Values

wants to start reading the third, they can immediately buy
the book in our shop with their eReader or mobile phone,” he
says.
Perhaps this trilogy could be Christopher Paolini’s
“Eragon.” The bestselling author’s novels long have been
published in e-book editions by Random House. The world’s
largest trade-book publisher began offering e-books in the
early 1990s, mainly in the USA. And it’s increasingly paying
off. While Random House has roughly tripled its number of
available e-books in the past three years, sales have multiplied
greatly – almost fourfold in the last year alone. In the
U.S., customers can choose from some 13,000 titles.
In the U.S. and U.K., Random House also sells many of its
e-books with bonus material, such as an introductory video
from the author. “In order to make use of the advantages of
the Web, and the audiovisual opportunities of smartphones,
we’ve developed premium e-books,” said manager Fionnuala
Duggan, pointing to the website “bookandbeyond.com.”
And a study by German market research group GfK delivered
especially encouraging results. The study revealed that more
than half of e-book buyers included few or no conventional
books in their recent purchases. That means that new target
groups are being created through this new method of selling
books.
– 30 –
BUSINESS
PROCESS
OUTSOURCING (BPO)
In order to concentrate on their
core competencies, many corporations
are outsourcing entire business
processes. They often supply the
service provider with goals, but no
concrete plan as to how they should
be realized. Arvato is ready and
able, as evidenced by a major
contract it recently signed
with Microsoft.
DIGITAL
READING
Direct Group has spotted new
business opportunities in the
growing popularity of electronic
reading. In France, for example, many
publishers are in need of support in the
digitalization of their catalogue stocks.
And in Germany, the group is
planning to launch an online kiosk
for digital books, magazines, and
newspapers.
For RTL Group, the main advantage of digital sales methods
is greater fl exibility in terms of time. It used to be that
viewers had to sit in front of the television at the right time in
order to catch their favorite TV shows. Today, they have the
fl exibility of watching shows from RTL Group channels when
it suits them, simply by calling up missed programs online.
This sort of “catch-up” TV service is usually free of cost in the
days immediately following the original broadcast – and it’s
growing in popularity.
In 2009, the online platforms of RTL Group registered
more than a billion video requests Europe-wide – an increase
of around 50 percent in comparison to 2008. In France and
the Netherlands, viewers can also call up programs via their
cable box, and watch them directly on their television screen.
Studies have shown that viewers accept that on-demand videos
are periodically interrupted by ads, just like normal television.
And that means that RTL has spotted an interesting
new source of income.
Arvato also sees huge potential in the digital network, but
on a totally different level: taking over entire business processes
for companies that are global players. “Many large corporations
are increasingly interested in standardization of
global processes such as customer registration or billing, because
that offers them huge savings potential,” says Matthias