In August 2007, Laserwords, an Indian tech-solutions provider for the print and media production industry, acquired U.S.-based Four Lakes Colorgrahics for about $11 million. Though the terms of the deal were not made public, the acquisition entails offshoring with a combo of Laserwords’ tech. strengths, and Four Lakes’ editorial support and project management skills. This is just one of those several instances that made the Indian publishing outsourcing industry live this year.
Now, the industry has all the reasons to cheer as the Indian newspaper publishing services sector sees an opportunity to offshore publishing services worth $3.75 billion, says a recent study by ValueNotes. With 2,800 daily and weekly newspapers, the revenue of the newspaper industry in the U.S.A. and the U.K. accounts for $75 billion, and a typical editorial services offshoring can give about 30 to 40 percent of cost benefits. While the cost savings from offshoring and production can be 40 percent, administrative and clerical services offshoring can save up to 30 percent of costs, according to ValueNotes’ Offshoring in the Publishing Vertical: An Uptake study.
International newspapers are increasingly offshoring their publishing services to Indian service providers. For instance, newspapers like Boston Globe, Sostene, Financial Times and Vorarlberg Nachrichten are presently outsourcing their editorial jobs while Alameda Newspaper Group, CCN, Independent News & Media, MediaNews Group and The Dispatch outsource their ad productions and sales-related activities. In fact, Chicago Tribune, Independent Newspapers and Los Angeles Times are currently offshoring their circulation-related services to Indian providers.
At the same time, the industry is facing challenges in terms of winning the confidence of the U.S.- and the U.K.- based newspapers, and making them happy about the Indian services providers’ offerings. However, “the offshoring trend by the newspaper media will definitely accelerate,” according to Robert Berkeley, CEO, Express KCS, a respondent to the ValueNotes’ research report. And, “graphic production for newspapers is an emerging segment from India’s point of view.”
Interestingly, not many captive setups have been seen in the Indian publishing sector. Many industry pundits believe in the emergence of this trend as well on the basis of successful examples of captives such as Reuters, Time Warner and CNET.
The most common offshore editorial services include composition, layout, graphic services, data collection and archival services. Currently, most of the work done is in the space of ad design, ad production and composition. A lot of academic-publishing services are also being sourced from India. Cyber Media Services, Aptara, MacMillan and Thomson are the leaders in this space.
| Indian Publishing Players |
Newspaper Publishers (Captives)
Reuters
Sostene
Time Warner |
|
Academic Publishers
Aptara
MacMillian
Thomson
|
|
Others
Affinity Express
Apex CoVantage
CCI Sourcing
Express KCS
Ninestars
Knowledge Works Global
Source: ValueNotes
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