In his latest article for SLAW McKay wonders whether a duopoly is a bad thing in the legal publishing industry..
Here’s the link to the article in full? http://www.slaw.ca/2011/03/04/professional-publishing-mergers-and-acquisitions-why-not/
Here’s his intro which will give you a good idea where he’s going with his argument.
Here at HOB we see where Mckay is going but we wonder if watching large predators snatching bites out of one another for another decade is a good thing for consumers or not.
Professional Publishing Mergers and Acquisitions? Why Not?
Oligopolies? Reduction in healthy competition? Up go the prices. Down goes the quality. Customers in a stranglehold.
Duopoly fear is discussed continuously. It?s a bad thing. Right?
I?m not so sure, my reason being that I want to see professional information thrive for all concerned ? shareholders, employees past, present and future, customers, suppliers and society, and in the interests of the supremacy of law. My point is, what appears to exist now is hardly optimal, it?s clearly ripe for change and in this situation and for these purposes, I reckon market forces might produce a better outcome than the present one.
No doubt, great changes have occurred recently and we have seen massive metamorphoses of multinational media businesses. Thomson Reuters especially, has altered its character and Reed Elsevier must surely follow. Professional, financial and business information remains an important and profitable sector, involving high entry costs for outsiders. Inevitably, smaller, weaker, less-focused players, and those not fully committed to growth and innovation in the professional sector won?t be winners and some will disappear. Moreover, who wants to be Number 3, or worse, in a market?
Yet, one or two small but important competitors have established sizeable niches and have undoubtedly stolen market share from some of the established law publishing giants which, sometimes, at least in the UK, cling to the security attached to owning portfolios that include 200 year-old high-profit cash cows. The more nimble competitors sometimes can concentrate on attractive segments of the market and benefit from lower cost bases. There are, occasionally, opportunities for them in low-volume, profitable services geared to specific customer needs and, increasingly in the future, from innovative and entrepreneurial cultures and capabilities, making it easier for them to respond to changing market requirements. Notable, in that context, is the fact that in the 2010 BIALL Supplier Survey, only two names were classified as ?Good?, those being Justis and Wildy. Every other relevant publisher was at best ?Satisfactory? with a few being ?Poor?. It?s questionable whether the market leaders have been sufficiently and consistently dynamic on innovation, customer care and on new opportunities, in order to defend their future positions and ensure that they are in the forefront of change. Some remain impressive, however flawed, but the mid-ranking stragglers can find themselves in neither one place or the other.
There is impressive competition everywhere; from Government, the Internet, self-publishing, the professional firms themselves, from new, hopeful information and services providers. The Thomson Reuters combination, News International?s acquisition of Dow Jones, Bloomberg?s alleged aspirations and others, show the way towards integrating the communications media sector. These developments indicate that it?s not enough to continue as before; that understanding and researching customer requirements involves knowing, in minute detail, how they work. Information providers, large and small, need to understand customers? relationships with their clients and help them achieve their objectives. Without diminishing the essence of the publishing trade, the future is about intervening in the target customers workflow wherever possible and profitably. In so doing, they are more able to satisfy needs for compliance, added-value and strategic planning/litigation-oriented information, training, networking and communicating, documentation, tools, software requirements, marketing solutions, business development, and more. Undoubtedly, greater success is achieved when customers are delighted to spend fortunes and buy from publishers whose products, services and support provide a critical route to their own profit improvement.