"Are we blinded by e-light"

Martyn Daniels, Strategic Development Director, VISTA Computer Services

International Distribution and Supply Chain Specialist Meeting Frankfurt, October 2000

We can all relate to the driver, but today we now have to relate to the rabbits. We are caught in the glare of e-light of the e-revolutions that are bearing down on us at an alarming rate. What is certain, is that we can’t all expect this vehicle to brake and give us time to move.

Change within publishing is taking place at an alarming rate. Today, we all face many challenges in our business journeys. The question is, how we respond.

Do we:

• prepare against surprise - and build defence mechanism against the change
• prepare for surprise - and adapt to respond quickly to the changes as they occur
• or do we, recognizing the potential opportunities available, prepare the surprise itself

Today I intend to overview some of the traffic, that is bearing down on us and to offer some insights that may help us on our journeys and avoid us being caught, transfixed and blinded by the lights

The changes taking place today are significant. Larger players are getting larger and are changing the economies of scale and scope, vertical integration is blurring the roles of some within the supply chain, media convergence is introducing new players and globalization is challenging many of the traditional publishing "rules". Convergence and consolidation, is by itself, reshaping the supply chain.

We are all familiar with the impact that the likes of Guttenberg, Ingram and others had in shaping today's publishing environment. You may not be as familiar with the changes that effected the UK market in the 18th century. However, the 18th century literacy revolution completely changed the roles of booksellers, authors, printers and publishers. It redefined the value chain and removed a number of significant players. Like Guttenberg, Ingram and others, the likes of Robert Dodsley prepared the surprise in this revolution. The question we all must now ask is, who is preparing the surprise today?

Today, everyone is grappling with movement on these Product and Market axis. We all start from different positions, we all have different goals and different time-scales in which we aim to achieve them. Each of the following axis has a different impact, according to our roles within the value chain and the sector in which we operate:

The questions we now all need to ask are:

Where exactly are we? What is the position of the marketplace? Where do we want to go and in what timescales? What are the associated actions and risks.

Digitization is a subject in itself. The question of whether the ebook as we see it to today is a mere transitional stage like the CDROM and that broadband online technologies are the end game is another debate. The impact of the ebook alone is however forcing us to revisit standard such as the ISBN and the internet can clearly claim credit for the long overdue emergence of ONIX / EPICS standards. The jury remains out on the DOI.

In many cases we are not dealing with a future we can predict or control. We can't adopt a wait and see policy, if we do will not have the competencies to compete and more importantly will probably find others, sitting in our seat and eating our dinner.

Earlier this year I asked a similar audience to this, the following questions:

• When Simon and Schuster published “Riding the Bullet” by Stephen King and made it only available by digital download over the Internet, how many downloads were achieved in the first 24 hours?
• How many digital and e-articles appeared in The Bookseller in the first quarter of this year?
• How many online e-tailers databases are updated daily and weekly online with rich Bibliographic information via BookData?

The answers now seem dated, but when asked less than half the audience got any one question correct and they were extremely conservative in their responses.

We only need to open up our press today it see that the publishing e-lights are switched on.

The speed of change should not be doubted. A recent article in "wired" pointed out that technology is now outstripping Moore's law, which to-date, has accurately predicted the exponential rise computing processing power to time.

That change is happening should not be doubted. That all change costs money is a fact.

I think Terry McGraw captures the issue perfectly when he says its now about the speed of change.

However, we also have to remember that for some time the current traditional environment will still be the major revenue generator and will still require continued support and investment

In 1996, as a result of our research programme "Publishing in the 21ts Century", we predicted that the shift from physical to digital product would gather momentum in the year 2000, but that it would still represent the minority of the overall product mix. We also predicted that by 2020 the position would flip, with physical product becoming the minority of the mix. We are clearly moving in this direction and therefore face with an interesting quandary?

If we accept that overall growth in the market is at a marginal, say 3% to 5% and we take a hypothetical books and journals publisher with revenues around $80 million, we see marginal growth across the total business over the next 5 years. However we must respect that the e-publishing revenues will grow.

We could expect e-publishing growth over the same period to rise to 25% of revenues. Some may say this is conservative, others that it is generous. The point is that if we accept the principle, we have to accept that revenues from the physical product must decline to compensate the switch to electronic product. The principle is simple, if the revenues remain relative flat and electronic revenues is growing, then physical revenues must reduce

The publishers now find themselves having to continue to support the cost of the declining physical product overhead with declining revenues. Whilst at the other end they are having to invest heavily to make the e-publishing transition in order to realize the new potential revenues. A clear double wammy and new squeeze on the margins.

In this new environment we need to step back and realize we need to re-evaluate how we do business, the marketplace in which we do business, partners we do business with, our competitors etc. This is not an IT or logistics issue it is a corporate one that clearly forces strategic vision, corporate consensus and corporate action if we are to avoid being paralyzed by e-lights. Piecemeal actions are no longer the answer

I have drawn up 7 principles of e-business that I believe you should consider when formulating or reviewing your corporate e-business strategy. They are not comprehensive neither are they mandatory. They just make a lot of sense in this brave new world.

First is a focus on your core competency.

Recognizing the key elements of trading involve:

• Content the product in a digital, physical or any combination of media
• Context the bibliographic information that describes the product
• Commerce the commercials and customer information and processes

Just as within any environment, all are essential within the e-business world, 2 out of 3 will not do. All are linked irrespective of whether you are selling virtual or physical product or servicing customers the on the Internet

The key question to ask is where is your core competency, where do you add value in the evolving value chain and proposition?

Some may believe that they provided added value and competitive advantage by doing all three themselves and that they are truly self-sufficient.

You may develop and publish content, but can you provide it in every format, every type of ebook, Digitally distribute it, and provide it on demand? Or do you recognise the competency of others and outsource those tasks? Are you equally focused across your full list? Are you now focusing on being "never out of print?"

These are just a fraction of the new players on the radar of publishing who deal with content and need to be evaluated, understood and positioned. Many will fail, but what is certain, is that a number will succeed and will radically change aspects of publishing as we known them today. Are you comfortable that you understand their competencies and value add?

Remember, only a few years ago Amazon was dismissed by many. An interesting thought to ponder…is that all major trade publishers now have a clear vested interest in Amazon’s continued growth and success and that failure of the some of the dotcom’s could have a fatal impact on some.

Ask yourselves what the role of the wholesaler is today? Look at how many are currently positioning themselves for tomorrow. They clearly are embracing digital distribution, they are clearly providing total web fulfillment services to many bookstores, they are providing drop shipment and could even be regarded by some as distributors. What is their core competency and value add and where do they now position themselves in tomorrow's supply chain?

Second is a focus on Integration - not replication

When it comes to online fulfillment Publishers have a clear choice - replicate their commercial systems online or seamlessly integrated their e-business activity with their existing systems and existing information.

Unfortunately, many have learned the hard way. The skill and knowledge set required to achieve this business integration, is different to that owned by even the best web designers let alone the “garage boys”, that are all too often here today and gone tomorrow.

