EMGT100 Introduction to Engineering Business Policy and Strategy 1 2019 University of Management and Technology MGT 497. Business Policy and Strategy Assignment Note: When submitting assignments,...

Running Head: CASE STUDY         1
CASE STUDY         3
Name: ___________________
Student ID: ___________________
Course Number: ___________________
Course Name: MGT 497— Business Policy and Strategy
Title of the Assignment: Strategic Planning at The Chronicle Gazette
Table of Contents
1. Introduction    3
2. State of the Newspaper Publishing Industry Today    3
2.1 Data on Declining Circulation and Revenue    3
2.2 Status of Newspaper Leaders such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal    4
3. Reasons for Newspapers facing Declining Revenues and Circulations    5
3.1 External Assessment    5
3.1.1 Economic Forces    5
3.1.2 Social, Cultural, Demographic, and Environmental Forces    5
3.1.3 Political, Governmental and Legal Forces    6
3.1.4 Technological Forces    7
3.1.5 Competitive Forces    7
3.1.6 External Factor Evaluation (EFE) Matrix    8
4. Internal Assessment    8
4.1. Organisational Processes and Structure    8
4.2 HR Capabilities    9
4.3 Financial Position    9
4.4 Marketing/Sales Capabilities    10
4.5 Operational Capabilities    10
4.6 The Strengths and Weaknesses as a Publisher    11
4.6.1 The Strengths of the Newspaper    11
4.6.2 The Weaknesses of the Newspaper    11
5. How Companies in the Publishing Industry are adjusting their Strategies to cope with the Challenges    12
5.2 Use of the Digital Media    12
5.1 Writing content of the people’s choice    12
5.3 Competitive pricing of the newspaper    13
6. Steps The Chronicle Gazette might take in order to deal with the challenges    13
6.1 Short-Term Steps    13
6.2 Long-Term Steps    14
7. Conclusion    15
References    16

1. Introduction
    In the following report, the cu
ent situation about the newspaper industry is shown where the way, the latest trends are leading to the declining subscription and reduced revenue generation have been analysed. The following project is to identify the solution, in which company will form its road map to move, which will help company to regain their position in the print industry. The cu
ent trends are reflecting more liking of peoples towards easy access without wasting much time for any task. Therefore, peoples are looking something that it will help them to read the news and contents anywhere and any moment. People always look forward for something new and they are always looking for anything that is attractive.
To keep the customers with them, the media industry should understand the interest of the people and according to that; they should revamp their services and deliver them to the people for best possible service. The companies from print industry should find ways to deliver live up-to-date news to its readers with some extra contents for reading. Therefore, the project report will identify the areas where the company needs to focus how quickly they can connect with the people. The project report will also focus on the ways through which the print industry while finding the ways should be able to offer best deals to their customers, and also be able to generate profits while improving the financial condition of their company.
2. State of the Newspaper Publishing Industry Today
2.1 Data on Declining Circulation and Revenue
    The newspaper industry or the print media was continuously in growth stage until the end of 20th century. However with the growth and more acceptability of technology right from the beginning of 21st century has shown significant decline in the print media. The easy access of the news with detailed report and video is available to people, which are leading them to access the digital media and that has shown significant decline in the subscription of print media. According to Newspaper Association of America, the average growth of newspapers until 1999 was seven percent a year.
    From 2000 to 2006, it only managed to grow 0.5% annually. However, the situation worsened after 2006 where the growth was even less than 0.35% annually. The data shown by The Chronicle Gazette has shown a decline of 35% in their subscriptions from the last eight years. This significant decline in the subscription has resulted into decline of revenue by 28% in the following period. The easy accesses of the digital format has resulted into declining of the print media as the people are getting news instantly and they can easy avail them at any time.
Entire newspaper industry is badly hurt due to digital media. The millennial generation mainly prefer all the information in one click of their touch phones. The trend of using internet and accessing data from digital media is now preference of everyone i
espective of the age. Cu
ent data shows, all the newspapers whether they are reputed big names or local small newspapers are greatly affected. The sales of the newspaper have been dropped, which resulted in drop in the revenue generated in newspaper industry. According to the data, some Welsh newspapers have circulation dropped up to 28%. Most of the reputed newspaper like the Daily Post witnessed the slip in sales of the newspaper up to 11%, which are 19,842 copies per edition in 2017. Newspaper like Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald have drop up to 28%. There, the drop in the circulation of the Gwent Gazette is up to 17% (BBC News, 2019).
    Internet has resulted in heavy losses in revenue in print media. In 2015, weekday newspaper circulation fell by 7% and Sunday newspaper circulation fell by 4%. This is the second biggest decline since 2010, when it is 11% and 8%. Although, there was slight rise in the circulation of the newspaper, yet it failed to make up the prior losses. Afterwards, the loss continues, and circulation fell much rapidly in 2014 and 2015. There is heavy loss in the generation of the revenue in newspaper industry. It has been seen that Chronicle Gazette is not an exception. In 2018, this newspaper witnessed the decline of 23%. The circulation of the newspaper in some of the big cities also declined such as Washington, Sydney, and Chicago (Statista, 2019). The newspaper industry is going through constant declining of the circulation and revenue generation. The preference of people has been changed.
