SFN report: Senior decision-makers most ready for change; operational-level staff less confident

Posted by Erina Lin on February 15, 2010 at 3:35 PM

The first annual World Newspaper Future & Change Study is a global research study about newspaper publishers' business strategies moving forward for the next five years, with the key objective to inspire newspaper executives to invest and innovate their business units and business practices, according to the latest SFN's report, Charting the Course for Newspapers.

The purpose of the study is to pinpoint the business and strategic challenges of the world's newspapers, and then to identify the publishers' strategies moving forward to turn the challenges into opportunities.

It's worth pointing out that as the survey targeted senior decision-makers, it is perhaps not surprising that overall they showed greater levels of confidence in their own aptitude for change. They were much less confident about operational-level staff.

Strategic management and the board members are thought to have the greatest appetite for change, with the average score of 3.71 and 3.39 on a 5-point scale (while 0 = Not at all ready, 1 = Just started to prepare, 2 = Somewhat ready, 3 = Quite ready, 4 = Fully prepared).

Least prepared for change are thought to be journalists, pre-printing staff and administrative support staff, ranking them lowest amongst the 12 categories with means of 2.9, 2.77 and 2.65, respectively.

However, there are some significant regional differences. Africans have much less confidence in their strategic leadership, rating their boards of directors less prepared for change than finance and accounting departments (means of 2.82 and 2.90, respectively). Worryingly, those key decision makers were only thought to be marginally better prepared that marketing teams (mean of 2.67) and advertising sales force (mean of 2.25), who were beaten to the last two spots by pre-press staff and administrators (means of 2.52 and 2.2, respectively).

On the other hand, African journalists were considered to be on the vanguard. They were ranked joint second with their editorial managers (both with means of 3.19), followed by their IT departments who were ranked fourth (mean of 3.0). The suggestion is that in African news organisations, change is being driven from the newsrooms, rather than from the boardrooms as is generally the case in Europe and the Americas, where the editorial teams were considered to be poorly prepared for change.

In Nordic Europe, for example, journalists were ranked joint third last (9th) with the circulation departments (mean of 2.61) followed by administrators (mean of 2.44) and printing staff (mean of 1.83). In North America, the picture is much the same, although while journalists were ranked third from the bottom (mean of 2.90), they were followed by marketers (mean of 2.59) and printing staff (mean of 2.45).

However, it is the Asians/Australasians who had the least confidence in their editorial departments, rating their journalists lowest at 12th (mean of 2.74) and editorial managers 9th (mean of 3.0), only marginally better than financial and accounting staff (10th, with a mean of 2.93) and administrators (11th, with a mean of 2.80).

The lack of confidence in the preparedness of administrators, who play critical roles in implementing changes, is an area that should not be overlooked.

The report, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, details the results of the Future & Change Study, completed in partnership with the Norwegian School of Management and the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom, which shows a majority of the 653 respondents around the world are looking to businesses outside the printed newspaper in order to grow revenues and revamp structures along the value chain that are no longer functioning at full throttle.