The
publishing outsourcing industry in India is worth
about $ 0.22 bln and growing at a 35-40 per cent
annual growth rate. Not only is a new kind of
publishing business being outsourced to India
but the volume of original outsourcing jobs is
also growing. The beneficiaries are the over 25
publishing houses, including SR Nova, Cipha, Macmillan,
Scientific Publishing and Thomson Digital, located
in Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore respectively.
Thomson
Digital, with its headquarters in Noida near Delhi,
is awaiting the outcome of the company’s
recent bid for British Library business in the
UK. The company has pitched for the contract to
digitise and archive the last 300 years’
newspapers at the library.
The
Macmillan India office in Bangalore has recently
won a major overseas contract from a Yellow Pages
company in the US. Macmillan is composing nearly
4,000 ads a day with the number set to increase
to nearly 6,000 in the coming months.
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Techbooks in Delhi uses high-end technology BPO
processes, which involve digitising content, XML
files (tagging and footers), copy editing, electronic
data processing, data conversion, electronic publishing
and IT-enabled services and archiving.
Companies
are also starting to offer project management services.
Here, while the content is provided by multinational
clients, the rest of the work (co-ordinating with
the author, publisher and the printer) is handled
by Indian companies. Digitising content for the
printer or web-enabling it for an internet edition,
art and design work, graphics, charts and illustration
– its all done here in India.
Going
by current market scenarios, nearly 70-80 per cent
work comes from Europe. But now even the US is waking
up to the benefits of outsourcing to India. Companies
such as Thomson Digital and Techbooks are expecting
a lot of business from the US colleges and universities.
Infact Techbooks has tie-ups with the Cambridge
and Oxford University Press and is now getting active
in Boston. In the last five years, publishing companies
in India have serviced major publishers in Europe
– Blackwell, Elsevier Science, John Wiley
& Sons, Reed Business and the Pearson group,
among others. The majority of the work has been
in the STM (Scientific, Technical and Medical) journal
area.
Last
but not the least, a few international publishers
are setting up base here. Springer of Germany is
here. So is the US-based Cadmus, which has formed
a joint venture with Datamatics to set up Knowledge
Works Global Ltd. The Dublin based Datapage, too,
has opened an office in Chennai. |
Our Say |
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| The
publishing outsourcing BPO industry
in India, unlike its counterparts in
the IT and ITES industry has been the
silent star performer. Industry players
state that the top lines of 15-20 companies
in this segment are growing by 30-50
per cent. The quality levels are to
the extent of 99.97 per cent and the
companies have a gross profit margin
of 60-70 per cent.
India’s
advantage comes from India’s vast
English speaking population and its
innovative use of IT. Publishing initially
did not look like a BPO operation- it
was skill-based work, mostly typesetting.
Today, it is IT-enabled and it is 25
to 60 per cent cheaper to get the work
done here. However there are certain
imminent challenges like upgrading staff
skills and lack of a regulatory association
to represent the industry’s interests.
But
the opportunities are huge. For example,
the Yellow Pages market in the US produces
nearly 600 different publications a
year, often twice – and offers
big outsourcing opportunities.
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