We know that the bargaining power of customers and suppliers leads to revolutionary changes as new players enter and new relationships are formed. This trend is accelerating in many industries, fueled in part by the rapid reduction in the price of inputs like computing power, storage, and, in some cases, content.

In the information industry, this is leading to new types of collaboration between and among industry stakeholders, but especially with buyers and suppliers. Leading up to our 11th annual Information Industry Summit, we’ll review the impact of “Buyers & Suppliers Take Control” in a series of posts in this blog.

A Growing Reliance on User Generated Content

Information companies of all types are relying on their customers for content creation. News companies have gone well beyond the letters to the editor/web comment model to the point of relying on readers for story tips and even editing.

Paul Bass, Editor of the New Haven Independent, asks readers to send in photos, news tips and feedback. And to let him know if they find any misspellings, typos or other errors since “they cannot afford proofreaders”.

• American Lawyer Media’s Verdictsearch relies on lawyers to enter and vet verdicts from the cases they litigate. ALM gets timely and accurate content, while lawyers get bragging rights for their victories. There is also the chance for these cases to get covered in other ALM publications, increasing the benefits to all parties.
• Not surprisingly, reliance on a defined community of users is also bringing benefits to publishers. Spiceworks, an Austin TX based provider of free software to manage networks, has built an enormous user base that interacts with each other, and provides valuable market research data back to Spiceworks, which they then use to attract and sell to advertisers.
• Environmental Data Resources’ commonground site provides an opportunity for consultants to share information and opinions about environmental hazards, while providing EDR with feedback on their data.

In all the cases mentioned above, information providers benefit greatly from the “work” put in by their users. If these customer-editors suddenly went away, they’d be hard pressed to provide the same quantity and quality of product.

Customized Direct Delivery

Once you’ve amassed this content, you need to deliver it. One trend we’ve seen is the further “de- containerization” of content. The more innovative among us actually deliver content to their customer’s “circulatory systems,” which includes Oracle and SAP ERP systems or salesforce installation. Of course, for successful implementation, publishers need to have robust content data stores, a flexible business model, and sophisticated customers who can ingest this container-less content.

Knotted Value Chain

Historically, many regulatory information publishers waited for government agencies to change rules, laws and regulations, which the publishers then massaged and re-sold as their content. In some cases, they’d utilize BPOs (business process outsourcing companies) to handle some of the knowledge work to reduce costs. Now some government agencies seek partnerships directly with the BPOs to produce better products further up the value chain. This places considerable product pressure on many publishers, as competing with the government is always challenging.