Michael Cairns is a publishing and media executive who established Information Media Partners in 2006. The consulting firm works with clients in the information and education sectors on strategies like product development, corporate development, and reorganizations. Cairns predicts that in 2013, more combinations will occur in the trade publishing sector, challenges may come from unexpected places, and the business model for education technology could face issues as an innovation bubble forms. Platforms that integrate content, applications, and workflows will be important going forward as customers demand improved access and experience across the information industry.

1. Michael Cairns
Managing Partner
Information Media Partners
Acquisitions, Corporate
Restructuring and the Future?
Annual Predictions for Publishing 2012

2. 2
Introduction
Michael Cairns is a publishing and media executive with over 25 years experience in
business strategy, operations and technology implementation. As a business
executive, Mr. Cairns has successfully managed several troubled and under-
performing businesses, creating new business opportunities, developing new funding
sources and enhancing shareholder value for investors. His years spent as an
operating executive have largely been with brand-name publishing companies such
as Macmillan, Inc., Berlitz International, Wolters Kluwer Health, Reed Elsevier and
R.R. Bowker. As a consultant, Mr. Cairns has worked with clients as diverse as
AARP, Hewlett Packard, InterPublic Companies and Reed Elsevier with an emphasis
on business strategy, market development and corporate development.
His skills and experience include:
 Business and corporate strategy development and implementation
 Operations management and business transformation
 Traditional and digital publishing and operations
 Print-to-digital transformation and adoption of new business models
 Software development and software services
Mr. Cairns holds an MBA (Finance) from Georgetown University and a BA from
Boston University. He has served on several boards and advisory groups including
the Association of American Publishers, Book Industry Study Group and the
International ISBN organization. Additionally, he has public and private company
board experience.
2
Michael Cairns
Information Media Partners
Strategy Consulting
New York, London, Melbourne
Tel: 908 938 4889
Michael.cairns@infomediapartners.com
Find me:
LinkedIn Twitter Blog Flickr InstaGram

3. 3
Information Media Partners
Michael Cairns established Information Media Partners in 2006 as a boutique strategy
consulting firm focused on the information and education publishing segment. The work
conducted by the firm includes product development, corporate development, sales
management and corporate reorganizations. We work with established businesses, private
equity owners and potential acquirers.
Examples of our work include:
 Reorganized and re-focused a $25 million software publishing company by aligning
business operations with client priorities; implementing internal collaboration tools and
project management standards; re-building executive team to focus on effective and
efficient management
 Defined a new business strategy for a large non-profit association and advocacy group,
expanding their business model into global markets to exploit their core knowledge and
expertise across a broader market
 Led an information technology capabilities review at a large international advertising
holding company. Completed over 200 interviews in 15 international offices and multiple
group focus sessions to define the operational ‘gaps’ between existing agency capabilities
and those necessary and important for client delivery by region
 Completed a sales management effectiveness review for a global software company and
defined six key project initiatives to improve sales effectiveness, market development and
account management
We approach our client engagements in a standardized, logical manner which creates the best
environment to identify key business drivers, administrative and logistical road blocks and/or
product or market definition issues. Our investigative approach leads to better insights into
your businesses and supports the development of workable solutions and recommendations
for success.
Visit the Information Media Partners website for more information.
Sample Client List

4. 4
Change
4

5. 5
Change
leads to
Opportunity
Image: http://www.success.co.il/knowledge/images/History-Historiographies-Glass-of-water.jpg

6. 6
What
Business
is this
6

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7
7
$25 Billion?
$35Billion?
$150Billion?

8. 8
What business is Pearson in?
Pearson PLC Annual Report: Competitors

9. 9
Content “platforms” are the future
 Extensible
 Proprietary content
 Applications
 Source data
 User data
 Third party & free content
 etc, etc, etc.
9

10. 10
10
Activity in
2012
indicates
there are
more and
bigger
changes
upcoming
not fewer.Photo: Universal Pictures

11. 11
Where to look?
 Slowing growth rate of ebook sales
 eReader devices losing out to tablets?
 Students dislike eReaders for textbooks
 The big trade book merger
 The bigger textbook divestiture
11

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2013 comes bearing gifts….
 More combinations in trade
 Cengage & McGraw Hill?
 Pearson: Already in year six
 Will business model begin to collapse?
 An education technology bubble?
 Challenges from out of nowhere
12
2013

13. 13
Change is Coming
Trade
 Re-evaluation
of value chain
 Direct-to-
consumer
models
 Publishers as
retailers,
retailers as
publishers
Professional
 Software as a
service
 Application
providers
 Service
outsourcers
 Embedded
content
Education
 Expanded
value chain
 Solutions
providers
 Custom
production
 Content,
assessment,
remediation,
management

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2,600+ Transactions in past 6mths
 Education: 107 deals
 22 deals in K12 technology
 Finance: 161 deals
 47 deals in payment technology
 Entertainment: 313 deals
 51 deals in Internet-related services and content
 Healthcare: 121 deals
 63 in health IT
 Media & Marketing: 612 deals
 151 deals in Internet media content and platforms
 Online: 798 deals
 234 deals in SAAS/ASP models
 Software: 568 deals
 309 in niche software
14
Source Manadasoft

