STRATEGIC AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT

ESSAY ON

MANAGEMENT STRATEGYPLAN OF AN

ORGANIZATION

TURIBA UNIVERSITYBUSINESS ADMINISTRATION FACULTY

JOHNNY RALSTON SOUNDARARAJ WASHINGTONGROUP CODE:MBA UMA1V2SUBJECT CODE: VAD1472M

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCEProfessor: Mr. Aivars Kalniņš

SUMMARY

The main objective of this case study is to demonstrate the real strategic change in management of a newspaper publishing company named The New Indian Express. The company is based in India established in 1932 as English newspaper publishing before the independence of India by Ramnath Goenka. The Newspaper is published in broadsheet. Goenka family split the group into two companies. Initially, the two groups shared the Indian Express title, and editorial and other resources. But on 13 August 1999, the northern editions, headquartered in Mumbai, retained and renamed Indian Express as The Indian Express, while the southern editions became The New Indian Express. Today, the newspapers and companies are separate entities.

INTRODUCTION

COMPANY PROFILE

The New Indian Express is the oldest English daily of an undisputed credibility for the last 80 years. The company is owned and managed by Shri Manoj Kumar Sonthalia. The Editorial Director of the group is Mr Prabhu Chawla.

The Company's publications include Dailies The New Indian Express in English (The southern editions of The Indian Express renamed as "The New Indian Express", effective from 28-12-98). New Indian Express is arguably the flagship publication incorporating national and international themes and sections on developmental issues, society, politics, literature, arts, cinema, travel, lifestyle, sports, business, finance, new-age living, self-development and entertainment.

The readers of the newspaper spread all across the world with a very high NRI traffic to the website. The publication boasts of a dynamic and discerning profile of informed readers who are constantly exploring new possibilities to make their lives better. The company was promoted by Express Publications (Madurai) Limited which is the flagship Company of the Group. Express Publications (Madurai) Limited publishes the prestigious English language Newspaper, The New Indian Express from 25 centres in Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha. It also publishes Sunday Standard from New Delhi. Express

PUBLISHING PLACES IN INDIA

Express (Madurai) Group is an independent Group, Publishing Newspapers and Periodicals in the States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa and Union Territories of Pondicherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Enam and Lakshdweep.

It brings out its publication of newspapers and periodicals from 14 Centres like Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Bangalore, Mangalore, Belgaum, Shimoga, Kochi, Trivandrum, Kozhikode, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam & Bhubaneswar.

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BUSINESS ANALYSIS OF THE COMPANY (THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS)

The business inflow of the New Indian Express newspaper and their allied products not only

determined by the newspaper sales in the stands daily however, the major profit of the company

comes from the Advertisement in flow to the newspaper.

Figure1: overall business data

of the New Indian Express

Subseqeuntly, the advertisers and the advertising agency has the vital role to be a part of revenue generation of the print products of the company. The major recommendation of any campaign is based on the readership classification as well as density of newspaper readers. The Indian Newspaper’s circulation is measured by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) in a period of every 6 months in a year January – June & July – December respectively. Also the Newspaper’s readership is measured by the Indian readership Survey group by Indian Newspaper Society.

The Indian Express group diverse media platform to promote any brand or news in India. The major advertisement revenue flow comes from the direct advertisers and the media advertising agencies. Since the Newspaper was market leader the tariff structure of advertisement was high compare to the competitors however, due to the recent market competition the organization has restructured their advertisement tariff where its reasonable cost effective and affordable to all business segments in India.

The Advantage of the newspaper is that since they have English and linguistic publications it’s the ultimate preference for any government sector advertisers as well as legal oriented propagation. As per the government of India publicity norms its mandatory that the advertisements such as Name change of Gazette and Debts recovery notice, other statements from banks, etc. Besides, the Government of India advertisement activities through Directorate of Advertisement and Visual Publicity (DAVP) and the state government public relations Directorate of Information and Public Relations advertisements preferred medium is the New Indian Express publications.

