About Wiley

John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd was founded in 1954 and is the Australian, wholly-owned subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. of New York, whose origins go back 200 years.

Employing nearly 300 staff nationally, Wiley Australia has a turnover of approximately $60 million. The company's head office is situated in the Brisbane suburb of Milton. Its distribution centre is located at Stafford in Brisbane and the company has an office in Melbourne.

Wiley Australia is involved in most facets of the book publishing industry from school to higher education/professional and trade, including atlases, dictionaries and other reference materials.

In June 1999 the company name was changed from Jacaranda Wiley Ltd to John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd in recognition of the fact that the Wiley brand has now become pre-eminent and highly regarded in the book trade and within our various customer communities.

The company publishes and markets into three distinct market segments in Australia and New Zealand:

Schools   The School division of Wiley Australia publishes texts, reference and electronic materials for the Australian secondary school market and currently holds the number 1 market share nationally. The division has exhibited strong growth over the past decade and is highly profitable. It has a reputation for the quality of its products, both pedagogically and in terms of production values. Most staff employed in the division are ex-teachers who understand the needs of the marketplace across all curriculum areas. The division's products regularly receive industry awards for excellence in content and design. Wiley Australia, as Jacaranda Press, initiated the Macquarie Dictionary project in the early '70s and still publishes a range of Macquarie dictionaries and thesauri into schools and the general market today. The flagship Jacaranda Atlas is now in its fifth edition and is stronger than ever.

Universities/Colleges   The Higher Education division of Wiley Australia publishes and markets a comprehensive range of university textbooks published by itself and parent company John Wiley & Sons in the US. Wiley is a leading publisher in the Sciences, Engineering and Business fields. The division also markets the lists of other US companies such as Houghton Mifflin and Norton on an agency basis. Local publishing is a large segment of the business, especially in the Business, Management, Marketing and Accounting areas where courses require particularly Australian content. The division dominates the Accounting area in Australia and New Zealand universities - it has approximately 70% of the market.

Professional and Trade   The Professional/Trade division publishes and markets titles published by itself and by Wiley in the US and sister companies around the world. It also represents the trade list of Norton (US). In June 2001 we acquired Wrightbooks Pty Ltd, a small Melbourne based company specialising in publishing for the personal investment market in Australia. It publishes approximately 40 titles per year. In May 2002 the division virtually doubled in size consequent on Wiley's purchase of Hungry Minds Inc., a US company that publishes a number of well-known brands such as the 'For Dummies' series, Frommers travel guides and Cliff Notes. Our Professional/Trade division is highly regarded as an innovative publisher and marketer of high quality non-fiction materials of special interest to professionals and consumers.

Wiley Australia has an enviable reputation for customer service and distribution excellence. Turn-around times from receipt of order to despatch from our Stafford warehouse regularly exceed industry benchmarks, especially in critical 'back to school' times when urgent orders need to be supplied the same day. During the company's peak season from early November to end March the pressures on the distribution systems are immense as the company needs to satisfy the Christmas demand for its trade business as well as the educational demand in preparation for the January/February start of the school and university academic year. The company is regularly commended for its service excellence by the major book trade retail chains and independent stores, and is a consistent winner of 'Publisher of the Year' awards.

In October 2000 we launched a new initiative 'eCustomer Service', where booksellers can access real-time price and availability information on all our titles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This service has set new service benchmarks for the publishing industry in Australia, but it was simply the first of many new initiatives in the e-commerce field that we continue to roll out in order to gain efficiencies, and to serve our customers better.

The company strongly believes in hiring and retaining quality staff, and has developed progressive Human Resource policies to this end. For example, in recognition of its commitment to the principles of equal employment opportunity, Wiley Australia has been awarded each year since 1997 the highest ranking by the Federal Government's Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) and achieved 'waived' status in 2001. Only a very small percentage of Australian companies who are required to report under the Act have ever achieved this benchmark level.

Recently the company improved its parental leave policies by extending paid maternity leave from six to 12 weeks. We also introduced an Employee Assistance Program which provides employees and their immediate families with free access to psychological, financial and legal counselling.