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Wiley is a leading educational publisher focused on subject areas representing about one-third of undergraduate enrollments in U.S. colleges. Educational publishing accounted for approximately 25% of Wiley's worldwide revenues in fiscal 1997. Publishing programs are conducted in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Through our strategy of investing in areas where we are among the market leaders, we continue to strengthen our position in such disciplines as accounting, mathematics, engineering, and the physical and life sciences. In addition, we are aggressively growing our market share in business and modern languages. Our college division performed well in fiscal 1997, exceeding all its financial goals. Solid sales results were reported in the United States and around the world. Revenues, operating income, and cash flow have improved steadily during the past five years. Fiscal 1997 was a year of orderly transition, as we promoted from within, naming Bonnie Lieberman to the position of Senior Vice President and General Manager-College. The division was previously led by William J. Pesce, now Wiley's Chief Operating Officer. Ms. Lieberman and her team continue to implement the strategies that have beenso successful during the past five years: focusing on selected disciplines, developing superior content, becoming involved in curriculum reform, and pursuing a collaborative publishing process that brings together editorial, production, marketing, and sales professionals, along with authors and suppliers, in developing products. INCREASED GLOBAL SALES In some cases, new products are being developed by multinational teams, such as the collaboration between our U.S. college division and Wiley-Europe to produce computer science textbooks. Where appropriate, we are adapting texts from one country to the pedagogical needs of another. In fiscal 1997, Wiley-Canada introduced a highly successful adaptation of our U.S. text, Financial Accounting: A User Perspective, by Robert E. Hoskin. NEW PRODUCTS An active program of first editions helps expand our market presence. Among those published in fiscal 1997 were Cell and Molecular Biology: Concepts and Experiments, by Gerald Karp, and Information Technology for Management: Improving Quality and Productivity, by Efraim Turban, Ephraim McLean, and James Wetherbe. Virtually all our major print products have technology components. In the case of Turban: Information Technology for Management, supplementary technology includes software and computerized tests. We continue to fine-tune our product development and marketing programs. We incorporated Science News articles in Physical Geography, by Alan Strahler and Arthur Strahler, adding timeliness and interest to the book between revisions. Drawing on this success, we will take a similar approach with other Wiley textbooks. For the fifth edition of Fundamentals of Physics, by David Halliday, Robert Resnick, and Jearl Walker, we issued the first volume for review in January 1996 and the entire edition in August 1996. Early release of the first volume enabled us to gain significant adoptions we might not otherwise have won. Fundamentals of Physics is now the market leader in its field.
In our marketing programs, we have moved from an exclusively "professor adoptions" emphasis to a model that includes promoting our products to students over the Internet. Some products, such as Calculus Connections, an interactive multimedia product, have sold significantly through campus bookstores independent of the adoption process. EXPANDING OUR PRESENCE ON THE INTERNET
In August 1996, the college division established its own Web site (http://www.wiley.com/college), promoting the site to faculty and students through print and online advertisements. Many of our textbooks now have individual home pages linked to this site, and eventually most will have them. Authors such as Aswath Damodaran, Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice, now participate actively in the home pages for their books, establishing a direct dialogue with students. Professor Damodaran, a well-known finance professor at the Stern School of Business of New York University, is an example of the interrelated nature of Wiley's college, STM, and professional/trade programs. He originally wrote two trade books on investment analysis published by Wiley. We then signed him for Corporate Finance: Theory and Practice, a college text. In the case of Weygandt: Accounting Principles, we are developing a service through University Online to provide students with access to study materials. Technical support for our electronic products is also available on our Web site. We are involved in a host of other approaches to support our products by adding value for faculty and students, which is very important in today's competitive marketplace. USING TECHNOLOGY IN OUR BUSINESS
In the past four years, we have published nearly a dozen curriculum reform texts in subjects such as mathematics, physics, accounting, and chemistry. New titles in fiscal 1997 included a preliminary edition of Explorations in College Algebra, by Linda Almgren Kime and Judy Clark, developed by a consortium of schools from an experimental course funded in part by the National Science Foundation. The text and accompanying software teach algebra based on real-life problems, with a goal of building student confidence and making students more aware of the use of mathematics in society. We continue to publish titles from the Calculus Consortium based at Harvard University. We began in 1994 with Calculus, by Deborah Hughes-Hallet et al. We have now published draft and preliminary editions of four additional books: Applied Calculus for Business, Social Sciences, and Life Sciences; Brief Calculus for Business, Social Sciences, and Life Sciences; Multivariable Calculus; and Precalculus: Function Modeling Change. |