Abstract:

When facing challenges brought by new technology, companies often need to re-evaluate their businesses and ask themselves this question:What Business You Are In? Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt gave us two classic examples:the railroad industry and the movie industry，where industries failed to answer this question correctly. Facing challenge from digital technology, publishing industry should re-define the business it is in.Recently,the Book Industry Study Group has decided that it is no longer in“book”business,rather,it is in the“content”business,and changed its mission statement.Education publishers are committed to providing services and solutions instead of the textbook business.In order to win the competition from other non-book formats,such as games,music and movies,book publishers need first to answer this question correctly: What Business You Are In?