ALPSP Conference Day 1: News of the World

Adrian Stanley, CEO of The Charlesworth Group chaired the last session of day one of the ALPSP International Conference titled ‘News of the World’.

It was billed as ‘a satirical and informative overview of important and dramatic global, technological and social news impacting the future of professional and scholarly publishing’. Adrian was joined by Sian Harris, Editor of Research Information, Mark Ware from Outsell and Thomas N Taylor from Dragonfly Sales and Marketing Consultancy. 

The session was jam packed with statistics, facts, advice and recommendations. Highlights from Mark Ware's session are below.

Mark Ware presented data from Outsell on the sector:

• Information industry $462 billion 2011 roughly  same GDP of Malaysia
• STM is nearly $30billion  total STM information
• STM much less cyclical so affected much less than rest of information industry by economic slowdown
• Core library market very flat but some bright spots including emerging markets, mobile, ebooks, databases and tools
• World’s biggest market still the US, but not for much longer
• Largest growing market is Asia
• Transition to fully digital revenues

10 trends that are shaping the information industry:

1. mobile social and rise of GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple)  - 25% spent on mobile devices
2. big data and extreme analytics
3. focused scale – companies that are dominant and compete on scale but do so with deep emphasis on a topical area of areas (e.g. McGraw Hill, Pearson, Gartner, Thomson Reuters, etc) – bump up against their own clients and suppliers. More competition is becoming the norm.
4. M&A, value chains and convergence
5. Aggregation’s persistent call
6. Fun, gamification, philanthropy
7. Human assistance – service and culture – the more digital our world will become, the more important human experience matters.
8. Sales 2.0
9. Open vs closed
10. New interfaces

We are moving from a product-centric to service-focused approach.  Publishers will become more like platform providers. Publisher strategies should include:

• An in-depth understanding of user workflows (critical to adding value)
• Building a mobile strategy
• Simplifying users’ lives
• Getting closer to end-users
• Re-aligning the sales and marketing organization
• Avoid disrupting their own markets

Mark's final insights for the future in 2020 include:

• All services are digital, mobile, customizable, 
• High in-built intelligence factors
• Relevant at point of reference/care/decision
• Multiple revenue sources
• Interoperable