(by guest blogger John Blossom, President, Shore Communications Inc.) The SIIA Content Division Global Strategic Briefing is not technically part of the Executive Summit, but nevertheless it’s the opening act to tomorrow’s conference. The briefing panel moderated by Joachim Bartels, a Partner with EPS, touched mostly on the macro picture of risks, opportunties and strategies in approaching both developed and developing global markets.
Key Trends: The good news is that developing markets are fueling the growth of major premium content aggregators and distributors that struggle with relative saturation and stagnation in the markets of developed nations. For example, Deven Sharma, VP of Global Strategy for the McGraw-Hill Companies, noted that the growth rate of their non-U.S, markets is about double that of their domestic markets. The trick is to find the right markets with the right mix of risk and opportunity; Joachim Bartels highlighted the “BRICK” countries – Brazil, India, China and South Korea – as leading with the greatest balance of opportunity and risk overall, with Mexico, Poland and Australia close on their heels. Changing cultural and financial patterns are also adding to the global mix of content service definition: Michael Walsh, Senior VP for Global Strategy and Business Development at LexisNexis notes the push in Japan to double the number of available lawyers is creating a surge of demand for legal content services, while Devan Sharma noted that with 40 percent of stocks being owned by non- U.S. funds and shifting steadily from U.S.-European ownership to the control of exporting nations such as Japan and Korea, the demands for financial information are shifting accordingly. Nevertheless, the U.S. market remains the unavoidable presence, even as non-U.S. companies buy U.S. content companies and discover how much the largest single market can absorb their attention. Meanwhile, whither Europe? David Warlock, Chairman of EPS, observed that as much as there is a framework of EU law favorable to major database publishers holding together some of the major nations into a consistent marketplace, the lack of full inclusion of many nations into the EU and the questionable local enforcement of regulations in many of the more peripheral member nations still makes for highly localised licensed content markets for the most part in Europe. And who will be the players in global content markets in coming years? The consensus of the panel was that although there are always rumblings of content giants coming out of China in the next decade, there are no candidates that are heir apparents to global content marketing, fueled in part by the omnipresence of English-based content as the core of global services. The more likely pattern is continued partnering with local content companies by major players, who may in time take majority positions to help fuel the growth of their client bases overseas. Will it play out that way? Send your bets on the likelihood of content ju-jitsu my way…
This coverage is sponsored by HighBeam Research.
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