In 2008, online accounted for over 50% of revenue, up from 37% in 2006. Online solutions to the challenges our professional customers face in their daily work is the primary way we enhance value. To ensure content matches price, we have been accelerating the range and usability of our products, allowing customers to cross-link, cross-reference, and search information to an extent and scale never before possible. By providing workflow solutions, we are improving our customers’ productivity, achieving competitive advantage, and closer partnerships.
Online can also save lives. As CEO Sir Crispin Davis noted in a May 2008 Financial Times article, the digital revolution can rapidly disseminate scientific research and medical information. He cited more than €250m we have invested in electronic platforms, and more than €30m to digitise historic print collections for important journals like The Lancet. As he noted, the key is “to move from static reference information to real-time, dynamic clinical decision support at the point of care – be it in hospital, clinic, at home or anywhere in-between....The cost of doing nothing is too high. Study after study has documented the frightening cost of medical errors, widespread deficiencies in basic preventive care, and glacially slow diffusion of new knowledge from research to medical practice.”
We are working to revolutionise health science through products like Procedures Consult, which uses online video, text and animation to help physicians and students learn and perform more than 150 medical procedures. It was named “Best E-Product” for 2008 by the American Association of Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division.
Other innovative products are growing our business and benefiting society. LexisNexis’ TotalPatent is a single source for global patents, a primary driver in research and development. Profiling tools provide alerts on industry developments, patent prosecution, infringements, and identification of licensing opportunities. In 2008, it won the 2008 Software & Information Industry Association’s CODiE Award for Best Online Science or Technology Service.
Reed Business Information’s XpertHR helps practitioners advance good practice in people management by aggregating, necessary and constantly updated human resources information in one place. Substantial upgrades in 2008 included the addition of Good Practice Guides – mini textbooks on important areas of employment practice – to complement over 27,000 articles from Reed Business Information and LexisNexis.
Collaboration between Reed Exhibitions’ Reed Medical Education and Massachusetts General Hospital is fostering innovative ways to broaden continuing medical education, such as 2008’s Major Depressive Disorder: Present State of Clinical Care. Although a live event held in Boston, webcasting allowed 225 additional psychiatrists and others across the US to participate. They could ask questions of the faculty and join audience response polls. All attendees gained insight into the latest treatments that can lead to cures.