I had a good conversation with a UK educational publisher recently. As one of the leading publishers and providers of textbooks to the secondary school markets they possess great content and brand awareness and they are embarking on a ambitious digital expansion program designed to create new business as schools become increasingly reliant on VLEs and richly interactive multi-media content in the classroom by repackaging textbook content as digital coursepacks.
Afterwards I wondered if this approach was a way in which the firm answered the question "in the future, how do we continue selling what we make?" Admittedly this is a necessary and useful question to ask - and answer - but it carries the danger that my publisher friends begin to believe that his customers exist to buy what they make.
The conversation prompted a recall of Peter Drucker's call to leaders to probe and question such a premise. For example, he proposes a simple but radically different premise: “The customer defines the business.” Then he probes, asking a series of questions, “Who is the customer? Where are customers located? What does the customer want? How do we find what the customer wants?”
Afterwards I wondered if this approach was a way in which the firm answered the question "in the future, how do we continue selling what we make?" Admittedly this is a necessary and useful question to ask - and answer - but it carries the danger that my publisher friends begin to believe that his customers exist to buy what they make.
The conversation prompted a recall of Peter Drucker's call to leaders to probe and question such a premise. For example, he proposes a simple but radically different premise: “The customer defines the business.” Then he probes, asking a series of questions, “Who is the customer? Where are customers located? What does the customer want? How do we find what the customer wants?”
These questions lead to more questions. “What is value to the customer? What value is the customer getting from us and from our competitors? How do we profitably provide value to the customer now and in the future?”.
It was a polite conversation and I didn't feel qualified to comment on their strategic choices but I think if I had the conversation again I'd test the assumptions behind the plan a little more. It altogether felt a lot like this publisher believed that digital content in the classroom was basically the same as printed content with bells and whistles. I'd ask them, and other publishers who have to travel down the digital road to revisit their Drucker before they set off.
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