A future for publishers serving technology industry markets: adapting to the opportunity of the Internet era Available to Purchase

The future possible roles of the publisher in industry markets are considered, especially for firms close to high technology. It is forecast that the Internet will become the dominant business space for firms. Even in physical manufacturing the advances of the Internet are becoming important with changes in supply and distribution patterns. In order to meet the new era of opportunity three scenarios are presented. Firstly, continuation of the current one with the publisher as information provider. Secondly, the publisher may become an orchestrator of interactivity. Hence they can be the hub of a new intelligence facility for firms to know their external environment better. This also would be an appropriate response to the expected steep increase in requests for more customised sources of information. Lastly, the publisher can go a stage further and become a consultant or facilitator of the agile enterprise based on the Internet. This would enable the client company to become a more adaptive and proactive entity afterwards. Recommendations are made for assisting the shift for these further scenarios to become possible.