As a global publishing production partner to Taylor & Francis, Deanta were briefed in early 2020, on the onshore and offshore allocation of titles for the year ahead. However, as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and some offshore vendors struggled to maintain capacity, Taylor and Francis needed to re-allocate work to Deanta as they condensed more and more titles into a frenetic Q4 period.

Capacity is not a function of staffing levels. Deanta has a fraction of the staff compared to some offshore competitors but this is by design. Deanta’s approach has always been to invest in skilled talent and the very latest technology to simplify workflows and enable smaller, more agile teams to match the work of much larger organisations.

Deanta hired their own team of developers, data scientists and UX designed to build the cloud-based, real-time editing platform Lanstad. The technology incorporated machine learning models to automate seemingly simple tasks which other companies choose to fulfil using low-cost man-power. The purpose was to eradicate errors, avoid duplication of effort and speed up the production process.

Thanks to Deanta, Taylor & Francis was able to publish a significantly higher volume of books over and above expectations, while at the same time maintaining a high degree of accuracy and at no premium cost. This shift in gear was managed in real-time, and without the usual foresight and careful planning in the summer months, all the while hitting the scheduling and accuracy KPI’s and managing relationships with all the authors.