As the world is coming to terms with the widespread impact of the financial crisis, every company in the industry is playing cautious. Leading publishers of STM and educational content have been performing well at an average growth of 5-6% over the last few years compared to the newspaper publishers that have been grappling with survival issues.

We find that the performance of the leading publishers till 2007 end has been positive but this may not be clearly indicative of the current scenario. Most publishers saw rising profit margins between 2005 and 2007; however, the recent half-year results demonstrate a downward trend, y-o-y. The first half of 2009 could be even worse. As a result, publishers are tightening their belts and have taken steps towards cost rationalization.

How will the global publishing industry fare in an economically challenging environment? And how will their difficulties impact offshoring? A recently released research by ValueNotes, evaluates the impact of current economic slowdown on various segments in the publishing BPO industry.