Challenge: An inefficient and costly manual content-creation process consumed time and resources the company needed to devote to generating new revenue streams Solution: An automated workflow built on IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus Domino software designed to accelerate, simplify and enhance the content-creation process Key Benefits – Cut overall printing and shipping costs by US$75,000 per year – Increased content accuracy rate from 90 to 99.3 percent – Reduced typical questioncreation time by 50 percent – Decreased time required to locate and update content from days to minutes – Saved and reallocated thousands of employee-hours to new business pursuits

1. Content management solutions
Business case study
College Bowl scores time and cost savings
through an automated workflow solution.
Overview
 Challenge
An inefficient and costly manual
content-creation process consumed
time and resources the company
needed to devote to generating
new revenue streams
 Solution
An automated workflow built on
IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus
Domino software designed to
accelerate, simplify and enhance
the content-creation process
 Key Benefits
– Cut overall printing and shipping Pictured are students competing at The Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, a competition for America’s
Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
costs by US$75,000 per year
– Increased content accuracy
As a diversified production, live- “We didn’t find any com-
event and marketing company,
rate from 90 to 99.3 percent petitive alternatives.
– Reduced typical question- College Bowl (www.collegebowl.com)
produces and distributes academic
There wasn’t [any other
creation time by 50 percent
– Decreased time required to competitions in America and abroad, solution] that was even
locate and update content from reaching millions of students, faculty, remotely competitive
days to minutes alumni and family members through- from a price or func-
– Saved and reallocated out the world. Over the past 35 years,
thousands of employee-hours
tionality standpoint.”
the award-winning, California-based
–Mary Oberembt, general manager,
to new business pursuits company — consisting of 11 full-time College Bowl

2. and several part-time employees — has expanded to coordinate and provide
questions for three major programs: the annual College Bowl, High School Bowl
and Honda Campus All-Star Challenge competitions.
Aside from working continuously to improve question content, College Bowl
strives to globalize its questions for a broader audience, repurpose existing
content into new products and secure corporate sponsors for College Bowl
products. But as a small business constrained by an inefficient, manual
question-generation process, College Bowl had little extra time or money to
invest in new ventures.
The time-consuming question-generation process typically lasted ten weeks
per game set. Employees manually authored, categorized, edited, approved,
“Because of the IBM assembled and logged 130 files of questions per month on topics ranging from
technology, College science and current events to math and history. Relying on staff members to
catch mistakes, the process was subject to errors that undermined content
Bowl is able to do
quality. Duplicate questions, an unbalanced number of topics and inaccura-
things at a ten-person cies sometimes led to contestants challenging question content.
company that a 50-
to 100-person company The cumbersome question-generation process was entirely paper-based. When
booking (assembling) games, College Bowl printed between 5,000 and 10,000
can do. So it’s a big win.”
pages of questions per game to create a physical, categorized deck. From
–John Head, enTouch offerings and
development manager, PSC the deck, a booker selected questions based on specific criteria to be used in
a game. The resulting preliminary game, printed on 53 sheets of paper, was
shipped to as many as eight outside reviewers. The subsequent cost of paper,
printing and shipping totaled approximately US$30,000 per year per game — a
heavy burden. To position itself for growth, College Bowl needed to improve the
efficiency, cost-effectiveness and quality control of its process.
Building an automated solution that’s ahead of the curve
Recognizing this labor-intensive, manual workflow prohibited College Bowl
from meeting its business objectives, the company decided to automate its
question-generation process. Along with replacing manual steps, the solution
2

3. needed to support College Bowl’s specialized document format, efficiently
store large volumes of questions and provide remote access to offsite review-
ers. College Bowl chose IBM Business Partner PSC Group, LLC to design and
build a new workflow and content management architecture. By the end of the
project, College Bowl got a lot more — a complete transformation that brought
its business process into the 21st century.
During the first few years of their partnership, PSC and College Bowl attempted
different solutions. They tried simple word-processing applications and even
built and rejected an entire application. Ultimately, they decided to switch from
an Internet-hosted Microsoft® Outlook messaging system to IBM Lotus® Notes®
and IBM Lotus Domino® software. PSC developed College Bowl’s solution grad-
ually, building on the new capabilities of each Lotus Notes and Domino
upgrade, until the content-creation process was fully automated.
The platform switch was largely due to the rich messaging and collaborative
capabilities of Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino software, including integrated
instant messaging for real-time collaboration among employees and clients in
the context of their work. Stronger security capabilities that safeguard confi-
dentiality and protect against viruses. And the ability to support multiple e-mail
accounts — one for each College Bowl program. “We didn’t find any competitive
alternatives. There wasn’t [any other solution] that was even remotely competitive
from a price or functionality standpoint,” says Mary Oberembt, general manager,
College Bowl.
As part of the solution implementation, PSC and College Bowl imported some
17,000 existing questions into a newly developed Lotus Notes question data-
base. This database enables writers to post and index questions by category.
Outside reviewers can log on to the system from anywhere via a Web browser
to view, comment on and return questions electronically. Printing and shipping
are no longer required, significantly speeding the process.
3

