Dealing with Digital Disruption as an Educational Publisher in 2024

‘Digital Disruption‘ – most of us have heard this phrase at least once in the past year. It’s been the buzzword of 2023 and continues to be so in 2024.

But what exactly is it, and how does it affect the educational publishing industry?

We answer these questions in this article.

Table of Contents

• What Is Digital Disruption?
• The Impact on Educational Publishing 
• Reasons for This Impact

• • Uninterrupted Access to Academic & Training Materials
  • Educational Materials Become Inexpensive 
  • The Ease of Content Authoring 

• The Challenges to Educational Publishing 
• Tips to Embrace Digital Disruption as an Educational Publisher

• • The Gartner A6 Model 
  • More Tips

• Why Choose KITABOO?

Digital disruption refers to the radical changes that have taken place in the world due to digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation. These changes have caused a fundamental shift in consumer behavior as well as in the way businesses provide products or services.

Educational publishers have been experiencing disruption through digital technology for many years now. The digitization of encyclopedias in the form of content-sharing open-source websites are examples of disruption in educational publishing.

The coronavirus pandemic intensified this disruption. Education, whether for school or beyond, has moved away from the physical classroom into the online world.

Already 50% of school/collegiate students and 80% of working professionals have used an eLearning platform. In fact, the eLearning market is expected to value around $350 billion by 2025.

At its core, digital disruption is democratizing education & making learning materials more accessible. Let’s take a look at how exactly this happens.

The Indian edtech market is expected to be worth $10.4 billion by 2025 and has over 37 million paying users. Similarly, the edtech market in Africa was worth $2.8 billion in 2022, and there’s a forecasted 11.2% CAGR between 2024 & 2028. The numbers are similar in China, thanks to their 400 million students who consume educational content online.

Educational content published on digital platforms has made learning more accessible across the world. Especially during COVID-19, when over 1.5 billion students globally were forced to learn from home, publishers who made their content available in digital formats allowed learners to continue their education without a break.

Similarly, with more people working remotely or in a hybrid setup today,the disruption in educational publishing makes online industry reports, case study analyses, and training material available to workers worldwide.

Lack of financial resources and absence of sponsors usually affects access to books, CDs, and other materials in academic and corporate institutions alike.However, the disruption towards eLearning has allowed anyone with an internet connection to learn from experts around the world for a fraction of the cost.

Online learning platforms offer courses across disciplines, and some have even partnered with leading academic institutions and companies to offer certifications with transferable credits at a significantly discounted fee. Similarly, educational content can also be offered via social media channels for a nominal fee, if any at all. 

This access to educational material has allowed individuals from different economic stratas to access superior-quality education.

These days, it is very easy for any subject matter expert to use a content authoring tool to create eBooks, videos, podcasts, infographics, etc., and publish them online.

In fact, many educational companies are choosing content authoring and distribution tools, like KITABOO, to create and share their material with learners. 

With such tools, it becomes increasingly easy to take ownership of content creation and publishing while retaining one’s competitive advantage and intellectual property.

Additionally, with authoring tools running on the cloud, data storage, data backup, and platform scalability become hassle-free.

Despite these benefits, things haven’t been easy for the educational publishing industry. Below are some of the common challenges.

• Absence of the right technology to adapt to the disruption.
• Lack of proper technical skills in teams who work within publishing.
• Limited knowledge about data/content protection rights for digital publishing.
• Continuously evolving customer needs and tastes.
• Cybersecurity issues and the threat of copyright infringement..
• Budget constraints that prevent digital transformation.

Addressing these challenges becomes very important for institutions who want to survive this disruption. That’s where the Gartner A6 model comes in.

In 2019, a firm called Gartner developed a model for businesses to deal with disruption.

Here’s what it entailed.

Six strategies were listed: 

• Wait and watch: Although this may feel passive, done right it could give businesses valuable insights into the trend.
• Approach the challenge head-on: This could involve a quick change in strategy.
• Look for alternatives: Instead of scrambling in an already competitive market, one could choose to create an entirely new niche for themselves. 
• Form partnerships: Tackling a disruption might require new resources. The quickest way to gather these is by forming partnerships with other companies or vendors.
• Acquire other businesses: Those who have the capital, can acquire a smaller business that has already embraced the disruption. 
• Ignore the disruption: Strictly speaking, this is not a recommended strategy, but companies do end up doing it for various reasons as it does not require any new effort. 

An organization might choose any of these strategies to deal with digital disruption. As an educational publisher, there are a few more actions one can take.

• Reanalyze your audience to understand how their needs and behaviors have changed.
• Prepare your company’s leadership to adapt to and implement new strategies.
• Analyze your current resources; do you have the technology, know-how, manpower, budget and protections to run a digital-first publishing setup? Accordingly, fill the gaps
• Be flexible in your approach as dexterity plays a key role in responding effectively to disruptions.

An all-in-one content creation, publishing and distribution platform such as KITABOO can help you develop this dexterity.

KITABOO is a powerful enterprise-class digital publishing & content creation platform designed to support the needs of educational publishers, corporations and other organizations that use learning material. We  transform the way you provide learning in a digitally disrupted environment.

Here is what you can do with KITABOO:

• Create highly- engaging interactive eBooks 
• Distribute content securely with Digital Rights Management
• Share content across devices and platforms with ease
• Create your own branded eReader app
• Use analytics to gain insights on customer behavior 

To explore more ways in which KITABOO can help you deal with digital disruption, write to us at contact@kitaboo.com.

Suggested Reads:

• Training Management Software
• Summative Assessments
• Best eBook Hosting Platforms for Digital Publishing