Technology proving to be the PEST driving the publishing industry!

"...a huge opportunity for newcomers to rewrite the rules of the game."

The POLITICS of the industry are becoming harder to control. The current view of the industry sees established companies having to make drastic business model changes. Newcomers, driven by the power of changing technologies, are entering the publishing industry and they are altering the structure of industry processes. Internally there is a change in company politics, with staff reluctance to adapt to the changing working environment. With the market structure changing government and other external stakeholders in the industry are losing control of what is published and how. The shared experience of online publishing raises copyright issues. Legalities are becoming harder to control. Most frustrating for authors is the question of their rights of ownership and the value of their words.

‘We own it, but yet, don’t’

The ECONOMIC structure of the industry is changing. Profit margins are smaller and this is putting greater pressure on performance. In the current economic climate many companies are struggling to finance the necessary changes. Innovation requires a certain amount of investment. The economic concerns of the end-user are also changing. Whereas published content has become widely available at a lower price with the development of digital, the new format of books and magazines are increasingly demanding that readers have a digital device to read them on. 

"Information hungry audiences." 

SOCIALLY people’s needs are changing. With the rise of the digital generation consumers are becoming increasingly critical of the content available to them as well as how it is available to them. Audiences now have diverse needs, they find value in different areas than they used to. There is increasing value attached to customer relationships. Innovations focus needs to now consider the ESP as well as the USP. These industry demands are coming from the consumer, the market is becoming increasingly user-driven.

"Being able to replace products frequently with better versions is increasingly important."

TECHNOLOGY is currently the main influence on all areas of the publishing industry. The types of digital technology now available to the market is encouraging a multi-path model of business. The publishing industry can no longer survive on a linear model of business. Availability of interaction is now of huge value in the sector. Product life cycles and the diffusion curve are becoming shorter, suggesting that there is an increased need for innovation at a quicker rate than before. A problem for the industry is that digital products are hard to define in a static form. It is harder to market to the consumer without a tangible product that allows them to differentiate between competitors. Innovation in the industry has been disruptive. As well as product innovation we are also seeing process innovation with the way books and magazines are created and then distributed. The service of the publishing industry has in turn had to innovate, with the role of the book shop moving online. As a whole, the publishing industry has experienced a platform innovation; it is no longer the same industry it used to be and this is because of the technological developments it has had little choice to adopt.