Digital Education’s Global Revolution with CEO of Kortext, James Gray #30
James Gray has over 25 years’s experience as CEO & Director in the digital content industry, watching the world’s accelerating digitisation in every facet of today’s world. With aggregation playing a huge role in how we consume media nowadays, it was a matter of time until someone found the key to revolutionise how we access learning content.
Coutts Information Services may have been his first foray into streamlining written content in 1991, but with his latest venture, Kortext (@kortextonline), James is bringing a huge selection of educational texts to over 80 countries globally.
We delve into the takeaways from James’ extensive career to date, and where he sees the digitised future of the industry in the coming years, on this week’s episode of Extrology.
Lee and JAMES discuss:
The exciting future of digital education delivery
Incorporating AI into tailoring teaching content
How to capitalise on the US market
James’ role at the advent of ebooks’ prevalence
Managing short-term and long-term business decisions
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
James Gray: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesgray1/
Kortext: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kortext/
https://www.instagram.com/kortextonline/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“My grandfather on my father's side worked for Vickers, and he worked with Barnes Wallis. In fact, he designed the undercarriage systems of the Wellington Bomber and was involved in the Spitfire as well. So that engineering angle, the precision of it, and the dynamics of flight just absolutely fascinated me.” - 4:15 - James Gray
“My father had the original idea for Coutts. He had a love of books, he'd been an engineer as well, and he was remarking on the fact that you could buy an electronic component and have it delivered to your desk the next day, but if you wanted to buy a book, it could take three months to get delivered. So the whole concept was to start an efficient supply service. We got in ‘91, formed it as a limited company in ‘92, and with my younger brother the business took off.” - 10:30 - James Gray
“We took over a business in Birmingham that was actually a bit bigger than us, but it was in financial trouble. We walked in and there was a bank of 12-14 typewriters at desks. They had 14 people typing invoices, where we had one person operating a computer doing all the invoices. It was just no wonder they're in trouble. They cannot compete in terms of having those inefficiencies in how they operate.” - 12:45 - James Gray
“We set up Amazon's ebook store prior to their acquisition of ‘mobi’ and launching Kindle. We helped Apple with their ibookstore and getting content for it. We did projects with Sony, we did a massive project with Microsoft, where we set up a 150,000 sq ft scanning centre, scanning content, digitising it, indexing it, and making it available through search, when they were trying to compete with Google. Just a whole heap of different things - they were the heady days of the ebook industry.” - 21:35 - James Gray
“There isn't a digital market where consolidation or aggregation at the point of consumption is not the consumer’s preferred choice - Kindle, Netflix, iTunes, you name it. That market in learning content had really been controlled by the top five publishers. They've all tried to do their own thing on their own platforms, but actually the market was crying out for an aggregated solution. I felt there was an opportunity there.” - 25:25 - James Gray
“There’s £7-8bn of learning content sold around the world, and that’s all been in print. Think of the supply chain behind the myriad of bookshops - all of that will change to digital. It’s a one way street. I can sell a digital textbook at half the price of any print book anywhere in the world at a click of a button. That's a one way street, and as it changes, all of the mechanisms of support that sit behind it start to change in a way where there's no going back.” - 33:30 - James Gray
“Every investor wants to see a return on their money, so you've got to have your plans really clear and mapped out. But you've got to have a team who can adapt, be flexible, and deal with the issues that arise. It all comes down to the team.” - 40:10 - James Gray
“In the short term in a business, you’ve got to be clear on what the objectives are, and you’ve got to have a strong process of setting objectives for the team in terms of executing on the components that will keep the business moving forward, while putting it in a frame of investing for the long term.” - 46:55 - James Gray
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