Lonely Planet is functioning at this time like a Jellyfish. It is a large group of independently minded people working on personal projects that tend toward a common goal. Such organizations can get rather large, but they do have a maximum size. Furthermore, like jellyfish in water, such an organization needs a buoyant market environment to keep them afloat. If they company gets to large, or if the industry becomes less favorable, companies without a management structure will collapse in upon themselves like a jellyfish that washes up onto the beach.
The first order of business for Lonely Planet, then, is to develop some type of support structure to serve the creative talents that produce and manage their products. This need not mean that the present creative minds should change their way of working. Rather new people should be brought in to serve these masters of chaos since they work so well in this environment.
Many publishing operations are recognized as "commercial"; many are considered "noncommercial." Some firms seek to "maximize profit" as a primary goal; many feel fortunate to achieve what could be called reasonable profits; and some exist not primarily (or at all) to make a profit but to meet some defined need (social, scholarly, or religious, for example) on a break-even or subsidized basis. But whether they are "in business" or not, all publishers, if they are to carry out their chosen purposes, have to be businesslike. (Grannis 12)
The main purpose of the infrastructure, besides freeing the creative types of management burdens, is to change the way the company looks at its assets. Right now the company has a very strong product focus. The commitment to the travel guides is so strong that the company is constantly updating them. The company wants to provide travelers with the most up to date information possible. Yet they are working in a medium whose distribution lines are being cut off and is expensi...