Pearson does not appear to realise what business it is in. It describes itself as the world’s leading learning company, when it would be more accurate to call it a middling-sized media firm that happens to specialise in education.
The identity crisis goes back to when it was an oil company that diversified into Château Latour vineyards, Madame Tussauds waxworks, Lazard merchant bank, film production, Thames Television, satellite broadcasting, Penguin books and the Financial Times. In the 1990s, after the founding family bowed out, it ditched the corporate trophies and concentrated on educational publishing.
That is good and bad. It is a big fish in a small pool, with plenty of potential as artificial intelligence develops individually tailored courses and other cost-saving tricks, creating a
