Business strategy involves the activities employed by firms across the world to overcome the emerging business challenges. Notably, the strategies align business decisions with the specific operation of the business. For example, the media industry can face problems such as poor financial results, slow circulation of the newspapers, and generation of inadequate revenue. In particular, the New York Times is currently facing some challenges in its general operation which have deterred its successful operation, thus, reducing the profit margin. For instance, the media outlet has failed to note the legacies of the Black Press, exercised biasness in generation of its contents, recorded low revenue generation, and obtained inadequate government support.
The Challenges
According to Kiousis, a media expert, New York Times is committed in ensuring loyalty to the audience and its customers by producing the quality products in different platforms (Kiousis, 2004). For instance, the company has expanded its outlets in different parts of the United States to reach wider market and improve its sales revenue. Although the strategy has proved as one the successful model in the current organization operation, the company faced criticism from the government agencies under the President Trump administration who accuse it of biasness (Kiousis, 2004). Furthermore, the company faces the problems of mismatch between the scale of operations and the economics of the news media.
According to the strategic manager, their most challenge in the current operation is ensuring that the company continuously supports its mission and not to prove the successful areas regarding journalism (Kiousis, 2004). The Trump administration barred the main media outlets from covering the White house briefing because of the perceived biasness. Furthermore, Trump constantly accused The Times of unfair coverage, thus, impeding the rate of distribution of their products. To elaborate, the media contents are taking political dimension with some of the American citizens choosing the media products which supports either side of the political divides (Kiousis, 2004). The government has consistently accused the media, in particular, the New York Times of launching an investigative series on legal arbitration and economic growth.
Second, The Times is struggling to become the market leader of the industry which it previously controlled. According to the companys statistics, the revenue on digital products is increasing consistently with double digits over the years (Benoit, Stein & Hansen, 2005). However, New York Times is incapable of maintaining the consistent flow of its products in the targeted markets across the United States. The company must set the strategies to solve the slow but inevitable decline in the growth of the print in the different markets. The company must as well set a target which aims at solving the continued backdrop across the country. Furthermore, The Times faces the problem caused by changes in the industry structures. For instance, the firm incurred large cost while transforming some of its products from home delivery and single sales methods, one of the most expensive customers-outreach, to more affordable digital products (Benoit, Stein & Hansen, 2005).
Solutions to the Challenges
Currently, the market consists of new technology such as mobile phones and internet platform which makes possible for the readers to access New York Times products. Initially, the company was publishing its contents on their website and assumed that their customers would automatically reach them (Benoit, Stein & Hansen, 2005). Experts in the media platform argue that the approach adopted was passive and could attract the equivalent number of the customers as those employed in the current media platform. Therefore, the company can invest greatly on the promotion to increase access to their products.
To solve the problems of decreasing revenue, The Times can adopt the Audience Development platform to reach more readers. The platform allows the company to reach a large number of audiences who read their products. The platform is divided into discovery, promotion and connection. The discovery section explains how The Times packages and distributes its contents (Giardina & Medina, 2013). The promotion section describes how the management can reach wider markets. Lastly, the connection involves the creation of strong relationship with the audience and readers to improve their loyalty. Furthermore, Audience Development would help the organization to realize that they do not automatically get the audience and readers of their contents. Notably, the digital best practices such as Development Audience are adopted by the traditional competitors to maintain their customers base, increase the quality of the newspaper, and drive the rapid growth (Benoit, Stein & Hansen, 2005).
The Times can incorporate, in their system, a number of best practices to reduce disloyalty and improve public trust. For instance, the company can launch the efforts quickly and refrain from holding back the publication. Moreover, the company can adopt minimal viable products. Second, The Times set the goals and regularly tracks the progress of all the projects launched within the framework of their operation (Zelizer, 2002). For instance, the company can embrace the high-quality journalism and incorporates the processes which encourage readership and engagements of the audience. Third, The Times can improve their reward experimentation mechanisms. To elaborate, the company must establish the mechanisms of rewarding employees initiatives even if they do not succeed (Zelizer, 2002). Notably, rewarding individual efforts are likely to motivate the employees and built better employer-customer relationship.
Moreover, the management of the Times must establish adequate platform of communicating their goals to the employees, thus, promoting the sharing of the ideas and best practices to achieve the objectives. Additionally, the management must refrain from making rush decision regarding the failure or success of a specific project (Giardina & Medina, 2013). Instead, the team must carry out adequate analysis on the benefits and disadvantages of the practical activities. Lastly, the firm can eliminate the mediocre efforts and engage the resources in productive initiatives. Notably, the company must conduct the analysis of the projects in the transparent manner to enable the stakeholders to understand the reasons for their actions.
Benefits of the Solutions
The strategic plan can result in significant changes in the company if adequately and properly adopted. Because some of the market players accused the New York Times of biasness in media coverage, the adoption of universal platform such as Audience Development can increase similarity of the contents in the mainstream newspapers (Jagadish, Gehrke, Labrinidis, Papakonstantinou, Patel, Ramakrishna & Shahabi, 2014). Initially, some of the companys products varied from the contents of other media contents. For instance, the scholars argue that in the coverage of the Israel-Palestine war, The Times had distinct tone, perspective, scope and focus. The smooth communications can solve the problem of gender-based discrimination and racial harassment. Best practices such as high-quality journalism can improve the companys reputation and reduce the political disloyalty (Jagadish et al. 2014). Furthermore, the government agencies under the President Trump administration can accept The Times products and promote their operations.
Finally, the tracking of the projects can enable the company to generate more revenue and achieve its goals. Moreover, The Times can expand its market and reach large number of people through the creation of lifestyle content (Jagadish et al. 2014). For instance, the firm can create stories, build unique and affordable products, and tailor the experience to specific clients requirements. Finally, through prioritization of the user experience and customers need, The Times can establish a sustainable and long term revenue growth.
References
Benoit, W. L., Stein, K. A., & Hansen, G. J. (2005). New York Times coverage of presidential campaigns. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(2), 356-376.
Giardina, M., & Medina, P. (2013). Information graphics design challenges and workflow management. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 3(1), 108.
Jagadish, H. V., Gehrke, J., Labrinidis, A., Papakonstantinou, Y., Patel, J. M., Ramakrishnan, R., & Shahabi, C. (2014). Big data and its technical challenges. Communications of the ACM, 57(7), 86-94.
Kiousis, S. (2004). Explicating media salience: A factor analysis of New York Times issue coverage during the 2000 US presidential election. Journal of Communication, 54(1), 71-87.
Zelizer, B. (2002). Photography, journalism, and trauma (pp. 48-68). na.
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