Thread regarding Follett layoffs

You are right. That is the Barnes and Noble domain.

Unfortunately Follett does not have many contracts with prestigious schools.

She is right. Students are different from school to school with regards to assistance from parents, income/disposable income and available time. Students at ND, Stanford and many other prestigious 4 year universities are not as price sensitive as students from Mesa Community College. Just like any other retailer, one size does not fit all.

A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question that is asked in order to make a point. To clarify I was not expecting an answer. Good spin on "they are looking for fast and easy and they don't care of whom just use their financial aid or mom/dad's money" versus "She said convenience and efficiency was important for busy college students". It is a good sign management is reading these posts.

I don't see there where this post said someone was stupid. She said convenience and efficiency was important for busy college students

I don't work at Follett anymore, so it is my opinion not theirs. I am sure they don't answer on a public forum like this, like all companies wouldn't.

So let me get this straight, Follett thinks "Publishers are incompetent and always have been a mess" Student aren't very competent either because "they are looking for fast and easy" and they don't care "of whom just use their financial aid or mom/dad's money". Many comments show contempt for other colleagues, departments and leadership. Well I did read the word arrogance a few times in other posts. Definition of arrogance "an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people. An attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions". Sounds like a nice culture to work in. How is that working for you by the way?

32095 is exactly correct. Follett is desperately holding onto the old.

You do not know many students do you? Students will be more than happy to go to various sites/publishers if it means saving money and yes we do care abut spending our parents money. And financial aid is usually in the form of loan we have to pay back with interest and guess what we know how to do math. We also want the right to spend OUR financial aid where we want to. No wonder you guys are in the spot you are in. You are clueless and you think we are stupid and we will just throw money around, geez. We are not the stupid ones.

Sure I believe you. Amazon is kicking publisher butt demanding price concessions. If you don't need the physical store then walk away from Amazon. This statement - partnerships with other platform hosts - sounds like a store to me. Brytewave is a platform!

Who said physical campus. It is not on whether it is physical or virtual campus store that matters, it is the contract with the university to be the sole and exclusive provider of textbooks that matters.

I can tell you that I work for a publisher and bookstores are barely mentioned when it come to digital content, if ever. As long as we have content available on our site and partnerships with other platform hosts, we have no need for the bookstore. They have no place in the equation.

Ummm, why does a student need a physical store to buy digital content? Follett's presence on campus means nothing in a digital world.

Publishers are incompetent and always have been a mess. WTF, digital books cost the same as printed material with dramatically lower creation costs? They even dumped coursesmart their own attempt at a unified front. No student or school wants to have to go to 8 different publisher websites to buy their books. There will always be a middle man be it Amazon or Follett or Barnes and Noble. Follett and BN have an advantage with on campus locations. Direct access to students, many of whom just use their financial aid or mom/dad's money to purchase their textbooks-they are looking for fast and easy.

@31262

It's not the future that's bright. It's an oncoming train. The kool-aid isn't so sweet now is it.

Some of the long time employees (few if any remaining) will recall the late 1990's when follett hired several of the Radio Shack battery boys. Riley D in the Corporate office and several RM's like Arnie S and M. R. The Battery Boys did not bring any innovation or operational expertise nor has the KMart Kids. Follett is following KM/Sears and RS on this slow descent in to corporate oblivion.

Amazon already is a publisher. In May, 2011, Amazon announced that Laurence Kirshbaum, a longtime publisher of mass-market books and the former C.E.O. of Time Warner Books, would run a new trade division of Amazon Publishing, in New York. Kirshbaum is well liked in the industry. Authors become Amazon partners, earning up to seventy per cent in royalties, as opposed to the fifteen per cent that authors typically make on hardcovers. Amazon’s identity and goals are never clear and always fluid, which makes the company destabilizing and intimidating.

The students, schools and tax payers don't need to pay a middle man. Education is going to be made affordable. Get the dollar signs out of your eyes. Microsoft, B&N, Blackboard and Pearson which is already way ahead of the curve have already partnered together. It's not just delivery of books its the entire educational package.

Well there are only two things left to do: start hiring Radio Shack executives, and start a battery club.

31262 You're forgetting one thing. Amazon & Apple doesn't have the overhead & the crushing weight of all of the long term contracts with the schools that Follett does. They have to operate those stores. They are obligated under contract to do so. The only out they have is to end the contracts. Then what? They get sued by the university, lose their market share & slowly die a painful death as they close more stores. It's a microcosm of what is going on at radio shack. The shack used to have stores in every mall. They couldn't keep paying the high rents at the malls when people started going to best buy (etc.) & buying electronics online. So they started closing stores in malls & opening in strip centers. Bought them a few years of operating. Now they are on the verge of collapse & their stock has been devalued to junk status from almost 6$ per share in the early 90's to .92cents as of last week. Business Insider & other business "watchers" expect them to be completely gone by the end of 2015. What's Follett looking at now? Opening off campus stores in strip centers. It would be funny how similar the situations are if it wasn't so sad. And remember, everyone knows who radio shack is (was).

Why does anyone need a middle man like Follett to sell digital? Follett will be cut out of the equation on digital as they should be.

@31262. So the bright future of Follett is based on the strategy developed by GS of the previous executive team? In that case let's bring them back. At least they know the business and how to execute the strategy.

If that is the future Follett is in an excellent competitive advantage. Digital books (from any provider) and more important Included program. Add to the tuition bill, lower the retail price to students and make sure that each student has a textbook and the best chance for success in class. Publishers have demonstrated that they want don't want to sell directly to students. Apple sells at full list price, and Amazon is alienating publishers. Future so bright, I gotta wear shades.

Both the educational and the health industry are being transformed. If you sell Pepsi or pet rocks and make billions in profit good, great as a matter of fact we applauded you. Not educational and health care. Both of these institutions started with churches, non-profit, and philanthropists. People like Stanford and John Hopkins did not give their fortunes to make corporations rich. They did it to help others. I do not know of anyone who does not think teachers and doctors deserve a good paycheck, probably a raise. But the foundation that built these institutions are going back to their roots. The "profit" is being removed. These are not what the fore founders intended and just like water will find its way. There will be abundant opportunity for those who want to help including jobs, but just to make a profit or get rich not so much opportunity, better look else where. Force of the market maybe, spiritual awareness, being human name it whatever, analyze it up down and sideways. Maybe its the peoples choice or maybe that how it started until it got bastardized for money and its to important for society to let it continue on its current course.

You need to look at the bigger picture. World wide leaders want education available for everyone. There have been some that have been doing it for awhile this particular one has more than 190,000 students. Staff numbers come to over 8,000, including nearly 6,400 tutors. By 1971, the OU accepted its first cohort of 25,000 students, the equivalent of almost one fifth of the entire student population in Britain at the time.

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/into-university/az-uni-colleges/the-open-university-9646770.html