Over the last two years, the publishing industry has experienced a drastic change – a change that has re-defined how the industry operates and its outlook on content. Publishers, in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, have faced significant cost and revenue pressures – challenges compounded due to the decrease in consumer spend, corporate or otherwise. For publishers facing these pressures, the digital content market the digital market presented a holistic solution – one that opened a channel of revenue that offered non-linear growth, while ensuring low costs of production and marketing & sales.

Our survey on ‘The Current State of Digital Content’ provides more insights on the impact the digital market is having on publishers. Close to 4 in 5 publishers are now actively producing digital content – a sign that publishers worldwide are now ‘going digital’.

 

 

Rise in digital publishing services

For publishers ‘going digital’ the market presented challenges that exposed the lack of preparation internally. These challenges involved the existence of legacy workflows/processes, inadequate resources in-house and crucially the lack of technological capabilities. With pressure on revenues, publishers looked for means to reduce the go to market time for their digital content. And using third party providers was the solution. A little more than 60% of the publishers we surveyed are currently outsourcing, with another 20% considering it.

 

                                       

 

Traditionally, cost has been a strong motivator for outsourcing. However, this is fast changing with many publishers outsourcing to address resource, workload, and technology issues. Conversions are an example of publishers leveraging the provider’s resources and technological capabilities. And the demand for digital publishing services is not restricted to only production. It has grown to include digitization of backlists, XML services, workflow re-engineering, digital bookstores, digital rights management (DRM), etc. The rise of digital publishing has meant that technology is a critical factor – and this has already impacted the publishing outsourcing industry.

Service provider landscape: The technology convergence

Dominated traditionally by pure play service providers, the publishing outsourcing industry has experienced an influx of players that are offering services that were not necessarily under the gamut of print publishing. Software, technology and BPO providers have since made inroads into the publishing industry offering a variety of services that range from technology to workflow consulting. For pure play publishing service providers, the market place is getting increasingly crowded. New entrants include software and IT-BPO providers that are increasingly leveraging their technological expertise to service publishers. So, how do pure play providers respond to an increasingly changing environment that is fast becoming competitive?

Pure play service providers need to play to their strengths

Pure play providers now need to position themselves as domain-specific providers of publishing services – such expertise having been developed while servicing traditional clients.  This domain expertise allows for pure play providers to understand its clients and markets intimately, and crucially a better understanding of how industry specific processes (such as content treatment, copy-editing, etc) need to be addressed in the digital context. Pure play providers now have the opportunity to make a significant addition to the value they give their clients – that of a trusted advisor. However, they need to ensure that technology is increasingly incorporated to their offerings. Else, they might just be overwhelmed with the competition…