In 1996, after 11 years of independent, operation, I sold Bio-Commerce Data to Publications Ltd., a much larger U.K.-headquartered business information provider, known worldwide for its newsletter for the pharmaceutical industry, Scrip, and database of drugs in development, Pharma-projects, also publishes other newsletters, numerous reports, and directories for the medical devices and diagnostics, crop protection, and animal health markets. So, why did I sell and join a larger organization again?
The reasons were numerous but they serve to illustrate many of the issues of publishing. First of all, as an entrepreneur, I needed an exit route for the investment I had made in my own company. I had been lucky in that I had not had to raise external capital (and exchange that for an equity share in the business), so I had no investor shareholders to consider and no debt finance (e.g., a bank loan) to pay off.
However, I had deliberately retained virtually all the company's profits to help its cash flow and facilitate new investments, and had not taken a full market-value salary from the operation. After 10 years, I felt it was time to cash in this investment. I had built the business up to a point where it was not wholly dependent on my editorial input on a day-to-day basis, and it had annual revenues sufficient to interest a larger company able to fund further growth potential. These were very important factors in finding the right buyer.
Selling a company properly is a fairly time-consuming and expensive business. My legal costs were 10% of the sale price, their costs including "due diligence" work to review the company's financial position and legal agreements were even more, and the process took about 6 months to complete after the initial discussions. If you are too small, no one will bother with this, although they might acquire a title (i.e., one book or journal), which is an approach generally involving less risk than buying the entire business. If you seek to do the latter, you must find an appropriate partner. We were approached by several more scientific database publishers over a period of some years, but ultimately we felt that being part of a business information-oriented group gave us better access to our markets.
Second, I felt personally trapped, unable to expand the business further from my own resources of capital and time, and finding it difficult to attract good staff to a small operation in times of economic uncertainty. At the same time, I was unwilling to give up an activity that still had growth potential and that was relied on by thousands of users. We were going through a slightly difficult patch with some changes in clients and personnel, and would have found it hard to expand when we needed it most. I found that I wanted to be part of a larger organization again, where I could call on the support services of other departments, particularly for marketing and sales activities where critical mass is so important.
To grow, we needed in-house advertising channels with high circulation, we needed sales staff for both the U.S. and European markets who could call on large clients to negotiate customized data delivery deals, and we needed more expertise in large-scale direct mail marketing. In addition, we hoped that administrative services like personnel, accounts, purchasing, and so on, would be more cost-effective as part of a larger enterprise.
Finally, the publishing industry is undergoing a great deal of consolidation with many observers claiming that by the year 2000, there will be only five or six publishers of note. I felt it was unlikely that Bio-Commerce Data would be able to continue to compete successfully in this environment, especially as some of our competitors were already being acquired by larger organizations.
After so long on my own, I felt ready to go back to an environment where I could share and discuss the day-to-day problems of management with peers and have other people to bounce ideas off of for strategic development. I had never really found a business partner who could share the load fully and whose skills would complement mine. I had difficulty balancing the needs for sales development with editorial responsibilities and all the day-to-day administration needs of a small business.
So how has it worked out? When I sold BCD, I agreed to continue to manage it as a wholly owned subsidiary of, while also taking on the role of General Manager, Biotechnology Publications for the parent company. In this capacity, I am charged with developing and consolidating our publishing activities in the biotech sector, and I have budget responsibility for another biotech publishing subsidiary recently acquired, Bio Venture Publishing Inc. in California.
A year into this new phase, I don't regret the decision to sell but I'm working harder than at any time in my life since I started my own company! I am enjoying the new challenges, but inevitably some things have been easier to adjust to than expected, others harder. In any large company, some individuals are more capable and more dedicated than others and it takes a while to learn what people are like, or even who does what. I found that being physically integrated with the rest of the company helped a great deal in this respect.
Many scientists who are considering a move into publishing ask me what it is really like in comparison to the lab. The publishing environment is probably more similar to corporate research than to academia. It's more than a full-time job for most people. Positions are salaried, not paid by the hour, and most staff are expected to work significant amounts of unpaid overtime-the more senior you are, generally the more extra time is usually put in.
You are expected to take your responsibilities very seriously-you need to be available for contact even on vacation, to work weekends if necessary to meet a deadline, and so forth. This may sound pretty familiar to researchers but the hours are generally less flexible-no long summer breaks from teaching, and an expectation that you are always in the office at least from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M., even if you are also working until 8 P.M.! The office environment is somewhat more formal in terms of dress, and of course the work is mainly done sitting down! Meetings are an unavoidable time sink and, in a larger organization, memos and other internal correspondence (weekly or monthly reports, etc.) are also a perennial feature.
At the editorial level, the work may be very routine but one must remain very alert to detail while still delivering quality work, and must ensure that all production deadlines are met. As a manager, work is generally somewhat less focused, with lots of minor actions to track alongside the more strategic work and longer term projects, which gives one a constant sense of juggling (too) many balls at once.
Constant rescheduling of activities is necessary to keep things prioritized appropriately, and it can sometimes be difficult to find the time to do large projects like business plans or annual budgets. One can expect a certain amount of administrative support with things like purchasing, travel arrangements, and filing, but many managers today handle all their own correspondence by e-mail or directly rather than by using a secretary. I spend a lot of time interacting with other departments, such as personnel, accounts, creative (design) services, and so on, as well as managing my own staff. Because my position is at a fairly senior level in the company-I report directly to the Managing Director, who is also one of the two owners of the company-I have a considerable degree of autonomy, but obviously I am now accountable to others for my actions in a way that I was not while running my own business.
Management (of anything, probably, but certainly in publishing) seems to divide into four categories: the mundane but necessary details (authorizing payments, checking that actions have been carried out by others, claiming travel expenses, etc.), the emergency fire-fighting (organizing temporary staff when someone quits or is sick, getting the computer systems running again, and so forth), meeting defined objectives (hitting sales targets, carrying out pre-agreed projects or tasks, publishing on time, etc.) and planning for the future (which can be everything from doing next year's budgets, to new product development, getting competitive intelligence, or sniffing out potential acquisitions).
Balancing these is the trick. You must be organized and while enthusiastic and optimistic, you must also be realistic about time scales and the possibilities. You must be pragmatic about the support available from others, whether it is your own staff or colleagues in other departments-work together when you can motivate everyone to achieve shared corporate goals but find other solutions when you must, which sometimes means to do it yourself! Be wary of the temptation to abdicate responsibilities to others if they are not delivering for you. The buck still stops with you as a manager but you can't do it all personally. Balance and determination are the key. I rarely take "no" for an answer and I will not be defeated by machines, however recalitrant a software package may seem!
