Anthony Selvey, chairman of the group, said: The strategy of the group remains unchanged. On the one hand, it carefully plans the development of the group organization, on the other hand, it strengthens the acquisition in our known and unknown markets. We will develop the Group's business through these two activities.
In July 2007, Taylor-Francis Publishing Group reached a cooperation agreement with Versaware, an electronic publisher, to help Taylor and Francis convert 654.38+07 million books into e-books. Another e-commerce strategy of the Group is to restart the academic article research alert (SARA) service recently, which is an online service for periodical users in magazine subscription. These subscribers can automatically receive article information about their chosen academic field.
As the world's largest e-book publishing group, Taylor Francis e-books have published more than 65,438+08,000 volumes, covering various disciplines. It provides rich information for researchers and scholars in different fields: museum and cultural heritage research reference and information science development research and social work law classic research, interdisciplinary research of engineering archaeology education history, media and film research, computing and information technology anthropology economics, finance, business sociology agricultural geography and environmental science sports tourism and leisure biological science cultural research food science and technology behavior mathematics gender research physics, Christopher Gisher is the global sales director of Chemical and Earth Sciences, Arts, Medicine, Dentistry and Series of Medical Care, Philosophy, Language, Literature, Religion, Politics, International Relations, Military and Strategy Research Group, and Cobleigh is its Asia-Pacific executive director.
China Book Business Daily has a wonderful interactive report:
Love the author and love mergers and acquisitions.
The tradition of listening to the author's needs is Taylor &; Francis Group has won a good reputation in academic circles, which has enabled it to successfully acquire many excellent independent publishing houses and achieve rapid growth. In May, 2004, it merged with Information Group Plc, a global professional information provider of T & ampf, and established a famous academic circle of T & AMPF to create more opportunities.
China Book Business Daily: Taylor &; When was Francis Group founded? Can you briefly introduce the development history of the company?
T & Taylor & Francis Group was founded in 1798, and its founder richard taylor was a philosopher. 1798, he founded the first academic journal, Philosophy Magazine, and established extensive contacts with the academic circles through this magazine, which is still published today. 1852, Dr. William Francis, a chemist, joined in and formally established Taylor &; Francis Group. The period from 1798 to 1970 is a period of slow and steady growth. Since 1970s, the company began to acquire some independent academic publishing houses, T&; F gradually developed and expanded. Then, 1998 is a very important year, which is T &；; F's listing on the London Stock Exchange gives the company enough funds to acquire excellent academic publishing houses. 1998 to 2003, it became another peak period for the company to achieve rapid growth through mergers and acquisitions. 1998165438+1October, we acquired Rouledge, one of the best humanities and social sciences publishing houses in the world with a history of 150 years, and then successively acquired Gordon & Breach, Carfax, Psychology Press and CRC Press, the world-famous psychology book publishing house.
We can buy these world-renowned publishing houses, not because we have money, and the financial strength of other companies participating in the bidding is not worse than ours. These acquired publishing houses are doing well, and they are willing to cooperate with us because they think they are in T&; F, can continue and enhance its enterprise value, so that its important publishing concept and core spirit can be preserved and carried forward. For them, T&; F is a good economist, which can ensure the sustained growth of enterprises.
Large multinational publishing companies like ours have extensive author resources and good author relations, and these medium-sized publishing houses are also willing to cooperate with us and enjoy these resources.
China Book and Business Daily: T&; Where does F rank in the field of scientific and medical academic publishing in the world? Compared with competitors, T&; What are the advantages of F?
T&F: We are the top five in the field of academic publishing in the world. One of our advantages is that we have a very close relationship with scholars and have a wide range of high-quality author resources. Second, the flat management structure ensures fast and efficient market response and strategic decision. When making decisions, employees can directly reflect their opinions and suggestions without repeated meetings from top to bottom, and then leaders can make decisions quickly. Our leadership is a very efficient team; Third, we have achieved fruitful results in the application of new technologies. In addition, our good cooperation with sales customers and good relations with raw material suppliers such as paper and printing plants have also made the overall operation of the company more effective and promoted the rapid development of the company.
China Book and Business Daily: T&; How does F acquire and maintain the above-mentioned author resources?
T & ampf: The main thing is to be good at listening to the author, caring about their needs, and treating the author as God like any important customer of the company. The author is the most important original resource of the company and the foundation of the company's survival and development. We have a long history of cooperation with famous scholars. Freud, Einstein, Russell and other famous writers were our authors, which in turn will attract more academic celebrities to cooperate with us.
China Book Business Daily: Does this mean that the editor of T & ampF must also be an expert in various disciplines?
T&F: That's right. In addition, it is very important to be passionate and enthusiastic about your work.