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Business Diagram

Circulation ReadershipRevenue Net Profit

COMPANY’S PRODUCTS

Express Publications (Madurai) Limited also publishes the following from their house of media.

Magazines:

PERIODICAL PUBLICAITON CATEGORY NAME LANGUAGE

Fortnightly (once in

15 Days)

Magazine Special interest on

Cinema

Cinema Express Tamil

Female Gender Specific Sakhi Kannada

Weekly General Interest Malayalam Varika Malayalam

Daily Newspaper Newspaper Dinamani Tamil

Weekly Newspaper Sunday Standard English

PRICES

As a publishers of newspapers and genre magazines from the house of Express Publications Ltd the

pricing structure can be classified into two categories.

1. Cover Price of the Products

The publisher keeps the daily usage of newspaper reading habit they have structured the

cover price of the newspaper at affordable cost INR. 3/- Weekdays and INR.4/- on Saturdays

and Sundays. Whereas the magazines prices also structured at affordable price targeting

based on the special interest of the readers with worthy reading contents.

2. Advertisement Tariff for advertising in the space available in the print media vehicles such as

newspaper, magazines, etc. The New indian Express offers packaged combined advertisement

rates for the advertisers for better coverage and reach across various segment of readers in

region wise as well as nationally.

PROMOTIONS

Although the newspaper has quite popular among the readers still using selective media promotional activities to retain the stability of readership in the industry. The focus on targeting the outdoor promotions such as bus shelter, panel advertisements, newspaper agents banner, billboards etc. However, they use minimum of Visual media promotions while having event promotions with their client activations. Standalone advertisement of the newspaper brand is promoted only to target the English television channels for the captive audience reach.

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PLACE OF NEWSPAPER COVERAGE

As a National news daily the New Indian Express newspaper has vast coverage geographically across in India. Each state has separate edition for the metro and semi - urban and selective town areas of India by state wise. At present, The New Indian Express is the only national daily which publishes news of far-flung Andaman and Nicobar Islands every day. The New Indian Express has a staffer at Port Blair, the capital city of the remote archipelago.

CIRCULATION OF THE NEWSPAPER

The New Indian Express has a net paid circulation of 435,618 copies as per the audit bureau of circulation report India. NIE achieves its biggest penetration (paid sales per head of population) in the state of Kerala. It claims to be the first Indian newspaper to give insurance benefits to its subscribers

STRENGTH OF THE PUBLICATION

Strong Distribution Network for newspaper circulation Having their own printing division in all the editions High quality printer for better resolution of print material Most readers of A1, A2, class in SEC (Socio Econmic Classification) The only newspaper to have bi lingual publishing newspapers in the State of Tamil Nadu in

India Strong Editorial content and unbiased news coverage

WEAKNESS OF THE PUBLICATION

Enjoyed the monopoly position early days and didn’t think about the competitions Aging of population of existing readership declines slowly on market positioning Giants entered into the market and have failed to position the existence in terms of

circulation readership and advertising revenue flow. Slow in market adoption and technology adoption The company has divided operation by region wise (South & North) Doesn’t apply for the Audit report of circulation from the government to justify the client’s

requirements.

OPPORTUNITIES Due to multi-cultural diversity among states in India the Newspaper can still achieve in tuning

up their market approach and deliverance according to the local flavour by state wise. As Independent Media Company doesn’t have to rely on the political support in terms of

delivery of news and market threaten As publisher they have many platform portfolio to drive organization’s revenue Very strong in network news coverage so can have satellite downlink to start up a news

channel

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The company has more no of editions and own printing division with advanced printing mechanism they can utilize the resource to make the regional news daily transformed to all the newsprint of the pages in colour whereas the competitions does the same.

THREATS

Each state has different ruling official language, so the most preferred reading would be the linguistic newspaper. More number of competition in the market

Digital era has been consistently declining the physical copy of newspaper readership and average issue of readership subsequently

Digital advertising is much cheaper than the print advertisement therefore losing the potential clients and regular advertisers of the newspaper periodically.