4. PSC also developed other Lotus Notes databases, including an individualized
program database for each competition and a keyword database. In each program
database, employees can quickly organize questions into packets using an agent
running on Lotus Domino software that is guided by program-specific rules —
known as the pre-book process. Leveraging Lotus software automation capabilities,
the pre-book process is automated to quickly select 53 questions from the
database based on 25 criteria points, assign them to a game and pass them
along for online review.
The keyword database enables users to rapidly search for duplicate questions
and to edit multiple instances of content. Automating each step of the pro-
cess — including data searching — using Lotus Domino workflow capabilities
helps significantly reduce human error. And fewer instances of inaccurate,
unbalanced and duplicate content helps the games run more smoothly.
After game content has been verified as accurate and complete, an administrator
simply clicks a button to generate the questions in a Microsoft Word document and
save the document as a PDF—all in minutes. A rich-text connector created by PSC
maintains all formatting required for proper printing. Finally, the PDF is sent elec-
tronically either directly to a printer or to a contact at a school for final printing and
packaging. This system helps limit printing and shipping to finished products only.
Accomplishing more in less time
Implementing an automated, user-friendly workflow and distribution process
with Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino software has reduced College Bowl’s
question-creation time by 50 percent and drastically shortened revision time.
For example, manually searching through a year’s worth of questions to ensure
existing questions are updated used to take three or four days. With the keyword
database, automated searches return results in about two seconds, allowing
users to update content more quickly.
4

5. Remote access for outside reviewers has streamlined the review process by
eliminating time spent printing and shipping questions. Assembling question
packets takes only hours instead of days or weeks. Now completed game
packets are produced just weeks before their use, increasing accuracy, timeliness
of material and customer satisfaction. And any new employees the College Bowl
recruits are able to get up to speed on the automated process quickly and easily.
“Because of the IBM technology, College Bowl is able to do things at a ten-
person company that a 50- to 100-person company can do,” says John Head,
enTouch offerings and development manager, PSC. “So it’s a big win.”
Getting high marks for accuracy
The online process allows College Bowl to expand and work with international “[The IBM solution and
reviewers and content providers to globalize its questions for an increasingly PSC applications have]
diverse audience. This capability not only increases the potential for new
absolutely revolution-
customers, it also helps further improve content quality. A significant reduction in
human error as a result of an automated workflow has decreased the number of
ized how we do our
duplicate questions and helped generate optimum topic variation within game jobs. Even the naysay-
sets. Overall, question accuracy rates have risen from about 90 percent ers are saying, ‘I’d
to 99.3 percent, virtually eliminating question protests. And with the shortened never go back.’”
production time, questions are shipped to and used by clients promptly — –Mary Oberembt, general manager,
College Bowl
meaning content used in competitions is up to date.
Saving money—and trees
Previously, each question was printed about eight times on its way to approval.
Electronic distribution through Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino software has
eliminated the paper-based process and postponed the need to ship hard
copies until final customer delivery. The IBM and PSC solution has cut paper,
printing and shipping costs by more than US$75,000 per year. Also, by switching
to the Lotus Notes and Domino platform, College Bowl has eliminated costs
associated with hosting its e-mail externally.
5

6. Leveraging existing resources to drive business growth
The content management solution from IBM has helped College Bowl free up
thousands of employee-hours per year. Now the company can devote more time to
building its event-planning business. Attracting more corporate sponsors. Improving
question quality. And repurposing content into new question packets for different © Copyright IBM Corporation 2004
audiences. For example, College Bowl recently launched new diversity question IBM Corporation
packs to focus on specific categories, including African American and women’s Software Group
Route 100
topics. College Bowl and PSC quickly created the diversity program database by Somers, NY 10589
reusing the new IBM solution’s application architecture and copying questions from U.S.A.
existing program databases to the new database. Category-specific game packets Produced in the United States of America
09-04
such as this one require minimal extra work or costs, and allow College Bowl to All Rights Reserved
resell content for a high margin. Domino, IBM, the IBM logo, Lotus and Lotus
Notes are trademarks of International Business
Machines Corporation in the United States, other
Mastering a successful future
countries or both.
The next planned refinements to College Bowl’s system will involve introducing
Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation
more rules-based automation to further reduce duplicate content and automating in the United States, other countries or both.
the creation of various documents to reduce clerical work. With IBM Lotus Other company, product and service names may
be trademarks or service marks of others.
solutions and PSC as its committed IBM Business Partner, College Bowl has
References in this publication to IBM products
relinquished its manual operations for a fully automated, paperless business
and services do not imply that IBM intends
model. As a result, the company has gained a substantial competitive edge and to make them available in all countries in which
IBM operates.
is poised to retain the title of industry leader while developing innovative products
This customer story is based on information pro-
and creating new revenue streams. “[The IBM and PSC solution has] absolutely
vided by College Bowl and PSC and illustrates
revolutionized how we do our jobs,” declares Mary Oberembt. “Even the naysay- how one organization uses IBM products. Many
factors may have contributed to the results and
ers are saying, ‘I’d never go back.’”
benefits described; IBM does not guarantee
comparable results elsewhere.
For more information
Please contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner.
Visit us at:
ibm.com /lotus
For more information about PSC, visit:
www.psclistens.com
G225-4331-00