GWI: Improving visibility in media and publishing

• Find a CRM provider that offered strong value for money 

• Manage prospects, customers, contracts, and invoices in one place 

• Improve reporting and visibility across the business 

• Create a clearer renewal pipeline 

• Save time on invoicing and webinar lead handling 

• Build a stronger single source of truth through better integrations 

Simon Edwards, CRM Systems Administrator at GWI needed a CRM that could support multiple teams and bring together important commercial and operational data in a more connected way. 

Choosing a CRM with strong value and local support 

For GWI, choosing the right CRM provider wasn’t just about features. It was also about finding a platform that offered good value and a provider they could rely on. 

“We chose Workbooks originally because it’s a UK-based organization and the value for money that the Workbooks CRM offers is very good. We have around 40 users and a team of four CRM administrators. We use it primarily for recording all of our prospects, customers, contracts, invoices and some marketing activities, such as segmentation.” 

Connecting data across the business 

As GWI expanded its use of CRM, the challenge became less about simply storing records and more about making data work harder across sales, renewals, invoicing, and marketing activity. 

The team needed better visibility into what was happening, less manual effort, and a clearer way to manage recurring commercial processes like renewals. 

GWI uses Workbooks across a wide range of day-to-day processes, using automation and integrations to reduce manual work and improve visibility. 

“The features we use the most are reporting, opportunities, people and organizations, invoices and online activities. We also make use of the record creator, field updater, snapshots and automations. We’re also making the most of integrations with GoToWebinar and Sage Intacct.” 

By combining core CRM functionality with workflow tools and integrations, GWI has been able to make its data more connected and easier to act on. 

Building a single source of truth 

One of the biggest benefits for GWI has been improving how connected their data is becoming across the business. 

“This had made a real difference for our company in terms of how linked together our data is starting to become. It’s slowly starting to help us have a single source of truth which we can use to give us more insights and better processes. Initially, we always had to create our renewal opportunities manually and therefore our pipeline was not as clear, now we have renewal opportunities automatically created for us and reporting and dashboards that help us see what is happening.” 

With renewal opportunities now created automatically, GWI has a clearer pipeline and better reporting to support decision-making. 

Saving time on invoicing 

Workbooks has also helped GWI reduce the time spent on invoicing and improve efficiency for its customer service team. 

“I would estimate that because of Workbooks we have improved our invoicing process and how much time our customer service team spends creating invoices – an approximate saving of around 20 hours a month.” 

That time saving has helped streamline an important operational process and reduce manual effort. 

Reducing manual admin through webinar integration 

The GoToWebinar integration has delivered additional time savings by simplifying how leads are created and matched to existing records. 

“We’re also saving around 8–10 hours a month from the GoToWebinar integration, as it allows a smoother creation of new leads and linking to existing person records, rather than lots of exporting, importing and checking, as well as reporting of registrants and attendees whenever we need them.” 

By removing the need for repeated exporting, importing, and checking, GWI has improved both speed and accuracy. 

For GWI, Workbooks has helped connect data more effectively across prospects, customers, contracts, invoices, and marketing activity — while reducing manual work and improving visibility. 

From automated renewal opportunities to time savings in invoicing and webinar management, Workbooks is helping GWI build a clearer, more connected way of working.

GWI is also looking ahead at how AI could support its CRM strategy in the future. 

“We went to the recent event in London and it was extremely interesting to learn how to use AI in our CRM going forwards, and discuss AI and other CRM challenges with other companies in publishing.” 

“I took learnings including some potential solutions to some challenges we’re facing and what some of the potential use cases are for AI in Workbooks are from the event.” 

This has helped the team start thinking more practically about where AI could support future process improvements.