Trade.Information

Product Name: Business Media

Product Description

Hearst Business Media (HBM), an operating group of The Hearst Corporation, operates more than 20 business-to-business information services, electronic databases, and publications. The group has significant holding in the automotive, electronic, and medical/pharmaceutical industries. Among its core competencies is the aggregation of time-sensitive price, and product and technical information that is integrated into business and professional processes. “The trends in place now in health care and pharmaceuticals are going to drive the markets into the future. We are going to see tremendous information-driven change in all areas of health care.” –Richard Malloch, President, Hearst Business Media

How much new information is added to the world each year? Consider this: A terabyte is equal to the text in a million books—the U.S. Library of Congress is about 10 terabytes. Multiply a terabyte by a thousand, and you get a unit called a petabyte—somewhere between one and two of them would equal the holdings of all the academic research libraries around the world. Now multiply that by a thousand, and you get an exabyte. In 2003, according to a recent study, the world generated five exabytes—roughly equal to all the words spoken in the entire history of humankind.

Clearly, consumers are heading toward a state of information overload. About 92 percent of that new information is stored on magnetic media, which makes it electronically accessible. But at last count, even Google lists only some 8 billion Web pages. And, for the record, the human brain holds about as much as it did in the days when the entire world’s information was carved on clay tablets.

“The problem,” said Malloch, “is not the amount of information. More information is good. The problem is access and understanding and perspective. The solution is to reduce unimaginable amounts of information down to what is most important to a user, and then make it available in the most usable form—on demand—exactly when and where they need it.”

To provide that access and availability to a growing list of business customers, Business Media’s strategy is to go well beyond being a supplier of data. Instead, the group is working to become integrated into the customer’s work-flow.

“We want to deliver information that is highly personalized and constantly updated—built around what you need right now—to create understanding, find answers and make good decisions,” explained Malloch. “The delivery can be an electronic database coupled with proprietary software developed by the group’s systems engineers.”

The company’s 20-plus business-to-business information services target areas such as health care, pharmaceuticals, electronics and automotive, where the intersection of demand and technology create the greatest information needs and opportunities for growth.

In health care, Zynx Health, a 2004 acquisition, provides scientific research and best practice guidelines to health-care providers—including more than 900 hospitals—across the country. “The point,” Malloch said, “is to put the latest and best knowledge into a computerized delivery system, which will help our customers deliver evidence-based care, which improves quality, lowers costs and reduces medical errors.”

In its first full year as a Hearst company, Zynx had record sales for the company’s flagship product, ZynxOrder™, a Web-based knowledge- management system used to incorporate best practices into the clinical work- flow. Contracting with some of the most prestigious hospitals in America, including Vanderbilt University and Baylor Healthcare, Zynx more than doubled its annual revenue in 2005, and its annual contract value increased by 135 percent. Zynx clients now represent more than 30 percent of all inpatient admissions in the U.S.

The company focused on new products as well. With the launch of ZynxCare™ in June, Zynx helped advance evidence-based health care with a new tool for customizing and managing interdisciplinary plans of care. And with the recent launch of Zynx Ambulatory Care™, Zynx is expanding its foothold beyond the acute-care setting to bring evidence-based decision support to the physician’s office.

Business Media is also targeting the growing demand for integrated drug information. First DataBank is finding growth in emerging applications—particularly the computerization of the prescription process and largely paper-based storage and movement of health-care records. The company recently launched a major drug database development project (OrderView Med Knowledge Base™) aimed at streamlining the medication order process for clinicians.

First DataBank also continues to expand in the health-care payer segment—including creating drug content within Web portals for major health- care companies such as Argus Health Systems, Caremark, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, WebMD and Wellpoint. First DataBank strengthened its leading position in Canada by signing agreements with various provincial governments to be the drug information provider for their Electronic Health Record applications. The Canadian federal government, through Canada Health Infoway, is funding a major push to have electronic health records in place for 50 percent of Canadian citizens by 2009.

First DataBank Europe, which is growing quickly and showing strong financial results, continues to consolidate a relationship with the National Programme for IT, the largest program of its kind in the world. Once installed, the program’s IT infrastructure and systems will connect more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health-care professionals within the National Health Service (NHS) in England, improving care for more than 50 million patients.

Business Media also targets physicians’ downtime. Distributed through office-based medical practices, Diversion magazine is a monthly travel and lifestyle publication edited for physicians at leisure. The publication, which is growing in both readers and exposure, added 20,000 physicians to its circulation in 2005 in the fields of OB/GYN, cardiology and internal medicine, increasing its appeal for advertisers.

Floor Covering Weekly has been on the market for 50 years, but continues to grow with new print and electronic products. New in 2005: an expanded editorial staff, new features and two electronic newsletters—FCW Prime for industry executives, and FCW Global, which begins to move the company into international markets. FCW posted record sales in 2005 for its Annual Statistical Report, the ReCo Market Intelligence Report and the Annual Product Source Guide. The publication also extended a successful sponsorship program in which advertisers sponsor advertorial content.

“We have very demanding customers, which you would expect as we become more and more integral to the success of their business,” Malloch added. “The trends in place now in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and automotive are going to drive the markets into the future. We will see tremendous information-driven change in all areas of health care. Automotive will need more and better information to compete in an obviously difficult global market. The same goes for electronics. There will be much more international growth across the board. In a global information economy, any industry must act on data they believe are timely, rich, accurate and accessible. We have the organization and technologies in place to help them make that happen.”

Company Details

"In our third century, Hearst is continuing to place traditional media products alongside exciting new technologies in a formula that has consistently proven successful." —Victor F. Ganzi Ganzi began his career with Hearst in 1990 as general... more