An example of replication. The commercial systems feed the digital warehouse in real time, with information on customers, products, trading terms etc. The consumer enters via an intermediary and selects the ebook and required format. They submit an order on behalf of the consumer to the digital warehouse, who proceed to download the ebook to the consumer and confirm the transmission to the etailor and the sale to the publisher. Finally, the publisher's commercial systems raise an invoice to the etailer. Seems fairly straightforward, until you start to think about the synchronization between the Digital warehouse and the publisher's commercial systems and the fact the digital warehouse will have to virtually replicate the publisher's commercial systems etc.

Unfortunately this process is not fictional but is one fraught with risk.

When we look at the integration options, we start to remove duplication and synchronization of data and replication of functionality. The solution is simple and importantly recognizes the core competencies of those involved and importantly is consistent with physical fulfillment.

There are many people who we now have to interface with. We need to think about how we interface them. Integration not replication is the only answer. Many who adopt a replication route will fail not because their digital warehouse was wrong but because they introduced risk and cost when it could have been avoided. Think about how you will need to synchronize functionality and data and not just with one but many partners. Critically, you are not just replicating your functionality and data, you could find, you are also giving away your customers and your interface with them.

Third focus on a Standard Interface

Many believe that the ability to process a credit card transition is all that is required today and that B2B and B2C are completely separate.

Increasingly, the demands of servicing even the B2C customers will become complex. They themselves will be more demanding and their needs will be driven not by what publishers can provide but by their total e-experience.

The need to manage all customer’s through a standard interface is compelling. It offers standardization, commercial flexibility, development economics and effective customer service.

Fourth focus on Core Relationships across the Value Chain

In one of our research reports, "The Impact on The Publishing Value Chain of Online Networks", we created, from the work of Professor Michael Porter, a modified Publishing Value Chain. It is critical that we focus on product and customer information and the associated trading terms across this lifecycle.

As illustrated by the initiatives such as ONIX/EPICS and the earlier BIC Basic, product information does not just materialise when the product hits the warehouse and neither does it stop there. Over 70 % of customer Service calls are about basic information. The demand for product information is exploding, after all if you can't find it you can't value it and you can't buy it.

Today all the major chains, e-tailers, wholesalers all have book in hand processes. Collectively this is a huge cost to all. It's primarily focus is to collect rich information which is often not available any other way. The problem is that this is too late in the lifecycle.

Inconsistent and inaccurate information is costing this industry millions and also losing sales.

The question is not so much as to who will provide the information to the marketplace, but how publishers will produce and provide the information in a timely manner.

To survive in this new environment, all publishers now need a rich product database with full export capability as much as they need a customer database and fulfillment system.

Fifth focus on the different user / community perspectives

Yesterday we would have built different systems for different users groups and even different networks.

Our problem is that we all have:

• Close relatives and friends with whom we share close information. (our Intranet)
• More distant relatives and friends we see less frequently and share less information with (our Extranet)
• Finally, relatives and people we only see at births, marriages and deaths and share little information with (our Internet).

However we have all three types within the same user groups and their individual closeness will vary over time.

In addition, we also have to recognise that the difference between what one group customers wants and another group may vary as little as 5%. There is often more commonality than we think.

We now need to recognise that there are many community builders out there. However we need to be wary. Some want to totally own their community, others only wish to be service providers. In all cases, we have to recognise what is best for the user and the community and ensure that intermediaries don't lock you out from even knowing who your customers are.

Again Terry McGraw recognizes the key focus required. Sharing information and trust, and in doing so understanding behaviour become important if not critical factors. Some today will give these away in the belief they are growing business, they are wrong, they are giving away their future.

Sixth - focus on servicing everybody - not the just the few

Although it is relatively easy for large publishers to trade electronically with large booksellers, this is often restricted to base transactions and rarely filters down to the 80% that constitute 20% of value and volume but a high cost of service.

Here we see traditional communications such as fax, phone and even post. EDI or e-commerce is often too complex and costly to prevail, is not real time and doesn’t deal with customer service queries effectively.

Also we need to remember that 40% of the UK Book trade is export, they can’t be ignored, they need 24 x 7 hour access to their information and ability to trade both efficiently and effectively.

Last - focus on Web access

Yesterday users wanted an integrated desktop, one from which they could access all their information in a consistent manner. Today is no different except it is no longer restricted to the confines of the local environment, it is global and more important people now only want to see and have access to their world. They want "My Web", identification, personalization and consistency from anywhere and anytime. ebusiness is about providing solutions to all both inside and outside of the organization.

Theses seven principles are not fixed they are fluid, they will evolve but they are today's issues. The technology exists, the opportunities exist what is now required is a broad e-business vision, a corporate strategy and the business commitment to make it happen.

Today we must stop thinking that ebusiness is different. It is business.

We now need to cross the road, recognise the opportunities, actions and risks and avoid being caught in the glare of the e-light.

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Paper By Martyn Daniels

Published as Chapter 3

Information in Action: Putting Knowledge to Work in the Publishing Industry

1999, ©VISTA Computer Services

ISBN 0952556685

3. Learning to Manage in the World of the Unexpected

"In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge" Ikujiro Nonaka ¹

When we set out on a journey, we have many decisions to make:

• Which route should we take?

• What conditions will we face?

• How long will it take?

• Do we know of any delays, road works, and hazards?

• Have we sufficient gas to make the journey?

We know how to drive and how to minimize the risk of accidents. We understand the automobile's dashboard and the many messages it conveys. But even with all this preparation, information and experience, we know we have to expect the unexpected.

When on our journey we are faced with a new road sign, an oncoming car flashing its headlights at us, or a warning light on our dashboard, we recognize the potential risk associated with the message and take appropriate action. We collate all the information available to us at the time, relate this to our experience and knowledge, and decide what we should do.

Our business journeys towards our strategic and tactical goals are no different, just more complex. We are all in different vehicles with different capabilities, moving at different speeds, often going in different directions. We all want to avoid tailbacks, getting lost, accident, break down – and running out of gas! However, we often find ourselves confronted with the unexpected; then we have to draw on our personal and organizational skills and knowledge to manoeuvre around the obstacle and continue our journey.

Unfortunately, the information signals we receive – from both inside and outside the organization – are obscure and ambiguous. Often the information is out of date, which means that our responses, instead of being proactive, can only be reactive. In many instances, the person who is best equipped with the experience and knowledge to deal with a particular issue is not the one who receives the relevant information.

Before we start to look for a response to these issues, we must reflect on the contribution that technology has already made in capturing and exploiting information, experience and knowledge and, as a result, providing competitive advantage to the companies that have used it effectively.

3.1 Yesterday's Journeys

Automating the process and accumulating the transactional data

"So far computer users still use the new technology only to do faster what they have always done before, crunch conventional numbers" ²

We have all in the past experienced some degree of success in reducing the cost of doing business. We have automated data entry, reduced accounting and clerical resources and significantly reduced the cost of processing transactions. We have also enabled our organizations to grow, handling greater volumes of data more effectively. It is difficult if not impossible to imagine the same levels of growth being achieved using the old paper- and people-intensive business systems.

However, in automating our business processes, we implemented little change; the processes remained essentially the same as they were before they were automated. In many instances, innovative “best practice” solutions to particular problems were neither widely identified nor widely adopted. As a result, these frequently remained proprietary to an organization or an industry sector. Taking the view that the individual organization always knew best, "packaged" system solutions were customized to support proprietary practices and processes and as a result became unsupportable by the vendor.