China Book Business Daily: May 2004, Taylor &; Francis Group merged with Information Group. Did you buy the information group company or did it buy you? What is the motivation for the merger? The influence of M&A on Taylor &; What is the influence of Francis Group?
T & ampf: This is a positive merger that both sides welcome. It can also be said that the information group Plc acquired us. Information Group Plc is the largest professional information provider in the world, and its business covers academic, professional, commercial and other fields. After the merger, the new company's T& is now Information Limited; F is one of the academic publishing departments.
The merger is beneficial to both parties, T&; F and information Plc come together for the benefit of T & are interested in T & F, mainly has the following benefits:
First of all, from the perspective of periodical publishing, it takes at least five or six years to invest in a new periodical, and we want to shorten the investment cycle as much as possible. One of the advantages of information Plc is holding conferences and exhibitions, which is the largest and most professional company in the world. These meetings provide an excellent way for us to promote periodicals, because all the participants are the most famous experts and scholars in various disciplines around the world, which makes us directly face more readers and authors at the meeting to promote periodicals. Information Plc has a lot of experience in holding conferences, including how to book hotels, arrange travel activities and charge conference fees. More importantly, they have a strong expert database, which can be used to send invitations to the global academic community.
Secondly, the merger has provided us with strong financial support for continuing market mergers and acquisitions. About two or three years before the merger with the information company, we wanted to acquire T&; F Springer Press is similar in size, but almost equal. This failure made us realize that to successfully complete the acquisition, we need to have enough cash flow to support it. The merger with Information Plc has made us stronger and provided strong financial support for future acquisition activities.
The third is to give T &；; F brings new business space. Information Plc used to be very useful in commercial publishing fields such as finance, law and so on. There are many related author resources and customer relationships, which make T&: Broaden the field of publishing.
On the other hand, the exhibition business of information Plc grew rapidly in the late 1990s, but it fluctuated and was very unstable after 2000. And T & ampf, although they did not increase significantly, developed steadily. Balance each other after the merger, so that all aspects of business maintain a good profit level and the overall steady growth.
The longer we cooperate with information Plc, the more we feel interdependent and promote each other.
Love digitalization
Digitalization makes publishers love and fear. In the face of aggressive Google, many publishers hid, but T&; F is in love. As a result, borrowing books online was very popular, and I finally lived up to expectations.
China Book Business Daily: What was the global academic publishing market like in 2005? What changes do you predict will happen in 2006?
T & amp2005, the global academic publishing market experienced more severe challenges. Nevertheless, our library market in the United States and the United Kingdom is still growing slightly. One of the challenges faced by academic publishing is the decline of book purchasing power. Nowadays, British and American college students are increasingly reluctant to spend more money on books, but prefer to buy luxury goods such as mobile phones, brand-name clothes and alcohol. In this case, in order to achieve growth, we must snatch more market share from our competitors.
China Book Business Daily: What changes have taken place in your sales channels in this market environment?
T & Our sales channels are changing. Sales of university bookstores are declining, while sales of Amazon are rising. Internet is becoming more and more important to us.
China Book Business Daily: The Internet has a great influence on scientific publishing and academic publishing. How do you use digital technology?
T&F: We have achieved great success in this field. We have not only electronic periodicals, but also e-books and bookstores. 200 1 Start making e-books. At present, all kinds of e-books and websites 1.3 million have been opened. Our website not only sells books, but also provides book rental service, which readers can rent for a day, a week or a month. Readers can also pay to print a few pages of a book, or buy chapters from different books and combine them to edit a book by themselves.
Most of the people who borrow books online are students. Some of them borrow books for a week, while others borrow books for a night. Many of them will hand in their papers soon, and the library is closed at night, so we can only look up information online. They often need to browse five or six books at the same time. If you buy these books, a book costs 100 ~ 500 dollars, and by renting books, you can get all the contents you need by spending 10-20 dollars a night. For these students, renting books online is convenient and cheap, while for us, renting books brings good extra income.
For libraries, the benefits of e-books are also obvious, especially large books like encyclopedias. Compared with paper books, the electronic version is convenient to consult and saves storage space, and readers can borrow books without time and space restrictions. When we sell it to the library, the price of the electronic version and the printed version is the same, so we can choose at will.
But at present, e-book sales and rental income only account for 6% of our total book sales revenue.
China Book Business Daily: Are there any difficulties in electronicization?
T & ampf: It is mainly the limitation of readers' reading habits. In particular, many professors and scholars prefer to use paper books and are not used to reading e-books, so the market needs to be cultivated.
