Undertake an examination of the Marketing Environment of the UK book retailing market - Essay Example

y, being a highly competitive sector, also seems to have taken the cues and is bracing itself up in order to comply with the phenomenal rate of globalisation. According to the findings of Miyamoto and Whittaker (2005), “major UK publishers have been absorbed to huge media conglomerates, for instance, which pursue strategies to maximise profit through leveraging synergy effects of the publishing business and other media businesses on a global scale” (Miyamoto & Whittaker, 2005, P. 1). Owing to the basic fact that most business interests are centred on the need to maximise stakeholders’ value as well as corporate profit, British publishers are inclined towards inculcating this philosophy into their corporate goals.

It is interesting to note that the UK market has gradually transformed from being cooperative to one that is predominantly free and competitive (Miyamoto & Whittaker, 2005, P. 3), and as a result the market characteristics have also changed. In the present business context, the British publishing industry is driven by corporate philosophy, its primary objective being the pursuit of individual profit. The British publishing industry has been observed to have a rich heritage as “publishing guilds were formed in London by the 14th century, and developed with the progress of the printing techniques in the middle of the 15th century” (Miyamoto & Whittaker, 2005, P. 3). London plays an important role in shaping the course of business for this industry as far as the UK is concerned as most of the functions that are associated with this industry are concentrated in this area.

The UK also precedes most other economies in terms of crucial developments that were made to this profitable industry and this may be justified by the fact that “the division of firms in the value chain of the publishing industry was formed in the UK by the middle of the 19th century” (Miyamoto & Whittaker, 2005, P. 4). The UK publishing as well as book retail industry has gone