These "batch based" business system solutions were all too often inward looking and focused not on the supply or value chains but on internal organizational processes. Competitive advantage was seen as flowing from reduction in the business's cost base, even if this reduction was made at the expense of others in the chain. Investment in technology was high – and any competitive advantage gained proved unsustainable.

Businesses created "data islands" that did little to provide the organization with the information it required for making its tactical – let alone its strategic – decisions. These "islands" of data were often hard to locate within the organization. It was cumbersome to extract useable information from them and it required specialists to provide or amend the simplest of reports. In many cases, the data was incorrect, inconsistent or out of date.

Organizations made many of their decisions entirely "blind of the facts". Despite the investment in technology, they remained totally reliant on the internal, unsystematized expertise and knowledge on which they had always depended.

"In the absence of learning, companies and individuals, simply repeat old practices. Change remains cosmetic and improvements are either fortuitous or short lived" ³

Providing power to the desktop but not the organization

The PC and local network revolution brought a realignment of focus from the organization and the back office to the user. This change, together with previously unimaginable local computing power and software capability, broadened the computing franchise beyond the IT specialists.

We now found ourselves wielding new tools that could download the data, manipulate it and report on it more effectively and efficiently than ever before. However, we often found a significant gap between those who could and those who just thought they could. Newly empowered users often spent hours designing (and over-engineering) spreadsheets and other analysis tools.

The data was certainly turned into information – of a sort. However, in this “new frontier” environment, it was still doubtful that the right information reached the right people at the right time.

The more that data was collated and analyzed, the more information we wanted. Our thirst could not be quenched. All too often we failed to stop and think – we just had to analyze everything. Every finance department had its own spreadsheet "magician". The autonomous became even more autonomous. We had deployed "island technology" that spawned "island information" and the information created even more information in this seemingly lawless maze.

The myriad "information islands" that now dominate the publishing front office often inhibit easy access to comprehensive information covering the complete life-cycle of a title. However, we need to recognize that the information alone is effectively valueless unless we can also find ways of capturing and exploiting the organizational knowledge that gives it context.

In this era, competitive advantage was still seen as residing in the ability to analyze a business's performance in detail, to seek out inefficiency and to apply corrective action. However, it turned out that monitoring the organization was hard: all too often, conflicts occurred when two departments presented two (or more!) different perspectives using precisely the same information.

Investment in technology remained high, technical effort across the organization rose sharply and any competitive advantage again proved unsustainable. Organizations became increasingly "sceptical about the facts" and were still totally reliant on –and exposed to – that internal decision making expertise and knowledge they had always used.

Information is not static and lives all around us

"Most organizations have habits and structures that keep them at arm's length from the rest of the world" ⁴

In the second paper in this series, "Profiting From Tomorrow's Customers", ⁵ we highlighted many of the issues surrounding the publishing supply chain and the growing shift from a product-oriented business to a customer-driven one. We highlighted the often-adversarial relationships that existed then and that (perhaps to a lesser extent) still exist today.

Sharing of data, let alone information, with trading partners is only now starting to take place across the industry. Publishing still lags a long way behind other industries in the area of EDI (electronic data interchange). Such sharing of information as does exist in the book industry would be regarded as unacceptably meagre in many other trading communities today.

However, movement is perceptible. The industry has started to confront the massive gaps in information that have existed between trading partners across the publishing supply chain.

• In the subscription sector, it is recognized that the vast majority of claims – and the resultant costs – are a direct result of there being little or no sharing of publication schedules.

• In the book sector, over 65% of calls to publisher's customer service departments are inquiries on price, availability and the status of an order.

Organizations are beginning to realize that significant efficiency can be gained by the adoption of "open information trading" with their supply chain partners.

EDI will address a considerable proportion of the transactional information exchanges but will not address real time requests for information. Innovative services, such as PubEasy.com, ⁶ Ingram I, ⁶ Oasis ⁶ and others, are starting to redefine information access, presentation and exchange. Other industry services such as BookTrack ⁶ and BookScan 5 are now collating and analyzing cross-industry information.

In the third and fourth papers in this series, ⁷ we highlighted many of the issues relating to the publishing value chain and the information and technology needs of the core "value adding" front office activities within publishing. Integrating information from the myriad of "information islands" that dominate the front office is often a daunting task. What is more, bridging the cultural divide between publishing back and front office is not as important as bridging the information divide between these two areas of the business.

Significant competitive advantage can flow from sharing data and information both within the organization and in trading partnerships. However, realizing the benefits from this activity requires vision, commitment and co-operation between "information traders". Data standards are also essential, not just between the different trading partners but also within the organization!

However, merely throwing information "over the wall" without the insight and knowledge that gives it meaning does not create the "win-win" environment that is essential for future success.

"There is no future for hermetically sealed closed systems in the networked economy." ⁸

Yesterday's journeys brought us greater efficiency and started to unlock the information available from inside and outside the organization. In doing so, they served to highlight the exposure of the organization to inadequate management of its information and knowledge resources.

3.2 The dynamic landscape we now live in

3.2.1 Convergence, convergence, convergence

Not only does everyone now have internal systems and information sources, we have many external ones as well. We are all continually bombarded with email and have increasingly high mountains of it to climb every day. We still have the telephone; thanks to mobile telephony, we can no longer escape from its call. If we do escape briefly, we have a string of voice mails, all crying out for our attention. We still have the constant arrival of faxes and even traditional "snail mail” seems never to decline in volume.

We are, as individuals, becoming increasingly "open all hours", to do business with anyone, from anywhere and at anytime. We are continuously "plugged in" to the information and communication network.

"I meet refuges coming out of Kosovo with the few possessions they could carry. I was amazed to see them carrying their cellular phones with them" ⁹

Will it get worse? “Certainly” is the only possible answer. Potentially at least, we are now recipients of more information in one day than Jane Austen or Mark Twain would have received in a decade. Telecommunication and information services will continue to merge and develop. Anytime, anywhere access to information (and others’ access to us) will become inescapable. At the same time, the quality and utility of that access will improve. We will find the "office in our hands" a reality.

Most of us can remember life without laptops, mobile phones, personal organizers; our new employees will never have known life without them. The new workforce will expect, indeed demand, much greater and more sophisticated use of technology.

King Canute failed to hold back the tide. The question today is not how we can contain this new tidal wave of intrusion, but how we can manage and exploit it to our advantage. We will need automatic filters on what we receive and when we receive it – and we will need to personalize these to reflect our individual needs. In a world of convergence, we will need to find new ways of establishing lines of demarcation between our social and working lives.

Publishing and the media are at the very heart of this technology convergence. The formats and channels in which content is delivered (with its supportive contextual information) are rapidly evolving.

The speed at which this convergence is happening is frightening, even to a professional technologist. We are constantly being bombarded with new and innovative technology and prototype applications. If we thought that the choice in the beginning between Betamax and VHS was a close call, then we are in for some tough decisions. Broadcasting and telecommunications technologies are converging, along with the infrastructure and tools that we use to access them; at the same time, their carrying capacity is increasing exponentially.