The company doesnt concentrate on Micro level circulation reach across the states whereas

competitors are adanced in micro level reaching readers.

The other national dailies have special supplemental news issues with glazed printing material

for a better reproduction and eyecatching content to boost up their client’s advertisement

options.

SME (Small medium Enterprise) in urban zonal have been distributing area centric news print

on a weekly basis newspints direct to home and commercial zone at free of cost in order to

increase the inflow of advertisement revenue. Therfore, there could be an impact in small

budget advertisers in classifieds section of newspaper.

PORTER’S MODEL OF COMPETITION

As per Porter’s model of competition Rivelry among existing firm Although the publications have

comprehensive news sharing centre from Press council the variety of news content and the delivery

of news in print differs among the competitors. The competitors look always ahead to be present

news in terms of sensation coverage to admit the readers to encourage reading more interesting.

Since the National daily has been existing there are challenges where each state has linguistic daily

dominant in the appropriate market as well as the national competiting players. The competitors in

english news paper in India are The Times of India, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Telegraph,

Deccan Chronicle, DNA (Daily News Analysis), Mumbai Mirror, The Economic Times, etc.

Hence, the company has made a thorough market analysis and subseqeuntly strategic changes in

management by renovating the news paper layout changes and editorial content modification as well

as internal management changes in marketing and editoral department amendments, etc.

In spite of dominated by digital media in the market still physical print newspaper are the traditional

way of delivering news and other statutury information newspaper has been the preferred medium 6

for officially file governement records. Therefore, the growth rate of the advertisement revenue and

the ciruclation substaitiating in selected verticals of business.

Due to cost increase of paper in global market the company completely rely on the advertising

revenue to go ahead run the organization fixed cost requirements as well as variable cost. The fixed

cost is majorly determined by the paper material, printing inks, layout design sets, circulation,

distribution, etc. Also, the product differntiation comparitively differnt from the competitors as the

National playing competitiors have been having the market penetration with variety of newsprint

products and promoting them as stand alone brand to have diversified news approach to generate

more revenue. The company has still to improve the product stand alone to compete with product

differentiation.

The competitors also diversed approach in market by having ground event and activation to

substatitate the market position among the competition. mobile application merging with physical

copy using aztec coding to read the visual news in the mobile phone, etc adopting technoloy

advancement increases the curiosity among the newspaper readers to buy product preference the

most.

NEED OF BLUE OCEAN STRATEGYBased on the study of an organization it’s understood that the company needs to follow the blue Ocean strategy the company has to eliminate the process of maintaining traditional market approach and has to do a lot of market research and study to betterment the idea of the readership trend in the latest era. A complete changes needed in the marketing team where young ideas can generate profit for the organization.

The number of products they have especially the magazine segment has been weak due to decline of readership. The major impact of the decline of magazine is due to the digital media domination therefore the diversified approach by reducing the investment on printing magazines the company can concentrate more on developing the mother brand.

Subsequently, this increases the value of market strength as well as focused approach to innovate new ideas to develop the mother brand. Since, the company has pioneer in newspaper daily the content of the newspaper which they have been carry in the magazine should be deviated to the newspaper. Creating new ideas to advertisers and approach the readers to be a part of creating ideas for the product betterment will certainly be useful in raising the profit of the organization.

CONCLUSION

Further to the analysis with various methods used its concluded that the company requires immediate adopt and change in the strategic in market change in terms of consultative approach to understand the requirement of the clients then provide solution with the existing platform that they have as they play a vital role promotional end of any products across the nation and the carrier of public relations.

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Increase of more competition should not be barrier to the publication as its credible newspaper which is existing more than 80 years in the market however, recent changes have shown a fair amount of growth in terms of circulation and revenue of the mother brand. Moreover, the company has multiple media promotional carrier which could be utilized to boost the advertising revenue. Following unique method of approach and marketing promotion can lead a great future for the publication.

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