The State of Sourcing

Some recent news on the Indian publishing scene inspired me to explore how the market is emerging in the trade category, especially in the English language.

• The Tata Group is aggressively focusing on their book publishing business. The company aims to be amongst the top five in India within the next three years.
• Penguin India has chosen one of the most popular Indian writers, Shobhaa Dé, to acquire a new line of books for the publishing house. The imprint – Shobhaa Dé Books – to be released in 2011 will cater to an urban English speaking audience.
• Penguin-India has been recording approx. 25% growth in sales. Random House, Harper Collins, Rupa and some others have been increasing their titles each year.

Outsourcing destination! That’s the foremost identity while referring to ‘India’ and ‘publishing’ together. India has emerged as a key destination for sourcing publishing services for US and UK based publishers for over two decades. But publishers viewing India as a potential market ? – It’s a different ballgame!

Continue reading ‘India: From a service hub to a potential market?’ »

Over the last few years, there has been a trend among Indian service providers to build complementary capabilities by acquiring smaller publishing service companies in the US. Naturally, the all-time-low valuations have helped seal deals faster for service providers, who are looking to complete the missing piece of ‘high-value content’ in the end-to-end service provider puzzle.

Some of the recent acquisitions include: Continue reading ‘Small and niche – make a good fit’ »