Entries for month: January 2012

New Year's resolutions for newspaper executives

Pop open the bubbly and kiss the person next to you! Good old New Year’s traditions always include a resolution or two. So here are some promises I hope newspaper executives internationally will keep this year.

1. I will position my business around the needs of my readers and advertisers. To us they’re readers and advertisers — in any other business they’d be called customers. There is a point in the lifecycle of every business where it loses sight of its customers and starts to “improve” its service based on its own needs. Newspapers have been stuck in this rut for, oooh, about 30 years. But to reshape your business around the needs of your customers is to give yourself licence for radical reinvention. 


2. I will look externally for inspiration. No, not at what other newspaper companies are doing. This year, look at what other industries are doing. Examine case studies of successful reinvention from the tech sector, financial services, transport industries — and see how what they have been through can be applied to us. Change is hard, but others have been there before us and we can learn from their experience.