15. 15
Corporate Development 101
 Cost & expense
 Economies of scale
 New market(s)
 Expertise
 Technology/secrets
 Eliminate competition
15

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Why Random Penguin?
 All about scale
 Reducing factor costs
 Consolidating operations
 Competing for bigger authors
 Is it cynical?
16
Hello, I’m
Random

17. 17
Innovation is still on the fringe
 Book publishers have absorbed the implications
of digital publishing
 Linking the parts together
 Haven’t addressed long term scenarios
 Big change remains and will come rapidly
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Trade: “a giant mess and no massive change”
 Top of the pyramid
 Senior executives are focused on ‘E’
 Most publishers not addressing the transition
 Reliant on supply chain to drive e-Content
 Curation isn’t well understood but will be critical
 Workflows are being redefined
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McGraw-Hill divesture
 Differing corporate
priorities
 Shareholder expectations
 Not the end of the “holding
company”
 Access to capital
 Content not enough for
competitive advantage
19

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Education: “faster than anticipated”
 E-Content migration significantly underway
 Successes with “born digital” content, not just
‘migrated’ print content
 Few publishers thinking about ‘e’ from scratch
 eBook hardware have failed (thus far) in
education
 Market develops to a ‘database’ and
‘subscription’ model
 Content becomes ‘dynamic’
 Platform for services and content
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What do you mean there’s a test?
 Assessment
 Strong impetus in K-12
 Becoming important in college & post grad
 Adaptive learning
 Tailored to individual capability
 Self-regulated/directed
 Empowers learner
 Bigger in post-college market?
21

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Google buys ITA software
 Content: Flight/travel search
 Utility
 Technology
 Niche
 $700million acquisition
22

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Driving M/A activity
 Innovation
 New models
 Talent
 Technology
23

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To name a few…
 Apollo buys MGH: Content
 Providence buys Blackboard: Access
 Follett purchases Betterknown: Access
 Echo360 buys Thinkbuilder: Social Learning
 Elsevier purchases Mandeley: Community
 Pearson acquires Embanet: Delivery
 Wiley buys Deltak: Platform
 Pearson acquires Learning Catalytics: Talent
24

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What’s
the
platform
Kenneth
25

26. 26
A successful platform
 Branded content vertical
 Workflow solutions and technologies
 Common taxonomy and ontology
 Consistent revenue model
26

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Platforms network transactions
 Normalize a set of behaviors
 Facilitate communication
 Transact information, goods & services
 Network effect drives usage & utility
 Provider costs decline
27

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“So our excitement about the new
platformis that, one, we are able to bring
tremendous feature
functionality to the user, whether it is the researcher
or the end user and, two, we are able to give them
capability that everyone is after”
- LexisNexis
Quote: Information Today

29. 29
Trailblazers help
At an SIIA education conference in 2012,
Scholastic Education President Margery Mayer
noted that data dashboards for their educational
technology products were derived from Mint.com,
WeightWatchers.com, and NikeRunning.com.
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Would you like
to play in a
market 4x as
large?

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The LexisNexis Model
Global Application of Platform and Content
Secondary Legal Content
Primary Legal Content
News & Business Content
Public Records
Company & People Information
Practice
Management
Litigation Corporate
Counsel
Risk
Management
ResearchClient
Development

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An Education Model
Global Content Application & Distribution Platform
Pre K Grade Content
K – 12 Content
College Content
Supplemental & Advanced Degree
Vocational & College Prep
Assessment Intervention
Remediation
Course
Management
School
Administration
Teacher/
Faculty Support

33. 33
Another look at Pearson

34. 34
The Innovators
 Many new entrants
 PE investment accelerates
 Eventually ‘run out of market’ with consolidation –
but years off
 Opportunities: workflow, training, content
management, productivity, etc.
 Innovators are addressing and solving problems
34

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Competition from customers
 Massive Open Online Courses
 Direct to student model
 Unlimited class size
 Branded faculty abandoning tenure
 Coursera, Edx, Udacity
 Delivery unsettled – textbook still reigns
 Custom
 Self-publishing
 Ebooks
35

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It is all about ‘access’ (not content)
 First-year class size is stagnant
 Applications have exploded
 150,000 students signed up
 Top ten ‘graduates’ were ‘non-students’
 There’s a whole new world out there
 Brand protection and extension
 Model not perfect but not intractable
36

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Your New Customer Experience
Utility
Integration of content and applications
Broad productivity and workflow benefits
Internal and external process integration
Stats

38. 38
What happens next?
 More bubbles
 Expand offerings or be pushed out
 Competition from left field and a byproduct
 Customers as content producers
 Platform providers as customers
 Attribution of consumer models
 The platform as an operating system
38

39. 39
Please review my blog post associated
with this presentation:
https://personanondata.blogspot.com/201
3/04/nfais-workshop-presentation-
predictions.html
Michael Cairns
Managing Partner
Michael.Cairns@InfoMediaPartners.com
908 938 4889
LinkedIn Twitter Blog Flickr InstaGram