E-business in the entertainment sector: the Egmont case

The new millennium has seen the rise and the fall of 'dotcom' firms, coupled with hype and disappointment over what the Internet will bring to business. While investors may have taken a dislike to web-based firms, problems of embracing or responding to the Internet challenge remain for managers of established firms. For instance, Gartner (2001, quoted after The Economist 2002) predicts that 70% of firms will have an incoherent e-business strategy within a year. For existing players it may be simple to set up a web-presence, but it is difficult to create a sustainable business model. This is especially true for industries in which many large, established firms face tremendous changes in both product design and business processes; for instance, those that deliver digital, or digitisable, goods. The media sector, and more specifically the entertainment sector, are prime examples. This paper investigates challenges and issues for entertainment firms active in different stages of the entertainment value chain. While they operate in a growing market, the digital character of their products places them at the centre of industrial changes triggered by the Internet and other new media. The paper provides an analysis of the changing business environment for media firms, investigates the specific approach chosen by one major player, Egmont, and concludes by assessing the important factors for media firms doing successful and profitable business in the new era. While the focus of this case is retrospective-considering the market at the time of Egmont's deliberations-the paper has the benefit of hindsight in terms of e-business developments and outcomes.

[1]  G. Hutton.  Net gain: Expanding markets through virtual communities , 1998 .

[2]  S. Gosh.  Making business sense of the Internet , 1999 .

[3]  Tom Wilson.  The new internet business book , 1997 .

[4]  R. Wigand,et al.  Electronic Markets and Virtual Value Chains on the Information Superhighway , 1995 .

[5]  Jun Li.  Electronic Commerce: Strategies and Models for Business‐to‐Business Trading , 2003 .

[6]  E. Turban,et al.  Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective , 1999 .

[7]  Bob O'Keefe,et al.  Viewing the Web as a marketplace: the case of small companies , 1997, Decis. Support Syst..

[8]  Michael J. A. Berry,et al.  Data mining techniques - for marketing, sales, and customer support , 1997, Wiley computer publishing.

[9]  P. Timmers.  Electronic Commerce: Strategies and Models for Business-to-Business Trading , 2000 .

[10]  C. Goldfinger.  Intangible Economy and its Implications for Statistics and Statisticians * , 1997 .

[11]  Charles F. Hofacker.  Internet Marketing , 1998 .

[12]  Andrew Whinston,et al.  Electronic Commerce: A Manager's Guide , 1997 .

[13]  Nicholas Negroponte,et al.  Being Digital , 1995 .

[14]  Andrew Whinston,et al.  The Economics Of Electronic Commerce , 1997 .

[15]  Mai-Lan Tomsen,et al.  Killer Content: Strategies for Web Content and E-Commerce , 2000 .

[16]  Helen Bunting,et al.  The future of the European media industry : towards the 21st century , 1996 .

[17]  D B Yoffie,et al.  Judo strategy. The competitive dynamics of Internet time. , 1999, Harvard business review.

[18]  Ken Berryman,et al.  Electronic Commerce: Three Emerging Strategies , 1998 .

[19]  Claudia Löbbecke,et al.  Exploring bookstores on the Internet: an economic perspective , 1998, European Conference on Information Systems.

[20]  Kevin F. Kelly.  New Rules for the New Economy , 1998 .

[21]  Don Peppers,et al.  The One to One Fieldbook , 1999 .

[22]  Lisa R. Klein,et al.  The Internet and International Marketing , 1996 .

[23]  Martin Bichler,et al.  Pricing Strategies and Technologies for On-Line Delivered Content , 2000, J. Organ. End User Comput..

[24]  D. Kosiur.  Understanding Electronic Commerce , 1997 .

[25]  N. Adam,et al.  Electronic Commerce: Current Research Issues and Applications , 1996 .

[26]  Rishabh Mehrotra,et al.  The Last Mile to the Internet , 1998 .

[27]  J. Sterne.  World Wide Web marketing , 1995 .

[28]  Philip Powell,et al.  Investigating the Worth of Internet Advertising , 1998 .

[29]  Dale A. Stirling,et al.  Information rules , 2003, SGMD.