05
Conclusion
20
Driven by digitization and its opportunities , capturing the voice of the consumer has become a major issue in a variety of B2C business models . However , those providers who are particularly determined to provide outstanding quality and customer experience have already started to design and scale such programs .
All of them understand that the road leading to cutting-edge insights into readers ’ habits is challenging and that a comprehensive , straightforward design principle like the " PASS " framework described above will help structure the undertaking . The framework underscores one other fact as well : The task of harvesting consumer insights in an industry whose business practices have been defined by intuition and gut feeling for centuries will be an iterative , long-term process . The road on which they are traveling is not a miles-long , straight highway . Rather , it is a winding country road littered with potholes and roadblocks . The journey is accompanied by changes in process , governance , IT architecture and finally , and maybe most importantly , culture within the organization . And since the target picture may remain fuzzy especially in the early days of enhancing consumer intelligence , we strongly recommend putting seasoned experts into the driver seat , individuals who have witnessed or even successfully managed the introduction of such programs at different companies .
On the basis of the in-depth interviews we conducted with industry representatives , we understand that book publishing faces an uncertain future and publishing houses have an immediate urgency to act . The prospect of applying fundamentally new strategies and approaches to gain new insights into or even engage directly with consumers may indeed seem like a daunting task for publishers . Yet , we believe that a switch to a systematic , data-driven approach , one that harvests the potential of customer data , information and insights , will ultimately produce a better understanding of consumer preferences and lead to better decisions . The transformation could pay off in two major ways : Publishing houses that apply a sophisticated customer intelligence strategy could win market share from competitors , and the book itself could win back its fair share of consumers ’ leisure time .