1. STRATEGICAND CHANGE MANAGEMENT
ESSAY ON
MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
PLAN OF AN
ORGANIZATION
TURIBA UNIVERSITY
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION FACULTY
JOHNNY RALSTON SOUNDARARAJ WASHINGTON
GROUP CODE:MBA UMA1V2
SUBJECT CODE: VAD1472M
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Professor: Mr. Aivars Kalniņš
2. 2
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 familysplit 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 EnglishlanguageNewspaper, 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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2011 2012 2013 2014
Business Diagram
Circulation Readership Revenue Net Profit
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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 MalayalamVarika 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 everyday. The New Indian Express hasa 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 satellitedownlink to start up anews channel
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.
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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
englishnews 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
for officially file governement records. Therefore, the growth rate of the advertisement revenue and
the ciruclation substaitiating in selected verticals of business.
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Due to cost increaseof 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 STRATEGY
Based 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.
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.