What this all means for the future is uncertain. Who will dominate this marketplace and what their offer will be remains unclear. What is certain is that out of today's myriad of options will emerge a winner, just as in the past we had IBM (mainframes), DEC (midrange), Intel (PC chips), Microsoft (PC Windows), Oracle (relational databases) and SAP (ERP software). What may be worth noting is that no dominant technology position has ever proved to be defendable against the next wave – at least, not yet.

3.2.2 Drowning in the sea of data

"Mistakes get repeated, but smart decisions do not. Most important, the old ways of thinking are never discussed, so they are still in place to spawn new mishaps" ¹⁰

As with telecommunications, we are increasingly being bombarded with “information”. Some of it is still only “data”; some has been collated and analyzed and can now claim to be “information”. Nevertheless it is clear that we all spend far too much time and effort reading the wrong news.

We have office systems which create their own information flows, some structured and some not. How many emails and attached reports are circulated to us just “for your information”? We now have the all too simple capability to fire off at random "just in case" information. Are we expecting some sort of response, a reaction – or are we merely covering our backs? Irrespective of our expectations, the recipient has to make some decision about it. To make that decision, at least part of what we send has to be read by all those to whom we send it.

We also have external feeds, both in the form of transactional and operational information and access to external market information. These feeds are sometimes "pushed" at us in the form of an online newsletter or alerts; alternatively we have to go and pull the information in the form of online "self service".

We are increasingly information and communication slaves, all conscious that non-participation in the information chain (both creating and digesting) is a not an option; exclusion from the chain could have a terminal effect if not on our business then at least on our careers.

Ask yourself these questions:

• How much of my day is now spent dealing with "noise"?

• What percentage of all the information I receive actually makes a difference?

• What information don't I get that would really make a difference?

" Who depends on me for information? And on whom do I depend? Everyone should be constantly thinking through what information he or she needs to do the job and to make a contribution" ¹¹

Management by exception must be the goal – with automated profiling and filtering of information an essential means of reaching that goal.

However, we often forget that communication is a two way process. What information do we send to others today that instead of enriching their contribution potentially dilutes it? There is little point in giving trading partners advanced supply chain information, such as demand forecasts, if they are unable to use it effectively, or choose to ignore it, or, worse, actively use the information as a weapon against us.

We need to learn the art of navigating a safe passage through this sea of data and to ensure that in doing so we do not inadvertently sink those on whom we also depend.

3.2.3 The e-business environment

"With electronic business not only commercial transactions but whole businesses will go online" ¹²

The migration from e-commerce to e-business is so significant and difficult to achieve that many companies will miss the boat and perish as a result. The move from the physical world to the virtual world is not just about digital product; it is about doing business, irrespective of whether the product itself is physical, virtual or multi-format.

Early adopters may be seen to be operating at a commercial disadvantage, apparently spending money for little or no tangible return. They are however learning the new rules, establishing their brands and gaining knowledge about customers and the market that will be essential to their survival.

3.2.4 The net redefines the customer

"Electronic commerce gets over hyped today. There's nothing dramatic about the fact that an order that used to come on paper now comes on the Internet. What's profound is when buyers and sellers who never would have been matched before are being matched" ¹³

We speak today about ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and “Enterprise Systems” but these are already being overtaken by CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and “Customer Systems”. Vendors are realizing that information about their customers sales are not enough and that they need to understand their buying patterns and preferences. Categorizing customers by this analysis can be far more productive than by sales and territory alone.

The traditional vendor driven publishing model is fast becoming extinct. Power has already shifted firmly to the intermediary but is moving at an increasing speed to the consumer. Those who ignore this – and the rising role of the Infomediaries – may well find themselves not driving the development of their products and the market but firmly being driven by others down the supply chain.¹⁴

"Customers don't have to buy the books - the mere fact that they looked for information about such books can be recorded and marketed to others" ¹⁵

The customer is king in the world of "MyNet"

"There's no such thing as a personal computer in the future. There are only available appliances. You'll use your smart card or smart ring or some sort of proximity device, the device knows who you are, what you're authorized to access - and you type in your password to get whatever service you paid for" ¹⁶

Utility of access works two ways and comes with a heavy price. Consumers can be accessed and targeted just as easily as they can access and target vendors and information. Consumers are besieged, telemarketers phoning at home at all hours, direct marketers stuffing the mailbox with junk mail, relationship marketers demanding more information. "Spam" junk email now constitutes 10% of all worldwide email.

Yesterday the consumer was happy to give their personal information and often had the option to refuse its reuse or sale to third parties. Today we only have to view our PC files to see the profusion of "cookies" that are being deposited in them. Customers understand that their information and feedback has real value and is no longer an afterthought. It has the potential to become "the tail that wags the dog".

• A 1996 DIRECT survey found 83% of those surveyed said there should be a law requiring an opt-in procedure for names to be included on direct mail lists

• A 1998 survey of more than 10,000 World Wide web users by Graphic, Visualization & Usability (GVU) found that 72% of Internet users believed there should be new laws to protect privacy on the Internet and that 82% of users objected to the sale of personal information.

• A 1998 Business Week poll found that 53% of respondents said government should pass laws now for how personal information can be captured and used online, a figure 3 times higher than the number of consumers who supported the idea that the government should let trade groups develop voluntary privacy standards.¹⁷

Another aspect of this new environment is the development of Intelligent Agent technology. We are all familiar with the search services available on the Internet. Without the search engines, we would not be capable of finding the haystack, let alone the needle. These agents collect information and allow us to search against it. However they perform simple "word match" searches (however sophisticated these may be) and are "dumb" as to the relevance of what they find to any particular individual.

A new breed of tools are taking this one stage further and are starting to search more intelligently against specific requirements and on a narrower range of directly relevant sites. Comparison shoppers, for example, are powerful aids to the user who is searching for the "best buy" – and can kill traffic to sites that are not in their search path. If customers see value in their service, then there is much to be lost in blocking their entry. However, who is then the real service provider to the customer?

Infomediaries¹⁸ are now using agent technologies both to profile users and to enable users to profile themselves. This profiling then enables the user to be automatically alerted to any new information or services that match their profile. This technology has the potential to make a really significant impact on everything we do, both in our commercial and in our social lives.

Imagine for example a bookstore that currently generates insufficient trade to warrant a call from a sales representative. The bookstore’s buyer inevitably goes to a wholesaler today. With more sophisticated tools, publishers could profile these accounts, not just by their sales history (which only says what they bought), but against their own description of what they want, when they want it, and those many other factors that together create an “intelligent profile” of their business.

This would then present the opportunity, for example, to "push" appropriate marketing and promotional materials to them at the appropriate time. Potentially a "win–win" solution – and one that could address a significant proportion of today’s supply chain issues.

3.3 Learning to swim in the sea of data

"A Corporation's success today lies more in its intellectual and systems capabilities than in its physical assets" ¹⁹

How do we prepare for the unexpected and arm ourselves react more quickly – or to pre-empt the surprise? We need to focus on what we need to know in order to perform our individual tasks and to remove unnecessary data that is currently cluttering our vision.

The schematic in Figure 1generically depicts the different information roles within any organization. The framework is defined by the type of actions required from a member of staff, from routine everyday tasks to exceptional ones and from those that are often heavily systematized to those that require substantial intellectual "knowledge" input.

