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Today’s launch caps a year of dramatic transformation at NELSON, which has seen the 104-year old publisher reimagine itself and the Canadian education system through a series of strategic acquisitions, partnerships, and new offerings.
“NELSON is laser-focused on driving change and innovation in the education business in Canada and beyond,” said Steve Brown, NELSON President and CEO. “In a few short years, today’s post-secondary students will be the drivers of Canadian economic prosperity. Our mission is to increase choice and affordability for these students, so that we do our part in helping them reach their full potential.”
Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) is the culmination of more than a year of consultations with campus retailers from coast to coast. These discussions surfaced the unique logistics issues faced by bookstores which can hinder efforts to get students the materials they need, when they need them. VMI is a sophisticated supply chain management solution customized specifically for the education materials industry to address these challenges.
“NELSON’s VMI program brings a fresh approach to ordering and managing our course materials acquisition process by using best practices from other industries and applying them to the educational materials space,” said Debbie Harvie, Managing Director, University Community Services, The University of British Columbia. “VMI means we will have the right number of books in our store at all times. It’s a wonderful example of publisher and bookstore working together to get things right.”
NELSON’s textbook rentals program is the company’s second major initiative in the area of student affordability. In March 2017, NELSON took the unprecedented step of announcing that it would not increase the price of NELSON titles, in perpetuity.
The rentals program, like VMI, was created in partnership with campus bookstores and is the first of its kind in Canada. It will further lower the cost of learning materials by allowing students to rent a textbook at a more affordable rate compared to purchasing new. The program is simple to implement for bookstores and will include all publisher content, not just NELSON titles. It gives students more choice and increases the breadth of offering for stores without requiring additional staff resources.
“NELSON’s new Retail Services division, anchored by the VMI and rentals programs are further evidence of our commitment to transform and modernize the educational industry in Canada,” said Brown. “But at the end of the day, the real focus is the student. Everything we do is about improving affordability for students, improving their educational experience, and doing our part in helping then become the leaders of tomorrow.”
About NELSON
NELSON is Canada’s largest and leading educational publisher. NELSON believes in the evolution of life-long education and dedicates its business efforts to the creation of quality, innovative solutions that support the needs of every student, teacher, and instructor to empower learning success. For more information about NELSON, please visit us at Nelson.com or find us on Facebook and Twitter.