KIT: The Indian publishing industry (2008)

Strategic tools for the practising manager

THE INDIAN publishing market is estimated at Rs 20,000 crore.

IT CONSISTS OF books, magazines and newspapers.

THE BOOKS MARKET IS estimated to be Rs 13,000 crore, which is segmented into education and non-education books market.

THE MAGAZINES market is estimated to be 15 per cent of the total market.

THE NEWSPAPERS market is estimated at Rs 4,000 crore. 

NUGGETS 
Selections from management journals

WHEN RELIANCE Entertainment — the entertainment and media arm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group — announced plans to invest $500 million in a joint venture with Steven Spielberg in late September, it became clear that India is moving from the fringes of Hollywood to center stage.

Meanwhile, Reliance is dramatically expanding its presence in India’s media and entertainment sector. India Knowledge@Wharton spoke with experts from Wharton and the Indian School of Business about Anil Ambani’s latest act.

The Reliance-Spielberg Deal: Anil Ambani’s Next Blockbuster?
India Knowledge@Wharton
October 3-16
Read this article at http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/

WHILE OTHER offshoring services have grown rapidly, the management and maintenance of core infrastructure from afar has been slow to gain popularity. Only a sliver — about 7 per cent — of the addressable market is being captured. But McKinsey’s research suggests that this is about to change. Shifts in customer attitudes and economics could trigger rapid growth for these services, known in the industry as remote infrastructure management.

A fresh wind for offshoring infrastructure management
By Vivek Pandit and Rajesh Srinivasaraghavan
October 2008
The McKinsey Quarterly
Read this article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com
 
THE WAY WE THINK about strategy is woefully incomplete. The traditional idea of focusing on the positioning of products (or services) underplays much of what most would agree makes a company truly competitive.

Not only does it give short shrift to what a company knows, it ignores completely the fact that in today’s dynamic economy, organisations have to continually reinvent who they are and what they do in large and small ways. And one important means of doing so is through innovation.

An effective strategy, then, is comprised of three key components: product/ market, knowledge and innovation positions. But even if a company masters the three strategic positions of product/ market, knowledge and innovation independently, it is still at risk.

Only when all three positions are aligned and mutually reinforcing can a strategy succeed. The authors introduce the notion of competing based not only on what an organisation makes or the service it provides, but on what it knows and how it innovates. Each aspect represents a competitive position that must be evaluated relative to the capabilities of the organisation and to others in the marketplace.

Integrating innovation style and knowledge into strategy
By Edward F McDonough III, Michael H Zack, Hsing-Er Lin and Iris Berdrow Fall 2008, Vol. 50, No. 1
MIT Sloan
Management Review
Subscribe to this article at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/

AS MORE FOREIGN and domestic companies pile into the expanding Chinese consumer market, brands have a harder time being noticed. McKinsey’s continuing research has tracked the ebb and flow of the Chinese consumer’s habits and attitudes.

Personal recommendations, for example, are becoming more important, while television ads, though still indispensable, have begun to lose some of their punch. Marketers must be nimble enough to understand and follow these shifts.

What’s new with the Chinese consumer
By Ian St-Maurice, Claudia Süssmuth-Dyckerhoff and Hsinhsin Tsai
October 2008
The McKinsey Quarterly
Read this article at www.mckinseyquarterly.com