Figure 1

Clerical Support activities require routine and systematized information flows that feed regular inputs, that can be processed and output to the next activity in the chain. The information is transactional and needs to be minimized to facilitate efficiency. This area of activity is where the paper chain (and resultant paper mountains) need urgently to migrate online and where integration and portable technologies such as hand held terminals, radio frequency, and mobile telephony can bring significant efficiency. The overall objective is to "feed the conveyor-belt" and ensure that operations are kept moving.

Users need workflow tools that provide "to do lists", automated routing, process management and full integration of their information and communication systems and services. They also require full online enquiry and entry capabilities and minimal paper reporting.

The service objective is: "check it in and check it out".

Process Management activities differ from the clerical ones in that these are focused not on the performance of tasks but on the performance of process. Process managers require access to the same transactional information used in the clerical process but their usage of the data and their application requirements are very different. They often require access to associated information from a number of sources to enable them to manage risk and change in the day to day activities associated with the process.

Users here still require workflow tools but in this case to alert them to process exceptions, performance bottlenecks and future resource requirements. They also need basic analysis and standard online reporting against targets, thresholds and trends.

In today's flat organizational structures, a program manager may be involved in the management of a process or processes not just within a single functional area but right across the whole business. This involves the management of cross-functional teams and appropriate allocation of resources. The resource information associated with these dynamics is similar to that found in the traditional project management toolkit; this adds a further dimension to the information requirement.

The service objective is: "keep today on schedule".

"Strong businesses and economies draw on deep reservoirs of know-how and expertise" ²⁰

Business Analysis activities tend to be associated not so much with process, but with monitoring and analyzing overall business activities and performance. This analysis may be prompted by a variance to that expected or by a search to discover the parameters that effect an operation or process. All involve deep "data mining" of the information.

"Data mining" describes the functionality required to drill down through a huge volume of data, tapping off into specific rich “seams” as necessary. This involves not viewing information in a single dimension but in multiple dimensions.

Analysis is often performed "offline", often using a Data Warehouse, in which both operational information and information from many other sources has been aggregated. This approach protects live operational data from the performance demands of the analysis techniques while at the same time providing analysts with both the performance they require and the wider business picture. The tools used vary considerably from the PC spreadsheet to very sophisticated modelling and forecasting tools. It is important that the results of any analysis can be presented in a graphical and accessible format using industry standard tools.

The service objective is to enable the analyst to: "turn over the stones and look for the issues".

Enterprise Decision Support is focused at managing the key performance indicators (KPIs) within the business. The activity is focused not on “fixing what isn't broke”, but identifying what is broke and fixing it, or even more importantly on identifying what could be breaking and taking actions to prevent the fracture. There is also an often-unrecognized need to understand where and why performance is exceeded. The role is proactive as well as reactive and users need to be able to pose sophisticated "what if" questions against information at a high level. .

This area of activity is at the senior executive level and again needs to accommodate external as well as internal information sources. However, unlike the "search and discovery" role of the analyst, executives need an active feed that alerts them to where they need to look more closely at information. This type of approach can be referred to as "traffic lighting". They do not need to know when the lights are green but only when they are on amber or red. When on amber they also need to understand if they are about to turn green – or red.

The service object is to: "identify which key performance indicators need attention".

"The management of knowledge involves essentially the creation of behaviours that allow people to transform information into business results" ²¹

All too often we seek a single solution or toolkit that covers all these disparate needs for information; we end up by servicing only lowest common denominator needs. Alternatively, we develop lots of different information islands and become incapable of a complete and consistent understanding of the business.

3.4 A technology architecture for the millennium publishing business

Few new technologies suddenly appear and get instantly deployed. They need to mature. They develop from what is initially announced, start to be adapted to meet a specific need, then when viable they start to be widely adopted. Finally, they go full circle and spawn new technology.

This should not be seen to imply that we believe that all announcements end up being adopted or even that all adaptations progress. There are many good ideas and good technologies that never made it.

However, if we look at publishing, we can see a number of examples of this virtuous circle of development. Today the e-book is a classic example that may be somewhere around the initial adaptation stage. Radio frequency tagging is another example where the technology has been adapted to address the issue of bookstore shrinkage, but where its adoption is now waiting for the price of the technology to drop sufficiently. Wide spread adoption may eventually depend on the potential use of RF in managing returns.

In last year's white paper in this series,6 we first introduced a schematic architecture for systems to support publishing. Having reviewed and qualified this basic architecture, it has now been further refined and developed to become a driving vision of how we see the future being serviced. This vision should not be seen as “finished”, it is continuing to develop. What we envisaged some six months ago is being enhanced as we continue to adapt and adopt it.

The unique architecture is focused on delivering front and back office solutions for publishers that are full integrated with e-business applications. These business solutions are able to access the corporate databases that underpin the business and provide a common user presentation for the information.

The business processes that are required to support publishing activities and projects are controlled by use of work flow and data flow technology and a powerful reporting tool. The architecture also includes a powerful decision support and analysis tool to provide intuitive access and presentation of all the business information within the organization.

The schematic in Figure 2 depicts this architecture

Figure 2  

The Databases are built on the core publishing foundations of Content, Context and Commerce.

• Content consists of the books, chapters, journals, issues, pictures, and fragments of information in all its many formats.

• Context is the product and bibliographic information that describes the content and enables you and your customers to find it and establish its value.

• Commerce is the final dimension, the business information that relates to pricing, sales, inventory, customers and royalties systems.

The process management and control layer focuses on the need to manage and control the business across its operational activities and also various product and project life cycles.

• Work Flow technology enables the various activities within a process to be integrated and for them to be controlled from start to finish.

• Data Flow technology enables the flow of content and its associated context, to be managed and controlled from receipt of manuscript to delivery of finished product.

Business Transaction Processing provides a framework that is focused at supporting any publisher’s specific requirements across the total life cycle of a product, from conception to final royalty payment. Different activities within a publisher will require different aspects of the functionality and will need individual combinations of the back and front office applications as well as e-business solutions.

This layer incorporates not only the front office applications that are shown but also back office applications (customer service, ordering and fulfillment, distribution and warehousing, finance and administration, royalties and inventory management). Also in this layer are the e-business applications that open all of the company’s applications to communication with the outside world. This recognizes that the successful operation of a publishing company implies the management a “virtual organization” with many out-sourced operations.

Information Management focuses on using database and knowledge technologies to enable all information to be accessed and analyzed both at summary and detail levels.

The User Presentation layer recognizes the need for consistency and integration of data and its presentation through a standard user interface. Today, the user interface is a Windows Client for internal use and a Web Browser externally. We need to satisfy both and recognize that they will shortly converge, with the browser becoming the dominant presentation technology for the next millennium.

In order to understand the significant changes that an information and knowledge driven environment will have, it is necessary to develop these latter layers further.

3.4.1 Information Management

We regard the application and database layers as being the primary information feeds into the business. Figure 4 shows the three primary feeds.

Figure 3 

The traditional approach is to view the corporate analysis and reporting layer simply in the context of the corporate data warehouse. The warehouse is a storage aggregation of all the corporate information within a structured relational database environment. However, this perspective often limits the vision and development to focus only on operational needs and creates a narrow perspective on the overall organizational needs.

