Making business sense from digitisation - Wiley

After much speculation surrounding the publishing industry in the wake of digitalization, Business World speaks to one of the oldest American publisher John Wiley and Sons Inc. to get their perspective and understand their survival strategy. This publisher has been operating in the Indian market since 1960s and there has been no looking back after that. In conversation with Peter Booth Wiley, Chairman Emeritus, Wiley and Matthew S Kissner, Chairman of the Board, Wiley, let’s see how digitalization is affecting global publishers. 

We are talking about digitalization everywhere and publishing industry too is taking this route in the area of research and learning. India is a significant player in education and research, and Wiley is one among the global publishers with a larger commitment towards India. Through appropriate creation of content, both in print and digital, Wiley is all out to ensure satisfaction of book readers. With digitization, educational (learning) material is getting cheaper and readily available. It is enabling the publishers to have a direct relationship with their customers by providing more effective learning courses at competitive pricing. Unlike markets in the US and UK, there is still a preference for print in India. 

Peter Wiley considers India to be way past the tipping point now and significantly ahead in the world economy. He says, “We understand India’s needs and are carefully assessing as to what we do to cater to the large workforce and emerging economy. We foresee India to be the new Center of Excellence where new means of learning and new content will be developed for other parts of the world.”

According to Matthew S Kissner, “Research and Learning is at our heart and what we hope is to implement some of the best ideas and learning from the global picture in India. Two areas are of particular interest - the first being to help India’s sci-tech research to be recognized on the world stage. We are the largest publisher of independent societies of research in the world and are now working with Indian researchers to train them to be more effective in their presentation of journal articles – the most key aspect in the career of a researcher.” The second is the education challenge among the young population at school. We intend to help with technology enabled solutions to address some of those challenges, he added.

Wiley has been systematically building its presence here and has reskilled too to meet the current market needs.  The newly built capabilities include how to use technologies better, better understanding of governmental policies and working collaboration with the government.

With digitalization will come issues pertaining to privacy. In fact, privacy and protection go hand in hand. “We as publishers are not intruding in someone’s learning space. We are trying to understand what kind of content you are using to learn, then help you to discover better relevant content and integrate technology to help you learn better. So suggesting customized content based on internet searches helps readers in reading the apt kind of content. The anti-privacy laws globally are very strong and we do not go beyond that”, added Peter.

To add to this Kissner says that, “Digitalization has enabled us to make better products and understand the customers better. This direct contact with the end users is the most exciting thing about publishing business and this in turn helps us develop better products for end users"

 The Way Forward

In the last 20 years, Wiley has reduced the prices of its books in keeping with the changing market dynamics.  It aims at bringing in high quality global content to Indian readers at affordable prices to grow the knowledge base. It will continue to do so in future and firmly believes that this is the market to be in. 

Secondly, India’s digital market is a blended model. Readers in the early 20s-30s age category prefer a mix of online and classroom learning model. From a flat PDF, Wiley intends to promote adaptive learning through interactive content. However, its implementation has to come through government policies and educational fraternity.

Wiley does not publish country-specific revenue but India and China happen to be the fastest growing markets for the global player. Twenty per cent of Wiley’s growth has come from these two countries taken together. And it has earned respect from the research and higher education community over the years. 

Wiley as a publisher is prepared to work in all possible ways in which the market prefers to consume the content.  In India too, the publishing industry is dominated by many global publishers. Indian publishers like S Chand, also a family business, has been growing steadily over the years. It would be good for Wiley to engage with such names that will connect us further with the roots, affirms Peter. 

Publishing is not just about printing - it has more to it. Publishing is also all about creating a platform, constantly upgrading the platform and giving customer support considering books is a transactional business. As such, innovation is the way forward for survival undoubtedly and a blended mechanism is the future of the Indian publishing industry.