John Fallon on textbook pricing
From How to Navigate Digital Transformation and Disruption with John Fallon Former CEO of Pearson · · International Business Today
“For the 30 years previously the cost of college textbooks had gone up three times the rate of inflation every year. I remember a wakeup call — CNN Money early in my tenure did a piece on America's greatest consumer ripoffs, and it included college textbooks.”
On , John Fallon, Former CEO of Pearson at Independent, spoke about textbook pricing during How to Navigate Digital Transformation and Disruption with John Fallon Former CEO of Pearson on International Business Today.
About John Fallon
John Fallon, the former CEO of Pearson, has been discussing the company's digital transformation and the lessons he learned from leading it. He stated that Pearson's annual sales of U.S. college textbooks fell from 20 million to less than 1 million during his tenure, and described the shift as one of the most challenging digital transformations in corporate history. Fallon has referred to many ed-tech startups as "uni-corpses," and argued that most Fortune 500 companies existed before the internet. He has said that digital transformations take decades, not years, and that the human side of change is harder than the technology. Fallon has also spoken about the importance of organizational purpose during difficult periods, stating that "when times got hard... we actually double down on the purpose and the values." He has emphasized that "disruption and transformation is not something that you do to somebody — it's something that you do with them," and that the biggest impact comes from partnering with educators rather than disintermediating them. Fallon has co-authored a book titled "Resurgent: How Established Organizations Can Fight Back and Thrive in an Age of Digital Transformation" and has served as chair of War Child UK and an adviser to Blenheim Chalcot and Kira Learning.