How does a content provider get ahead of technology enough so that they can make a buck and feel like they will be able to generate revenue and profit in the future?
We have all lived in the age when content was king. Two decades ago the CEO of McGraw-Hill turned down the idea of acquiring Dialog, the biggest online network at the time because he didn’t want to be in distribution. At the same time the company’s Platt’s division was building a satellite network that followed the sun around the earth and beamed down real time oil price assessments to traders as they awoke in Hong Kong, Delhi, Riyadh, London and New York.
We are now seeing the rapid onset of new options being created for content distribution. E readers, from the Kindle to the Blio, to the mysterious i Tablet are now taking off as consumer acceptance accelerates, and Google and Apple are churning the cell phone market with new devices and the acquisitions of mobile ad agencies. There will be new opportunities in both areas for content providers and companies that can create maketing channels to these devices and sell access to customers through them.
The question for management of content producers is how do you set up for and go after those opportunities while still operating profitably in the existing business?
There is no simple answer and to some degree it may come down more to good luck than good sense. But for those who don’t want to count on their luck exclusively, the alternative is a careful process that will enable them to identify and evaluate opportunities and then do the planning, modelling and forecasting that will provide a basis on which to make future decisions. The more things change, the more we need good, solid strategic thinking, backed up with dogged analysis. Oh, yes, and it has to be done in hyper time.
