“Our focus in 2025 is on establishing AI as a foundation for software development and enhancement, and implementing compliance tools for adherence to new EU regulations,” says chief customer officer Nella Klopotek von Glowczewski. “We are also busy creating new features and developing tools for our clients to cover selected areas—managing agencies and paying royalties to heirs, for instance—in a better way, always with performance in mind.”
From handling rights sales to changing payee management and modifying accounts, the enhanced Contracts, Rights, and Royalties (CRR) solution is a cornerstone in Klopotek’s portfolio of publishing software, especially relevant for large-enterprise customers like HarperCollins Publishers and Taylor & Francis, who have been relying on these tools for decades.
As a result of continuous efforts at Klopotek, additional performance improvements have been achieved in 2025. “This is an essential foundation for being able to handle the large amounts of contracts, authors, and titles brought to market annually by international publishing groups who rely on our software, which incorporates highly sophisticated, safe, and accurate royalty calculation procedures,” says Klopotek von Glowczewski, whose company is now SOC 1 Type 2-certified, a confirmation that is often required for the audit processes of large companies. “It demonstrates that our software, services, and processes provide full transparency.”
HarperCollins Publishers USA is now live on Klopotek Stream, marking an important milestone in the implementation of Klopotek’s global solution. “Klopotek has been a great partner, through a very complex and challenging program, to modernize and standardize our global royalties processing platform,” says Matt Bennett, global chief information officer at HarperCollins Publishers.
As for publishing house C.H. Beck, which has been a Klopotek client since the 1990s, it uses a large part of Klopotek solutions for fulfillment and Order2Cash. The Ticketing Stream app, for instance, helps them to significantly reduce time and optimize processes at their customer service, such as automating sorting processes of incoming emails. Now, enabled by AI, these achievements are set to increase even further: “The result,” says Sven Borchers, head of customer service/ logistics at C.H. Beck, “will be significant process optimization at our customer service department.”
Implementing AI is a very important but sensitive topic, says Klopotek von Glowczewski. “All our AI implementations—not just for our customers but also for internal information, coordination, and process improvements—are done according to EU regulations.” Klopotek von Glowczewski’s team addresses regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and European Accessibility Act (EAA) from the ONIX perspective. All relevant ONIX codes for EAA, for instance, are preassigned in the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit so that the customer can directly describe in which way their digital products are accessible; the same goes for EUDR-relevant products.
With the EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) coming into effect, Klopotek is offering the option to configure a publisher-specific contact that is entered into the ONIX message with all required data. “We have now expanded this, making it possible to record and output additional product-specific contacts through linking them with a contributor,” says Bernhard Dock, COO at Klopotek. “As for e-invoices and PEPPOL ID, which is about controlling VAT payments, our job is to guarantee that these e-invoices are created for the publishing products of our clients.”
Klopotek’s strength, adds Dock, “is that we cover the entire value creation chain in publishing, no matter the form, format, or regulation.”
The Klopotek team will talk about AI in Action: How C.H. Beck and Klopotek are Redefining Customer Service Efficiency on Thursday, October 16, at 2.30 p.m. at Hall 4.0’s Stage 4.0. Head over to booth E32 in the same hall for more information on Klopotek.
