Facing a double whammy, publishers should box clever

Received wisdom is that in recessions businesses fall prey to ‘short-termism’, and that this is necessarily a bad thing. But the truth is that even the most far-sighted, deep-pocketed publisher will have a different orientation towards risk and investment in times like these.

With resources constrained and markets uncertain, greater business agility becomes not just a fashionable mantra but a necessary attribute for survival. That’s not the same thing as short-termism. It’s all about speed and flexibility.

Information providers face a double whammy. With uncertain markets on the one hand and dizzying, disruptive changes in information technology on the other affecting their businesses, they need to respond quickly to rapidly changing circumstances. This could mean refocusing an online publishing strategy in a hurry, or even making mid-course corrections to a business model.

The need for greater agility in turn creates a new set of requirements for online publishing projects, and for the teams who manage and develop them.

Agility = speed + flexibility

With faster product cycles, and increased pressure on technology investments to justify themselves within ever-tighter timeframes, speed-to-market becomes an essential focus for businesses that need to hone their competitive edge. Publishing platforms and tools must respond to this scenario by facilitating shorter development times … and faster payback.

‘Rapid’ tools and methodologies build on established success to provide publishing solutions that can be developed in weeks rather than months. And Rapid development can also bring cost savings. Because if time is tight, so is money. That’s the other double whammy.

Unfortunately, the downward pressure on budgets is not being met by any simplification in the challenges publishers face. There is no one size fits all, out of the box solution that can cater for the huge diversity of published content and the individual needs of users, and bring down development costs through the introduction of more generic publishing products. The other side of the agility equation is flexibility – the flexibility provided by a custom solution. The smarter route to bringing down cost lies in taking a pragmatic, 80-20 rule approach to limiting feature sets. Coupled with a flexible upgrade path, the Rapid approach allows publishers to launch faster, at lower cost – and iterate more quickly. Risk is lower and payback quicker. Any sacrifices made in functionality at the initial stage can be addresses once the platform has proved itself.

We’ll be talking more about the Rapid approach to online publishing on this blog, so watch this space. Follow Semantico on Twitter for regular updates.