The SanomaWSOY Group is constantly changing and growing. One of the major changes in 2006 was the reorganization of its educational and book publishing division, resulting in the foundation of the SanomaWSOY Education and Books division. SanomaWSOY Education, WSOY General Literature and WSOYpro are the three main businesses of the Division, which is headed by Jacques Eijkens, also CEO of SanomaWSOY Education and Veli-Pekka Elonen, President of WSOY, as his deputy.
Power to business The Division's first year has been very interesting with a lot of challenges and opportunities. Businesses are going through considerable changes, executing their strategy in order to be prepared for future challenges. SanomaWSOY Education, one of the leading educational publishers in Europe, acquired the Polish publisher Nowa Era in 2007. "Nowa Era is a very strong company, operating in a large CEE market. We are very proud to have Nowa Era on our Division. They will definitely benefit from and contribute to our ambitious goals" says Jacques Eijkens. | Veli-Pekka Elonen and Jacques Eijkens |
"We are also very pleased with the results the entire educational group has achieved through close co-operation. Several standardisation projects have been initiated, in which all the business units work closely together in order to learn and benefit from each other", continues Mr. Eijkens.
WSOY General Literature is Finland's leading book publisher. For a company as strong as WSOY, it is essential to develop and perform highly year on year. This year's focus has been on developing the organization, especially marketing and sales.
"We have been very active in co-operating with distribution channels and the presentation of our new titles to the bookstores and other retail channels has succeeded well. We are also about to launch our renewed brand and advertising approach", explains Veli-Pekka Elonen.
"All these initiatives together with a strong pool of authors and great content, support us to be the best publisher and forerunner in the industry. But this is not all. In this digital era, also WSOY's general literature will develop new approaches. This fall the renewed suomalainen.com will be relaunched and the marketing efforts focus on enticing the customer to buy our books also via the internet," continues Mr. Elonen
WSOYpro, Business Information & Services, is moving fast in the market of language services. AAC Global provides translations, training and project management. The acquisition of the Finnish company Noodi and the Swedish company Works, as well as the opening of a sales office in St. Petersburg in Russia, are steps towards the international expansion of this business.
Ambitions
SanomaWSOY Education and Books keeps on growing. In educational publishing the goal is to become a leading player in Europe. In general literature the focus will be kept on the Finnish market, marketing strategy and digital opportunities, in order to achieve an even stronger position. In language services considerable effort will be put in achieving a leading position in Finland and acquire an entrance in the international marketplace.
"Focus is really the key for executing our growth strategy. One is digitalisation: anticipate on the huge potential of digitalisation opportunities in all of our markets. Furthermore, we need to exploit our potential. We need to co-operate internationally in order to reach a high level of synergy within all the business areas. And last, but definitely not least, we need to develop our people's competences, our human qualities, our people's business spirit. To keep growing and if we want to play a leading role in the digital era, that is an important success factor", comments Eijkens.
"We have already accomplished quite a bit over the last year, but still our ambitions remain very high. We will have to work hard, but with all our professionals working together we can accomplish a great deal and build great businesses", concludes Mr. Eijkens.