the atlases worldwide on neurosurgical workstations in hospitals, Scanlan says, adding that surgeons are using Thieme’s “Brain Atlases” to help plan surgery. They electronically overlay atlases on MRI scans “to get a better sense of the complex anatomy of the brain and its relationship to the target area for surgery.”

Carefully plotting its growth through its three-year plans, Thieme will continue to rely heavily on the Internet to grow its medical publishing operation. According to Scanlan, the company presently enjoys a 95-percent repeat-business rate for its journals; a 90-percent rate for its online business; and an 80-percent to 90-percent repeat-business rate for its books.

The companies growth plans don’t stop there. It just opened an office in Delhi, India, in February, and is planning a co-publishing venture in Beijing later this year.

David S. Chartock is a New York-based freelance writer. He can be reached at Chartock@aol.com.