McGraw Hill: an evolving business

This is a fascinating FT.com interview with David Levin, CEO of McGraw Hill, that featured tons of economics and business concepts which help to contextualise much of the learning we cover in our Economics and Business courses.

McGraw Hill are an education company, with few competitors due to their size and the high entry barriers in the markets in which they operate. They have recently exited the summative testing market in the US (the Common Core) to concentrate on the 'learning' side of the industry. Much of the changes the business is undergoing are in line with perceived changes in education. Levin references the 'death' of textbooks in higher education and a refocus of their purpose which is now less about testing and more about developing learning.

They discuss MOOCs, social learning and online education as well as talking about moving between markets, investing in opportunities and innovation and changing a business model. Levin explains that their flexibility and preemptive approach is due to their owners being a private equity firm rather than a publicly listed company, which would be less likely to be able to engage in such quick decision making and speedy changes. 'Moving with the times' is essential and we have seen numerous huge firms fall by not embracing change. Think Kodak, Borders and Blockbuster to name a few that failed to capitalise on opportunities and were beaten out of their markets by innovators...

Watch the video, there's some great references to help apply theory to...

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