What’s Next for KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. Following the Acquisition of Allen Press? A Q&A with KGL President, Atul Goel
/by Mike Groth
This past January, our parent company, CJK Group, Inc., announced the acquisition of Allen Press, the venerable print and publishing services company based in Lawrence, KS. Since that time, the print facility has been renamed Sheridan Kansas under the administration of our sister company; while Allen Press’s considerable range of content services are being integrated into KGL operations as we have welcomed our new Lawrence-based colleagues to our global team.
I sat down recently with KGL President, Atul Goel to find out what’s next for the expanded company, what complementary and new services are being added to the KGL portfolio, and what we can expect during 2023.
MG: So KGL grows again! Remind us how far the company has come.
AG: Since 2020, KGL has grown to include the content, technology, and publishing industry expertise of Cenveo Publisher Services, Cenveo Learning, Sheridan Journal Services, Sheridan PubFactory, KWF Consulting, KWF Editorial, and now Allen Press, all under the umbrella of the CJK Group—which of course also includes our sister company and right-hand print partner, Sheridan.
The initial foundation of KGL united two premier content service providers supporting the needs of the journal, educational publishing, and digital learning markets. The acquisition of Kaufman Wills Fusting & Company in 2021 bolstered our credentials in journal editorial services while adding business consulting solutions to our offering. Now the talent and capabilities of Allen Press strengthen KGL’s journal and peer review solutions while adding a number of society and association services, which include marketing communications, advertising sales, and association and event management. We are excited to present a near-complete range of publishing and professional services in-house, and I believe we are the only vendor offering such a one-stop shop.
MG: How will KGL customers benefit from the acquisition of Allen Press (and vice versa)?
Atul Goel, President of Kgl
AG: Content providers across the industries we serve benefit from a growing network of facilities, services, and resources around the world. By consolidating these services in one company, we are able to provide our customers with more capacity, more flexibility, added services in manuscript submissions, peer review, composition, association management, online hosting, and more investment in technology solutions. For instance, KGL is adopting Allen Press’s manuscript management system, PeerTrack as part of our peer review workflow, in addition to its standard digital hosting option for independent publishers, Meridian, as part of our PubFactory platform group.
Allen Press customers used to working with a single entity will find that the companies of CJK Group are likewise accustomed to working across businesses as a seamless organization. KGL and Sheridan together act as an industry powerhouse duo providing transformative content and print services for books, journals, magazines, and learning solutions in the scholarly, educational, professional and trade markets.
On the KGL side in particular, they will be able to tap into the expertise of our established operations, including KGL Consulting, KGL Editorial, the Smart Suite automated publishing engine, longtime scholarly hosting innovator, KGL PubFactory, and specialized services like art and design, rights and permissions, translations, and eLearning.
MG: What about the Allen Press team?
AG: We were delighted to welcome Mark Kohlhase to the KGL leadership team as VP, Growth & Innovation, where he is responsible for product and business development for society and association services. Working with Mark is Maria Preston-Cargill, who joined as Director, Marketing & Client Services, leading our team that manages society membership and meetings, marketing and creative services, and advertising sales support.
MG: What is next for KGL?
AG: This will be a very busy year for the company. As I mentioned, we are integrating the Association Services portion of Allen Press into our teams responsible for the highly-respected KGL Consulting and KGL Editorial services. Our Smart Suite platform will expand into peer reviewer selection and front-end data reporting, and feature significant advancements in web-based proofing. After pioneering the use of AI and NLP for language analysis, formatting and copyediting, we are actively exploring new applications to integrate AI into publishing workflows for content creation, alt-text generation, media assets, digital production, and peer review.
MG: Where can publishers meet KGL to learn more about how the combined company can help them?
AG: This year, so far we are excited to be exhibiting at the London Book Fair (April 18-20, Stand 3A12), the Council of Science Editors Annual Meeting (April 20 – May 2, Toronto) and the Society for Scholarly Publishing Annual Meeting (May 31 – June 2, Portland, OR). KGL leaders and subject matter experts also attend many other scholarly, library, and educational publishing industry events, in addition to hosting webinars, virtual user group meetings, and more. We look forward to engaging with the market in person and online this year and further discussing the combined forces of KGL and Allen Press with you!
Atul Goel has spent three decades in operations management and technology development at KGL and its predecessors Cenveo Publisher Services and Cadmus Communications, working extensively with clients to develop global production solutions. He can be reached at info@kwglobal.com.