Help for publishers in distress
At a time when many publishing companies are laying off staff or going bankrupt, there is much talk of learning new skills and learning to adapt. But what does this really mean? Almost 80 percent rush into developing new products and services. Around 60 percent attempt to improve efficiency, followed by efforts to sign on new and better authors. Finally in fourth place, a little more than half of the 227 interviewees responded: Yes, we help our employees to develop their professional qualifications. According to a study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA, these are the principal measures being taken by the publishing industry to combat its economic difficulties. The Publishers Training Forum project (LEVER, german Lernforum Verlagswesen) is aiming to deal with staff training and improving their skills - an issue that frequently gets relegated to the back seat. The project will be presented at the Learntec trade fair in Karlsruhe on February 4-7. Patronized by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labor, four companies of the publishing and training industry are bundling up their knowledge and practical experiences. Michael Opitz, IPA project manager, emphasizes, The focus is on people. In the long run, it pays to invest in your staff by giving them some market-oriented training. One example: A publisher is unsure whether new media could be an important market segment for him. What target groups does he want to aim at and how should they be approached? How many customers regularly use the Internet, PDAs, electronic books, printing on demand, CD-ROMs or DVDs - how and to which extent? Answers are given through LEVERs Web-based training modules or through lectures and seminars given by its staff. Once the publisher has identified a market opportunity and plans to venture into one of the new publishing areas, the LEVER project partners can help it on the way. They conduct customer surveys and analyze the results to determine how the new product is used and accepted. The end result is a market-based concept that includes an economic analysis and human resources requirements. If this combination of conventional and new training methods and quality services continues to prove successful, Opitz and his colleagues want to extend the concept to other industry sectors. Of course we havent overlooked our established customers in the automobile and engineering industries, and their suppliers, who also have training needs. For further information:,Dipl.-Tech.-Pad. Michael Opitz ,Telefon: +49 7 11 / 9 70-19 22 ,Fax: +49 7 11 / 9 70-97 19 22 Fraunhofer-Institut fur Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung IPA ,Nobelstra?e 12 ,D-70569 Stuttgart ,http://www.ipa.fraunhofer.de/ Links: ,IPA: LEVER ,http://129.233.113.94/lever/default.htm Messe Learntec ,http://www.learntec.de/
Pays
Germany