KEY INSIGHTS
Digital literature formats and sales channels , new types of media such as podcasts and audio books , and the COVID-19 pandemic have triggered declines in readership and revenue among traditional publishers .
Book publishers must now create razor-sharp lines of books that can compete with all other types of consumer entertainment : Books need to be tailored to meet customer preferences , ideally even before customers become fully aware of these preferences .
While insights into customer preferences and behavior are essential for publishing houses , almost every step along publishing houses ’ value chains suffers from a ( more or less ) distinct information deficit .
Meanwhile , successful start-ups have found ways to create deeper customer insights than traditional publishing houses and have thereby established disruptive business models that either potentially complement the activities of publishing houses or threaten their traditional industry role and value-adding proposition .
The task of harvesting customer insights in an industry that is defined by intuition and gut feeling must be approached as an iterative , long-term job accompanied by process , governance , IT architecture , and , finally and maybe most importantly , cultural changes within the organization .
Therefore , the road leading to cutting-edge insights into readers ’ habits will require incumbents to structure their undertaking and follow a comprehensive , straightforward design principle . A framework known as " PASS " can help access customer data and create insights required for systemic decision making in four steps : ( 1 ) prioritize decisions , ( 2 ) absorb information , ( 3 ) scale consumer insights and ( 4 ) scrutinize insufficiencies .
Ultimately , a transition toward a systematic , data-driven approach that harvests the potential from customer data , information and insights will yield a better understanding of customer preferences , improve decision making and enable publishing houses to capture market share from their competitors .