Reed Elsevier is one of the world leading providers of medical, scientific, legal, technological and business solutions, consulting and providing expertise advice and business solutions for all kinds of businesses. Reed Elsevier was established in 1993 when two companies, Reed Elsevier plc and Reed Elsevier NV combined to form two jointly owned companies (parent companies). First, a UK’s based, Reed Elsevier Group PLC which is equally shared and consists of publishing and information businesses. Second, Elsevier Reed Finance BV which manages the financing activities and is owned 61% by Reed Elsevier NV and 39% by Reed Elsevier PLC. Both of the parent companies have attained their separate identity and are listed separately in the stock market.
The company started as two separate organisations, Reed Elsevier plc was started as Reed International and was laid down by Albert E Reed in 1894 in Kent as a newsprint manufacturer. The company underwent several acquisitions to diversify in its operation to finally reorganizing its portfolios and becoming the most recognized company in the publishing industry. On the other hand, Reed Elsevier NV started off as Elsevier NV was formed by Jacobus George Robbers in 1880 as a Dutch publisher which gained support from well known Dutch booksellers and newspapers, later concentrating on business publishing activities and disposing the commercial and book publishing activity. In 1993, both these companies contributed their expertise to form a two jointly owned company, Elsevier Reed Finance & Reed Elsevier Group plc.
Parent Companies

Reed Elsevier provides diversified products and services to its customers which help in the advancement of technology, betterment in criminology, medical and scientific fields. Each of the Reed Elsevier group of companies provides a unique solution to its customers and is successful in its own way.
Reed Elsevier Group of companies (plc) * Elsevier: helps in the medical & scientific improvement providing innovative more productive products which present accurate results. * LexisNexis Risk Solution: is a leader in providing risk management techniques with high standard of privacy and security to businesses and governments. * LexisNexis Legal & Professional: helps in providing world class legal solutions to professionals in legal, government and businesses which ensures profitability and productivity. * Reed Exhibition: is an events organiser exposing businesses and attendees to build relations and help grow their businesses. * Reed Business Information: helps businesses to establish in the market and provide them with business solutions and information necessary. Also, its publishes over 100 market magazines.
Clearly, Reed Elsevier penetrating such a diversified and a large sector of different markets and faces competition from well- known and established companies in the market. Some of the main competitors of Reed Elsevier are; * Advance Publications Inc, NY: is a leading newspaper and magazine publisher. * Dow Jones & Company Inc, NY: is one of the leading newspaper and magazines publishers in the USA popular in the Europe and Asia * The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc, NY: publishes textbooks, and learning materials to schools and colleges, in addition to its financial and businesses services and provides index and credit ratings. Also, it operates TV stations and publishes trade journals.
Reed Elsevier strives for excellence in everything they do, their products, their employees and their customers. They focus on unique fields to ensure advancement and sustainable growth in the area of legal risks and anti-crime, medical and scientific advancement, and universal access to information. LexisNexis works on promoting a transparent judicial system for the welfare of the society. Elsevier contributes to the advancement of medical and scientific facilities to serve the community with better healthcare system. Reed Elsevier provides a platform for the business to meet new people and clients through exhibitions and fairs which ensures a sustainable growth in the economy and healthy business environment. Reed Business Information also helps in raising awareness to the youth of the community to support humanitarians and philanthropic causes. Power of youth has helped the foundation to raise about $1.25 million since its establishment in 2007 which helps ill children and provide them with activities and entertainment. The company as a whole distributes its expertise and assets to ensure customer satisfaction and deep understanding of the outcomes.

Industry Analysis:
Reed Elsevier produces a variety of products to its customers, thus faces competition from a number of different areas of businesses. The reed group of companies faces different types of competition and each caters to a different market, it is fair to say that Reed Exhibition, Reed Business Information and Nexis Lexis risk solution and legal & professional services operates in a fairly competitive market with a number of competitions from McGraw-Hill and Advance publication which provides similar products and services to its customers like publication, business information and so on. Furthermore, Elsevier provides high tech medical and scientific facilities which have high set-up and operating costs and thus faces not as much competition as the rest of the component companies. It’s likely to operate as an oligopoly wherein a number of companies, producing similar products as Elsevier, have control of the prices and supply of the products and services in the market. In general, Reed Elsevier operates in a competitive market facing competition from other companies producing similar products and services, determining the prices from the invisible hand of demand and supply.

Growth Strategy:
Reed Elsevier in general is a diversified company catering to different group of consumers. It is crucial for any type of organisation to constantly revise their growth strategy to increase the product portfolio or the market share in the market. Reed Elsevier is a multinational organisation and thus pursues more than one growth strategy to be successful in the market. The growth strategy is identified with the use of Ansoff’s growth matrix which helps companies to adopt the most appropriate strategy according to the market they operate in or the type of product they sell. The matrix below helps organisations to distinguish between the products and markets;
Market Penetration
Attempt to gain larger share in the current market segments
Diversification
Develop new products for new market segments
Product development
Develop new products for the current market segments
New
Existing
Products
Markets
Existing
Market development
Find new market segments for existing product portfolio
New

Market penetration is when the organisation is successful in increasing its sales to existing and new customers through competitive advantage. It is able to get through their customers and increase their market in the existing market.
Product development is the introducing new products in the existing market. This helps organisations to widen its market share and cater to customers that haven’t been catered before.

Market development helps organisations to cater to new customers in the new market with their existing products. This approach is likely to be adopted when the existing customers have found alternatives to the product or service thus reducing the sales. The organisation expands beyond its national frontier to other countries with their existing product portfolio and introduces their product or service.

Diversification strategy is mainly when the company moves completely out of their existing market and introduces its new products in the new market. This approach is the most risky of them all as organisations may lack the experience in the market, however, with thorough and accurate research done this approach can be successful for businesses.

Reed Elsevier’s approach to this strategy is different for its joint companies as they operate in different markets and face different type of competition from its competitors. * Elsevier: engages in medical and scientific activities and thus its crucial for them to innovate new techniques and advancement in the field whilst remaining in the market segment they operate in. They adopt product development as their growth technique to explore the market and introduce new products which are appealing to their customers. * NexisLexis risk solution & legal and professional: operates in a competitive market and its attempt is to gain more market share in the existing market thus adopting market penetration. This can be achieved by raising awareness of the existing product in the existing market through advertising and sales promotions and also, gaining competitive advantage over existing and new competition entering the market. In addition, the company restructures it strategies to attract its customers to the business through introduction of loyalty schemes. * Reed Business information & Reed Exhibition: also adopts market penetration as it introduces its advices to new and existing businesses. Market penetration approach to growth strategy is favourable when the market is booming and companies are able to increase their sales without relatively increasing their market share. With the introduction of globalisation, new businesses all over the world are able to set-up across national frontier thus giving Reeds a chance to introduce their services to these businesses in the growing market.

In conclusion, Ansoff’s Matrix is helpful for the organisations to identify the growth strategies that need to be adopted in order to increase their profitability. However, this matrix cannot be used in isolation but in conjunctions with other tools like SWOT analysis and the PESTEL analysis which help the organisations to distinguish thoroughly the strategy that need to be adopted. For example, Reed Exhibition adopts market penetration wherein they cater to the existing market with their existing products but they have a greater chance to move to other markets and adopt market development by entering new markets. This can be significant by carrying out the PESTEL and SWOT analysis and the most favourable approach adopted.