When Digitizing Content is Not Sufficient: Digital Strategies for the Educational Publishing Sector

Abstract

The course of digitisation has transformed the educational publishing sector profoundly. Indeed, new business models are needed to ensure a successful mastering of the digital era in educational publishing. This paper focuses on best business practices concerning the digitisation of an educational content portfolio and shows the state-of the-art in terms of digital publishing. The strategies of leading educational publishers were analysed both in terms of e-book sales and educational content and the main challenges and opportunities that educational publishers are currently facing are outlined. As a result, it is outlined that the current market situation indicates that the educational publishers seem to fully respond to the challenge of digitisation nowadays, although the adaption is still in progress. However, it becomes apparent, that simply publishing the traditional print portfolio is neither a sufficient value proposition for the customer nor a way to fully exploit the benefits of the new revenue streams. Big educational publishers therefore all choose a mixed strategy of bundling, customisation and service provision to realise the full potential of digitisation. The paper concludes that the digitisation of publishing means no threat for the publishing sector but offers a whole range of new opportunities to expand one’s market share, user base and revenues.

Keywords: Publishing, e-book market, educational publishers, digital strategies, digitisation

JEL Classification: O330, O400