Welcome to the Gilbane Group’s new Blog on the Publishing Industry. Our team of Analyst/Consultants will be offering their thoughts a variety of topics including:

  • Opportunities and Challenges presented by new technology and media options
  • Key new technologies to watch in the coming year
  • Case studies demonstrating current best practices
  • News and commentary about Publishing Companies and their technology partners

Think of this Blog as a perpetual iteration of the Publishing Track at our Gilbane Conferences. To that end, we welcome your questions and encourage your comments…

At this year’s fall conference, the CEO of Art Plus Technology—Elizabeth Gooding—gave an excellent presentation concerning her firm’s approach to providing the customers of financial firms with improved statements and communications. She and her clients set very tough targets. The statements must be highly individualized, be attractive in both electronic and print formats, be produced in a timely fashion, and of course, cost less to produce. In meeting these goals, Elizabeth and her team found ways to break down long established practices that had become limiting factors in improving the delivery of information to customers.

What does this have to do with publishers in general? Most publishing enterprises have their own long established practices that have made them very successful through the years. We think that the publishers who will gain market share in the next decade are those who are most willing to re-examine those practices to enable new product offerings that will appeal to the demands of today’s customers. Over the next week or so, we’ll look at some examples of different strategies and tactics.