As we have already discussed, we can no longer afford to ignore perspectives provided by external information; there is also a need to deliver a wide range of types of information in a consistent user interface, not just commercial information but also contextual information, and even completely unstructured information.

The architecture also acknowledges the critical relationship between information and one of the key knowledge-adding inputs – process. The requirement to manage, control, monitor the business processes and product development is achieved through the sub layers and tools provided by Workflow and Dataflow.

Given the different information roles and needs we discussed earlier, we can now extend this critical aspect of the architecture even further as depicted in Figure 4.

Figure 4

3.4.2 Preparing for "MyNet"

It is not possible to ensure that your customers in the future will not elect to bar you from their world. The technology is rapidly becoming available for them to profile what they want, when they want it and how they want it. Full self-service is becoming a reality; e-business is not something you should be thinking about, it is something you must be doing now. Those who enter the fray late will have to spend heavily on the skills and knowledge to enable them simply to stay in the game; if they fail to make the migration to customer relationship management they will surely perish in the world of the infomediary and permissions marketing.

Figure 5 depicts how the new permission layers will need to be accommodated.

Figure 5

We can now further develop the vision to recognize this new and evolving environment. This vision is shown in Figure 10, which we believe sets the agenda for tomorrow's solutions, incorporating the extended information needs and knowledge input.

Figure 6

3.5 Beware – technology at work

Remember all those dreams we only partially realized: the paperless office, teleworking, the virtual organization? All too often we were presented with the prototype but tactical priorities dictated our direction and we adopted a "wait and see" approach.

Today the pace of technology change is quickening and it is no longer an option to join the marathon at mile 21.

“Business must compete by exploiting capabilities which its competitors cannot easily match or imitate. These distinctive capabilities are not raw materials, land or access to cheap labour. They must be knowledge, skills and creativity…That is why we will only compete successfully in future if we create an economy that is genuinely knowledge driven.” ²³

Learning to learn continually is our hardest task. This is not restricted to the organization itself, or to relationships with trading partners and customers, or to new channels to market, or to evolving product formats, or to business processes, or to organizational structure. It encompasses all of these and more. It is about learning to adapt, adopt and advance technology. It about learning to share information within a new "open" commercial environment. It is about reducing the organization's current exposure to risk from the failure effectively to manage knowledge and information assets. It is about tapping into and exploiting all the information and knowledge available to provide a secure future for the organization and the individual within it.

"We can know more than we can tell" ²⁴

Notes and references:

1. Ikujiro Nonaka, "The Knowledge Creating Company", Harvard Business Review Nov - Dec 1991

2. Peter F Drucker, "The Coming of the New Organization", Harvard Business Review, Jan - Feb 1988

3. David A Garvin, "Building a learning organization", Harvard Business Review, July - Aug 1993

4. S Davis, C Meyer, "Blur: the speed of change in the connected economy" ,Addison Wesley 1998

5. M Bide and M Shatzkin (Eds) "Profiting From Tomorrow's Customers" the second report in the Publishing in the 21st Century research series, London and New York: VISTA Computer Services (1996)

6. PubEasy.com, E-business Internet trading service developed by VISTA Computer Services Ingram I , a self service Internet service developed by the Ingram Book Company OASIS BookTrack, a retail sales analysis and reporting service developed for the UK market by J Whitaker Information Services BookScan, a retail sales analysis and reporting service developed for the US market by BookScan Inc.

7. M Bide and M Shatzkin (Eds) "From N to X - The publishing value chain" the third report in the Publishing in the 21st Century research series, London and New York: VISTA Computer Services (1997)

M Bide and M Shatzkin (Eds)"Supporting Creativity: Bringing Technology to Front Office Operations" the forth report in the Publishing in the 21st Century research series, London and New York: VISTA Computer Services (1998)

8. K Kelly, "New Rules for the New Economy: Twelve dependable principles for thriving in a turbulent world" Wired, Sept 1997

9. Richard Gere, CNN May, 1999

10. Art Kliener and George Roth, "How to make experience your companies best teacher" Harvard Business Review Sept -Oct 1997

11. Peter F Drucker, "The Coming of the New Organization", Harvard Business Review, Jan - Feb 1988

12. Gigabyte - an annual review of the Information Technology Sector, Granville Equity Research, 1999

13. Bill Gates , Microsoft 1999

14. See further chapter 11 in this report

15. John Hagel III, Marc Singer, "Net Worth", Harvard Business School Press, 1999

16. Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems, 1999

17. John Hagel III and Singer M "Net Worth" Harvard Business School Press (1999)

18. See further chapter 11 in this report

19. "Our Competitive Future" UK Government Department of Trade and Industry White Paper, 1998

20. A Braganza and Dr K Breu, "Management Focus" Cranfield School of Management, winter 1998

21. Ibid

22. M Bide and M Shatzkin (Eds)"Supporting Creativity: Bringing Technology to Front Office Operations" the forth report in the Publishing in the 21st Century research series, London and New York: VISTA Computer Services (1998)

23. J B Quinn, P Anderson, S Finkelstein "Managing Professional Intellect" Harvard Business Review March - April 1996

24. Michael Polanyi quoted in "Gigabyte" (see above n12)

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Drive with Care: People with Technology at Work

Presentation: M Daniels, VISTA "Information in Action" conference London and New York, 1999

We all, took a journey to get here today and in taking that journey we faced many decisions. In fact I took a journey which I expected to be half an hour, it took an hour. But we all faced decisions about which route should we take, how long, what conditions, what delays - road works, hazards unknown to us. Do we have sufficient petrol to make the journey? We all know how to manage the down the risk of accident and we understand the car dashboard and the many signals it conveys. But with all this preparation, knowledge and information, we know one thing is certain - we have to expect the unexpected.

A business journey is no different, merely more complex. We often find ourselves in different vehicles, with different capabilities, going at different speeds, often in different directions. But what we all want to do is avoid jams, accidents and breakdowns and of course - running out of petrol. However, with all this experience and all this knowledge, we are confronted everyday with the unexpected and we have to draw upon a large volume of skill and knowledge within the organisation that enables us to manoeuvre and move forward. The signals, the information that we receive within our businesses is often obscure. It comes from not only within the organisation but now increasingly from out with the organisation and instead of being proactive a lot of the information that we receive and how we deal with it is reactive and overly reactive. Often, the person who is the best equipped with the skills to deal with that the issue in itself, is not the person that receives the information.

What I want to do today is look at some of the journeys that we took yesterday, look at some of the challenges that confront us today, look at information and its utility within the business and finally look at a potential business architectural and technology model.

If we look at yesterday’s journeys, automating the transactions, we all experienced a huge amount of success in reducing the cost of doing business, we automated data entry, we reduced clerical administration and accounting and we reduced the cost of processing transactions. In fact it is difficult to see how we could have achieved the growth that we have all experienced under the old paper and people processes. However, Peter Drucker got it right, very little has changed, the processes within our businesses have remained basically the same. Often proprietary to an organisation and proprietary to an industry sector. Solutions are often inward looking and not focussed on the supply chain or the value chains but internal processes. Competitive advantage has been seen as driving down cost, reducing the cost of doing business, even if it has been at the expense of others within the chain. Clearly we have not learnt a lot. What are the results of this automation? Well we have ended up with data islands, we have ended up with information that is hard to find, hard to extract, where we often rely on a specialist to produce the simplest of reports, and by the way you have got to wait. And often when we get the information it is out of date.