China Book Business Daily: Some time ago, Google encouraged libraries and publishers to join their Google Print Project project, and agreed that Google would scan a large number of book pages and let readers browse some book pages through Google online search. This incident caused an uproar in Britain and America, T&; What do you think of this incident?
T & ampf: We are one of the publishers who support Google's project, but we are still cautious because it has both potential benefits and potential threats. If the project doesn't go smoothly, we will terminate our cooperation with Google at any time. The T& of this project is Google Book Search now. We have joined this project and maintained a good cooperative relationship with Google. I(T & amp； Christoph Chesher, global sales director of F Publishing Group, is also a member of Google's advisory board, and we are very concerned about the final progress of this project. I once told Google that their cooperation with the library was a mistake. At present, Google has signed agreements with five libraries to digitize their books, but according to the law, Google can only scan those books that have exceeded the copyright protection period. If it wants to scan books that are still under copyright protection, it infringes on the rights of publishers and authors. The American Publishers Association has now brought Google to court, and Google has gained experience and lessons from it.
China Book Business Daily: Is it helpful for Google Project to sell books at T & ampF now?
T&F: This is very helpful. On the one hand, it makes our electronic bookstore known to more people. On the other hand, readers can search a few pages of our books through Google, which will encourage readers who need more content to buy our books. However, there are also potential problems. Some readers may find that a few pages of content found by Google (5% of our books can be browsed online for free) are enough, but they don't buy our books, which leads to a decline in our sales. Many publishers are opposed to this project because of this concern. We also pay close attention to the development of the situation to determine the future development direction of the company.
Love China.
To China, T&; F is a little love in my heart, almost no one knows, t &；; Jeffrey Lim, sales manager of F, has been attending the Beijing International Book Fair for 20 consecutive years.
China Book Business Daily: As a multinational company, T & amp；; F The income in North America exceeds that in Britain. What is the difference between the academic publishing market in Britain and the United States? What are the different strategies adopted by T&?
T&F: First of all, the populations of the two countries are different. Britain has a population of 60 million and the United States has a population of about 300 million, which determines that the two markets are different in scale. For us, if we want to succeed, we must give consideration to internationalization and localization and find a balance between them. In some subject areas, Britain and the United States need the same textbooks and academic documents. We have a textbook, Cell Biology, which has been successfully used all over the world. Four editions have been printed, and the sales volume exceeds 1 10,000 copies. At the same time, the educational system and political system of different countries are very different, which requires us to have a global vision and fully consider the localization needs when formulating publishing strategies.
China Book and Business Daily: T&; F How many years have you been doing business in China? What are the main aspects of business? What is T & ampF's China market strategy?
T&F: From 65438 to 0980, Keith Courtney, our periodical sales director, came to China for the first time with a delegation from the British Publishers Association. Since the first Beijing International Book Fair was held in 1986, T&; F comes to the exhibition every year, and our sales manager Jeffrey Lim has been attending this exhibition for 20 years in a row. In recent years, during the Beijing International Book Fair, our original book sales have been among the best. In 2004, we set up an office in Beijing.
Our global publishing strategy follows the same guiding ideology, that is, serving the academic community, and China is no exception. We don't say that our books are the best, which should be evaluated by domestic experts and scholars. For us, China still has great market space to be developed, especially after China's entry into WTO and the international copyright protection system. At present, T & ampf sells about three times as many original works in India as in China, but we don't think that the Indian market is more important than the China market, and China has greater potential to surpass India.
We will abide by the laws of China and further expand our business and expand our market share in China within the scope permitted by the China government. At the same time, publishing China scholars' works and scientific research results in English is also helpful to expand the international influence of China scholars.
China Book Business Daily: How do you evaluate the academic publishing in China?
T&F: We don't know much about academic publishing in China, but we are willing to share our experience with academic publishing circles in China and learn from our colleagues in China.
background information
In the past 20 years, Taylor &; Francis Group has rapidly grown into a leading international academic publishing house through merger and internal organic growth. 1998 listed on the London Stock Exchange, Taylor &; Francis Group has acquired nearly 20 humanities, science and technology and medicine publishing houses, including Routledge and CRC. In May 2004, Taylor &; The merger of Francis Group and Informa Group, a world-class information company, has made it even more powerful, not only bringing more excellent authors, new publishing fields and sales markets, but more importantly, giving Taylor Francis Group a strong financial backing to continue to acquire other British and American publishing houses.
The merged Informa Inc has offices in 65,438+08 countries, with nearly 4,000 employees, and its headquarters are located in Britain and the United States. Annual sales exceed 500 million pounds. It is the world's largest exhibition organization company that publicly issues shares, holding nearly 5,000 meetings every year. It has more than 40,000 academic and business books, and publishes various magazines, newsletters and distance education products.