ThiemeMeulenhoff's Story: How a Leading Educational Publisher Serves Schools Better with Renewed Business Operations

Educational publisher ThiemeMeulenhoff has been developing and producing learning materials for over 230 years. Under the motto Renewing Learning Together, it collaborates with education professionals to continually improve its resources. This also demands quite a bit from its business operations. We spoke to Commercial Manager Roy Eysbach about the changes ThiemeMeulenhoff has made in this area, and how Emixa played a key role.

Striking the Right Balance

Roy, who has seen many shifts in the publishing world throughout his career, has been Commercial Manager at ThiemeMeulenhoff since 2023. Traditionally, a publisher of schoolbooks, the company’s offering has evolved significantly. “Online learning is nothing new,” Roy explains. “What’s new is the focus on creating the right mix. Online is ideal for practising material and tracking student progress — it also makes personalised learning possible. But for longer texts, a book is often still preferred. We genuinely believe that a combination of books and digital resources offers the best support for learning.”

Greater Flexibility

Schools themselves have become more proactive too. More often now, ThiemeMeulenhoff sells directly to schools instead of through traditional distributors. “Schools increasingly approach us with specific requests. We aim to be a real partner and think along with them. Where do their needs lie, and how can our learning resources meet those? That’s why our motto is Renewing Learning Together.”

Flexibility is key, Roy emphasises. “Our learning resources are becoming more adaptable and open. This means teachers can customise our materials to suit their needs — mixing them with other content, leaving out certain topics, changing the order, or adding videos and their own materials.”

A New Way of Thinking and Working

This also requires ThiemeMeulenhoff itself to think and work differently. “We need to stop thinking in terms of products — a book, an online module — and focus on content,” says Roy. “Fortunately, we have plenty of expertise in-house. We know what makes learning effective. We’ve also built a strong EdTech team and are developing AI chatbots to help students with homework and exams.”

That flexibility has implications behind the scenes too — in business operations. “All those flexible products also need to be reflected in our finance, sales and distribution processes. One thing was clear: our old legacy ERP system couldn’t handle it. So, we brought in Emixa to support us.”

Looking at the Bigger Picture Together

The first step was a two-day strategy session, where the team walked through every business process with a core team from ThiemeMeulenhoff. This fits with Emixa’s SBOS philosophy: looking at strategy, business processes, organisation and systems as one whole.

“It was great to be able to reflect in a calm setting first,” Roy recalls. “Otherwise, you immediately trigger a stir in the organisation before making any decisions. Whatever system you choose, it impacts almost everyone. During those sessions, you asked all the right questions. Are our processes really that unique? It turned out we could easily work with a standard ERP system — as long as we were willing to change the way we work. That became our guiding principle, and even our project name: SIMPEL.”

Making Smarter Choices

This is a pattern we see in many businesses. A large part of business processes can run perfectly in a cloud-based ERP system, provided you’re open to standardising your workflow. That way, companies can focus on what truly sets them apart and free up space for innovation. Roy shares an example: “What’s unique at ThiemeMeulenhoff is that we work with external authors who often still teach. They get paid for their contributions — but that’s not a standard feature in most ERP systems.”

Our team helped ThiemeMeulenhoff select an ERP system, which turned out to be AFAS. We also managed the implementation and guided the organisational changes. Roy explains: “An implementation like this impacts the entire organisation — it’s always significant. We also took a bold step by adding a data integration layer straight away, so we now have a central hub for all our application data.”

A High-Stakes Project

So how did Project SIMPEL unfold? “I never felt stressed or panicked during the project,” says Roy. “The Emixa team always had a clear overview. If issues came up, they offered several alternative scenarios. It felt like working with a timetable: here’s where we are, here’s where we’re going, and here are the next steps. That gave peace of mind.”

One complication was that the experts who knew the old system had just retired. “That old system was basically a black box,” Roy adds. “We knew surprises were likely. And going live right before our peak period — delivering and making learning materials available at the start of the school year — added extra pressure. If that went wrong, it would affect students nationwide. But your team anticipated this well, providing extra support around the go-live.”

Thanks to this ‘hypercare’, everything ran smoothly. “Our customer service team had the quietest peak period ever. Everything continued running smoothly with our distribution partners too.” Quite an achievement.

Lessons Learned

What can others take away from this project? Roy is clear: “This was primarily a change project. Bring your colleagues into the story as early as possible — explain why this new system is necessary, what will change, and what it means for them. We invested a lot of energy in that. It also requires unconditional support from leadership, especially when things get tense.”

And working with Emixa? “It was a great mix of our people and yours. You brought deep IT, process and sector knowledge, along with fresh ideas. And — just as important — we had a lot of fun together too.”

Everything in One Place

ThiemeMeulenhoff has now been working with the new ERP system and data platform for a while. What’s the practical result? Roy sums it up: “The whole company now works in the same system. And my commercial team can work from the same customer view. Previously, customer data was scattered across systems and departments. Now, sales, marketing and customer service all see the same information in real-time. We’ve also built a new ordering environment in AFAS for schools, so we can serve them directly. And recently, we gave customers insight into the status of their requests too.”

Ready for the Future

With the new ERP system, ThiemeMeulenhoff’s operational foundation is future-proof. The next step? Connecting it with the content side. “That way,” Roy concludes, “our learning materials and business operations will seamlessly align. Ready for the future of education — we’re already there.”

Sigrid Beel: “We’ve been on quite a journey with ThiemeMeulenhoff. From those first sessions with a small group to the go-live, where we worked with the entire company and all the distribution partners. It was sometimes really tense, but we brought it to a successful conclusion together.”

Magiel Tak: “It’s fantastic to hear how Roy experienced this process. It’s a great example of how a short, intensive start pays off later with a smooth implementation. And how we, as a team with diverse knowledge and backgrounds, delivered a top result.”

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