Many decisions are made blind of the facts today and we remain very reliant on that organisation knowledge and skills inherent within the organisation. We clearly have an information and knowledge business exposure; we probably don’t recognise it. If we look at yesterday’s journeys also we have to look at the PC and local area network revolution. This was great we empowered the user. Well we did that so well that we found users that spent hours designing and over-engineering spreadsheets, power point presentations, word documents etc, etc, etc. And the gap was great, it was a significant gap between those who could and those who thought they could, and we can all relate to that. But the thing that was underlying is that is still questionable whether the right information reached the right people at the right time. All too often we failed to stop and think we just had to analyse everything. Ask yourself how many finance departments and marketing departments now have their own little Merlin’s who are the spreadsheet whiz kids within your organisations, I think you all can relate to that. What we found as a result of all this was that we had island technology, that spawned island information, and that information created more information and rather than making it easier to find information it was even more difficult to get it in what was now a seamlessly lawless maze of information. If we look at the mirriad of information islands that exist within the publisher’s front office it’s hardly surprising that it is virtually impossible to look at the information across the lifecycle of a title in any coherent manner. We still had, in fact we had increased our business exposure with regards to knowledge and information.

So that is two journeys down, the third journey was about sharing information with trading partners it is hardly surprising we discovered the obvious, information is not just internal. Sharing of data and information is critical but publishing still lags a hell of a long way behind other industries. And what information sharing takes place within publishing would be unaccepted to many industries today. However, movement has at least started. Throwing data internally or externally over the wall whether it is to trading partners or to colleagues without the insight and knowledge that makes it into information does not create the win win environment that we all seek to achieve it just merely replaces the postman.

So if we move over to today’s challenges, I think you can relate to this - how many of you feel like you are drowning in a sea of data? I do. We are bombarded with information, some of it is still only data, some of it has been collated into information, but we spend far too much time dealing with the wrong news. How many e-mails are circulated just for information? We now have the capability of firing off ‘just in case information’ are we expecting a response, a reaction or are we just merely covering our backs? Irrespective what you have to start thinking about is it all has to be read, it all has to be assimilated. We now, in the last 30 years have produced more information and published more information than in the previous 5,000 years. We can now externally get information pushed at us from newsletters and alerts and we can pull information in the form of self-service. One thing that is very frightening though, is that we all recognise that non-participation is a non-option, exclusion from the information chain has a terminal effect. Maybe on our businesses and definitely on our personal careers. How much of the information that you receive today makes a difference? How much of your time and day is spent dealing with noise? What information don’t you receive that would make a difference? Most importantly what are you doing about it? We have to take responsibility to learn to navigate safe passage. However, we must remember that we must not sink those on whom we also may depend.

The next challenge is equally as daunting, in fact it is probably even more daunting, it is that of convergence and intrusion. We are now open all hours. We used to be able to switch off the phone, but now due to mobile communications – we can’t, in fact we can never escape the phone and when we do we find a string of voicemails all crying out for our attention. We still have the constant delivery of faxes, e-mails and snail mail. We are constantly plugged in; anybody who thinks that they are not constantly plugged in is kidding themselves. We will do business with everybody, from anywhere at any time. Will it get worse? – Yes, telecommunications and information services are converging at an alarming rate. It is not just about access to it is also about the utility of access becoming inescapable. We can all remember life without laptops, personal phones, personal organisers etc. Unfortunately our new staff never knew life without them.

I’d like you to forget about SGML and XML and think about WML (wireless mark up language), or VXML (voice extendable mark up language) forget about GSM, what about GPRS – full e-mail and web browsing by a mobile communications, what about UMNTS which is due out in 2003, full broad brand wireless by mobile networks. We have to start thinking about convergence in a big way. King Canute failed to stop the tide. The question today is not whether we stop or contain, but how we manage and control this new wave of intrusion. We all need an automatic filter what we receive, when we receive it, and an absolute requirement to personalise this to reflect our individual needs. In the world of convergence it is essential that we establish new lines of demarcation between our social life and our work life.

Another challenge that we face today is that of e-business. The change from e-commerce to e-business is not understood by many. But it is so significant that many companies will miss the boat and will perish. It is not about physical world to the virtual world, it is not about digital product, it is not about any of these, it is about doing business irrespective of whether the product is physical, virtual or a combination of the two. The interesting thing is that early adopters may be seen to be working at a commercial disadvantage, they may be seen to be spending a lot of money with little return. They are getting huge return, they are learning the new rules, they are establishing brand, but most importantly they are getting knowledge and information about customers and the market which will be essential to competing in the new century and their survival. So what about the consumers? Well consumers today are besieged, we all in this audience have telemarketers ringing us at all hour, direct marketers stuffing post into our post boxes, relationship marketers wanting to know our every movements. 10% of worldwide e-mail is junk spam mail. Yesterday the vendor never really knew, ask yourselves - the publishers never really knew whether the customer was giving them 10%, 20% or 100% of their business.

We talked about relationship marketing, getting to know the customers every habits and taking a share of the wallet. But the reality is we didn’t, today consumers can be accessed and targeted in the on-line world but what we must remember is that they just as easily can target and access vendors and information. Yesterday the customer was happy to give personal information; he often had the option to refuse its use or sale to third parties. Today I ask you to look at your PC files and look at the profusion of cookies that are planted within them. What is quite clear is that now customers are starting to understand their information and feedback has real value and could become the tail that wags the dog. The customer is going to be king in the world of MyNet. We now find ourselves moving speed into a new permissions marketing environment which is very significant in terms of information. It is more significant for those that are going to become the new infomediaries who manage and control access to the information and channel to market.

The traditional vendor driven publishing model is now under pressure; in fact, it is going to die. Those who ignore this in the rising role of infomediaries may find that they are not driving the development of their products in the market but are firmly being driven by others down the supply chain who own the information, knowledge and access to the market. In this new personalised world publishers need to ensure that infomediaries don’t filter them out from their readers. So how do we prepare for the unexpected? Our first priority is quite clear, we must learn to swim in the sea of data. The schematic that is coming up depicts the basic information roles within the organisation and it varies by the actions required, from the routine to the exceptional, and from the systemised to those that are heavily dependant on human knowledge input. What we often do when we have designed systems in the past is try and satisfy all requirements by a single solution and end up servicing the lowest common denominator or alternatively we create different islands of information that are incapable of consistently seeing both the macro and micro perspectives. If we look at these quadrangles we clearly see the need to support clerical activities, the routine activities, the heavily systemised activities. Here it is about transactional information, here it is about automating as much as possible to gain maximum efficiency, and it is about checking it in and checking it out. Process management is often viewed the same way but it isn’t it is completely different here it is not about focusing on the performance of the task, it is about the performance of the process. Although it is still the same information the usage and needs differ greatly and also it requires additional information about resource allocation and the management of risk and change. It is all about keeping today on schedule.

