Insight

Welcome to Kingston Smith W1’s blog.

We will be using this space to post original thought leadership and research relevant to the media sector. The idea is to encourage discussion around these issues and to open up new areas of debate.

Leading trade magazines regularly approach us for our thoughts on topical media issues. These will also be posted on this section of the site.

The Mashed-up business

"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." Steve Jobs, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Apple

The Mashed-up business is created by joining together products and services from different firms to create a new offering that is only possible by the unique combination of resources and capabilities that you have assembled. We've been outsourcing many of our functions to achieve lower costs and better service levels for many years, we've even started outsourcing our innovation, even crowdsourcing, to speed up development of new products and services. Now it's time to take the next step - to assemble components of other people's offerings and business models to build something brand new to offer your clients - fast. Click here to read more and to join the discussion.

Digital Economy Act under fire from all
Don’t get me wrong, I do think people should be properly paid for what is theirs, but this Act has been flawed from the start with too much given to holders of IP and copyrights. It is currently the subject of a judicial review and earlier this week the LSE’s Bart Cammaerts and Bingchun Meng claimed the Act “gets the balance between copyright enforcement and innovation wrong” and that it will “stifle innovation” in the content industry. Click here to read more and to join the discussion.

Innovation
A rising economy floats all boats, on the other hand our economy is set to grow at around only 2%, unemployment is increasing and our national debt is over £4.8 trillion, once public sector pension liabilities are included, according to the Institute of Economic Affairs. That’s four times the total annual economic output of the UK and represents £78,000 of debt for every person in the country. To thrive in this market we have to do something different, we have to innovate to stand out from the crowd. We have to recognise that we are not returning to the good-old-days of growth but to a whole new environment where we’ll use new tools and channels. New opportunities will arise and clients needs are changing to meet new consumer attitudes, values and preferences. Click here to read more and to join the discussion.

Future Financial Prospects
Since the beginning of the recession the last few years within the media and marketing services industries have been a bit of a rollercoaster.

No one is quite sure whether we have completely avoided a double dip recession and things are finally starting to look rosy or whether there is more bad news around the corner. Earlier this year we conducted a survey in to the views of managing directors and finance directors of marketing services, media and consulting businesseson the future financial prospects of their industries.

Accounting Software Package
MYOB, Sage and Paprika have come out on top in our recent survey of accounting software packages used by creative companies. None of these software packages is at the high end in terms of cost and complexity, which suggests that users consider ease of use, reliability and quality of support to be as important as the range of functions and number of reports a package can generate.

Annual Survey - Financial performance of marketing services companies
Compare your financial performance with your competitors. Our research focuses on the fortunes of firms within the sector in their most recently published accounts.

Marketing Monitor
Our bi-annual newsletter looking at key performance indicators across all marketing services disciplines.

Employee Benefits
Annual research which examines the provision of employee benefits within the marketing services community.

Non-Executive Directors
Research into the value a non-executive director can bring to marketing services companies, particularly during a recession.

Gateway to Growth
Summary of recent projects including advice on accounting, tax, due diligence, sales, and mergers and acquisitions within the creative and communications sector.

Topical Tips
Top tips on key business issues

• Marketing Week: Profit margins dip for marketing agencies as recession bites, says survey
• PR Week: PR stays strong in downturn
• Adland: Starting your own business
• PRWeek releases its Top 150 PR Consultancies 2010 Report
• Design Week: Most readers think 2010 will be better for design industry than 2009
• Design Week: Top 100
• Accountancy Age Profile: Mandy Merron