The business analyst activities are different again. Here we are talking about monitoring and analysing overall business activities and performance actually looking at variance to exception, discovering the parameters that effect an operation or a process, data mining its about drilling down a wide volume of data, tapping into specific scenes and often not in a single dimensional view but in a multiple dimensional view. Here often analysis is performed on a data warehouse where the operational information from both internal to the organisation and external to the organisation could be aggregated. This approach obviously protects the operational environment from the performance demands of these techniques and also provides the analyst with both the wider business picture and the performance they require. The tools used vary considerably, from the spreadsheet to sophisticated modelling and forecasting tools. The service objective is to enable the analyst to "turn over the stones and look for the issues".

Management Decision Support is focused at the business key performance indicators, the issues that really matter. We are talking about management by exception, this is where we are talking about identifying what needs attention. Not fixing what isn’t broke but identifying what is broke and fixing it and what may be breaking and taking preventative action. It also needs to be proactive as well as reactive. Unlike the analyst the executive needs are proactive feed alerts, he hasn’t got time to go drilling down. He needs what we call traffic lighting, he doesn’t need to know when the signals are green, he needs to know when they are on red he also when they are on amber, and when on amber he also needs to know in which direction that the information is going. Here it is all about management by exception, identifying and understanding the issues that need attention.

Finally, I want to review a publishing business technology architecture that meets the challenges in information and knowledge. What is quite clear when you actually look at information and knowledge management is that a piece meal approach to a business is no good enough. In last years’ white paper we identified a unique publishing architecture that separated the constituent elements of both technology and its utility and what we discovered last year was not finite it has evolved and what we think of it now will be different in 6 months time as we continue to adapt and adopt it. If we look at the original concept, first of all it was built on databases, the database foundation in publishing is straight forward – content, books, chapters, journals, issues, pictures fragments etc. Context, the product information that describes the content and enables you and your customers to find and value it, and commerce the business information – pricing, inventory, customer sales etc. On top of that we have a number of business solutions, in the past we looked at these as applications all embracing, we now have to change our view of these, they are just merely processing engines.

If we actually look at these a bit closer we have back office engines that form a comprehensive operations environment handling products from warehouse to reader – and the support, customer service, ordering fulfilment. We are all familiar with these engines, but they are now engines not applications. There is a need for engines that deal with e-business and EDI – significantly different but recognising the critical role of standards and also the emergence of self-service over the Internet. And we have front office engines that focus on supporting editorial, production, and marketing and rights functions. Now all of these engines could be supplied separately by different vendors, in different formats etc, etc. but what is important and what is critical is that we have a seamless integration of that processing from author to warehouse. We then have a process layer and control layer which looks across the whole product and project life cycles and operations where we have consistency of analysis and reporting, we have data flow managing the flow of product, and work flow managing the flow of the process and controlling the process and then on top we have the converging presentation layer with windows and browsers.

Having looked at this we now need to look again, more closely and look at what is the impact of information and knowledge driven environment could have on this model. First of all, it quite clear that we now need to break down the different information needs and utility and provide consistency across the business. The obvious approach is to provide this through a data warehouse, but we must remember that we no longer ignore external information, and this is not just dealing with commercial information but also contextual information and even unstructured information. What we have done is to extend that further and reflect this within the different usages that we had already identified. Moving the work flow and data flow down closer to the engines that deal with the processing, because in fact they are process engines themselves.

However, we need to actually look at and prepare for the world of MI-NET, how are we going to deal with MI-NET, how are we going to deal with ensuring that the customer does not elect to bar us form their world?, or where they have elected to use us that we optimise that election? We need to profile, profile wealth within the organisation and external to the organisation of what is required, when it is required and how it is required. The schematic depicts how new access permission layers will need to be accommodated both internal and external to the organisation. But we need to beware, those that enter this permissions environment late will spend heavily on the skills and knowledge to enable them just to compete. If they fail to make the migration in customer relationship management they will perish in the world of the info-mediary and permissions marketing.

The new vision clearly sets out the agenda incorporating the extended information needs and knowledge input, what we have to do is be prepared that we now see clearly on the road ahead people with technology at work. What we must remember however, is can you remember all those dreams? The paperless office, tele-worketing, the virtual organisation, all too often in the past we have been presented with a prototype – and tactical priorities have dictated our direction, we have adopted a wait and see strategy. Today the pace of technology is changing and quickening at such a speed that it is no longer an option to join this marathon at mile twenty-one. You will not have the capabilities, competencies and skills within your organisations to even get to mile twenty-six.

Learning to continually learn is one of the hardest tasks, it is not restricted to the organisation, the relationships with trading partners and customers, new channels to market, the evolving products, formats, the business processes, the organisational structure, it is all these and more. It is about learning to adapt, adopt and advance technology, it is about learning to share information within a new open commercial environment, it is about tapping into and exploiting all of the information and knowledge available both internal and external to your organisations. But what is clear – it is about reducing your organisations knowledge and information exposure.

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Focusing in a Fuzzy World: Trading in the Networked World

The Institute of Information Scientists 40th Anniversary Conference, Sheffield. July 8-11, 1998 Speech by Martyn Daniels

I am pleased to be here addressing your 40th anniversary conference. I am also pleased and proud that it is Sheffield. My second home where I grew up, was, or was not educated and where I started my career.

When I started my career some 30 years ago this year, the employment exchange presented me with an interesting decision. Whether to go to work in a Computer Department of a major electrical retailer, Henry Wigfalls, or go to work at English Steel. The career councillor advised me that English Steel was a job for life, offered a real career and that computers were still a bit iffy. I didn’t like the thought of going down Attercliffe every day so I choose computers and never looked back.

If we look at Sheffield over those 30 years we see the steel capital become a steel village, a shift from heavy manufacturing to service industry. Sheffield is now the sports capital of the UK and you only need to drive down the east end to see the difference. Where Hatfields once stood proud now read Meadowhall.

But technology has also not stood still. Far from it we all know what has happened and the impact it has had. However, we are now faced with a revolution, not evolution and one driven by a technology – The Internet. The world of the information networked environment. We all know that the Internet is dynamic and is growing at a phenomenal rate. It is pervasive and what we thought of it six months ago is probably different to what we think today and what we will think of it in six months time. It is challenging all our previous thinking and our commercial environment. But does it pass the "so what test"? Will it change what we do, what we sell, how we do it , who we do it with and our supply and value chains?

The answer to all the above is a resounding, yes.

Why is it introducing such change and what new properties does it introduce that enable it to have such an impact?

• It does not respect geography -- after all where is the USA in a virtual world, companies can be oceans apart and still climb into the same boat. How many know or care where the head office of Amazon.com is?
• It challenges territorial pricing, that was designed for the physical world and its many domains.
• It challenges the traditional thinking on our bottom line -- image you owned the goose that laid golden eggs. The balance sheet just says one goose and assigns no value to future earnings. Doesn’t Amazon.com make this challenge today?
• It demands a global economy and could promote harmonisation, far quicker and wider than imagined in the corridors of Washington and Brussels. It is in fact truly stateless.
• It does not respect time – nine to five is dead , 24 x 365 now rules.
• It does not respect size as a competitive advantage and enables the small to be big by connecting to the capabilities of others and at the same time remain agile and adaptable because of their size.
• It does not respect ownership or commerce – it was