2.2 Status of Newspaper Leaders such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal
    The decline in the newspaper industry has shown significant challenges to many companies and the giants in the newspaper industry such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have also not been spared from their effects. As per the news report published in The New York Times 2016, a report was found that the employees of Wall Street Journal were about to get laid off due to the company’s loss in generating revenue and less work, which led the company to downsizing their organisation. Similar condition is of The New York Times as the newspapers are getting their sales reduced continuously and the resultant has shown their stock prices are also falling significantly that is also
inging downfall in their revenue.
    As the people are opting for more digital format therefore the reduced sales in print newspapers has also reduced the interest of advertising agency to invest in the newspapers and they are shifting their focus on the digital format. This has also led to a significant reduction of revenue for the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, therefore to sustain in the market both the companies have no option left than downsizing their operation.
The yearly financial statements show that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have higher rates of digital subscription in comparison to the print media. In 2016, there is 8% fell in the subscription, which is 28th consecutive year of declines. The overall 10% decrease in week print circulation. There is 9% decline in Sundays. Total weekday circulation for US daily newspaper fell up to 35 million whereas Sunday circulation declined to 38 million, which is lowest since 1945. The three largest US daily newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have witnessed the decline.
Although, advertising have been supporting the newspaper industry in generation of the revenue, yet there is decline in the advertising revenue also in the newspaper industry, which is cu
ently 10%, this has surpassed 2015 decline, which was 8%. In 2016, the revenue generated by these American newspapers is around $18 billion. This rate is one third of the revenue generated in 2006. This is around $49 billion. The subscription of the newspaper has not witnessed any great rise since 2012. There is very poor increase in the subscription rate. The loss, the newspaper industry is facing nowadays, is very difficult to make up by regular model.
It has been seen that despite focussing on the revenue generation from advertising, there is substantial decline in the advertising subscription (Pew Research Centre, 2019). There is major decline in the circulation of all the newspaper all over the world i
espective of the reputation. Data has shown that people are opting for the digital subscription of the newspaper, yet influence of the social medial is high, which limits the subscription of the newspaper digitally. Since one click of Google provides the information related to news from various source at free of cost, interest of people declined vigorously.
3. Reasons for Newspapers facing Declining Revenues and Circulations
3.1 External Assessment
3.1.1 Economic Forces
Regarding the case study, the Chronicle Gazette is one of the reputed and recognised newspapers that deal with its business within metropolitan areas. It is recognised as the leading newspaper that deals with 225,000 customers with it. However, it also recognised as the first rated newspaper in its city. Apart from this, the publisher of the Chronicle Gazette has been observed that the newspaper has been faced by steady decline (Bohstedt, 2016). The percentage of this decline is recorded by 38% for the last eight years and that affect all over performances.
Similarly, it has been also observed that the revenue comes from the advertisement agencies also reduced by 28%. Most of the newspapers have monthly subscription of around $12. The interest of the people is declining in subscribing the newspaper at such cost when they can get the information from internet at marginally low prices. On the contrary, most of the people do not read the complete newspaper, they look at the selective column of the news, yet they must pay for the entire newspaper.
One of the biggest issues with print newspaper is that to get the cu
ent news, people need to buy the newspaper published at that specific time. For example, generally people get news after 24 hours, next day in the morning. If they need to get the news about some important issue happened during day, they must buy the mid-day newspaper. Thus, people consider it waste of money as most of the time; they get the cu
ent news from internet and television. Thus, spending money on something, which provides delayed news, is waste of time
3.1.2 Social, Cultural, Demographic, and Environmental Forces
Through the overview of the overall social context of Australia, it is observed that the citizens of this country are leading their life with the maintenance of high quality. According to Mo
is and Metternicht (2016), the developed lifestyle of the people of this country is making their involvement in the developed technologies. This process becomes evident in their use of internet services instead of newspapers.
While using the media of reading the people are also focusing on the services they are getting with respect to the amount they are paying. While using the digital platform the services and the contents are quite superior to that from the print media. The quality, quantity and the accessibility of contents have become much easier. They can be accessed at any moment and with up-to-date information available with real time analysis, which is much cheaper with respect to the print media format.
Australian people are very hard working and they are trying to look outlawed in their performances of the daily life activities. This process leads them to the development of their life cycle, which is fully dependent on the use process of internet. The use of the internet is fostering the cultural perspectives of the people of this country. Therefore, the involvement of internet also decreases the use of newspapers for the adoption of news.
According to the demographic situation of Australia, it is noticed that this country has a higher population than the other countries of the global world. As opined by Islam and Mamun (2017), most of the citizens of this country are spending too much on different activities and this process serves lacking in the use of newspaper for the collection of information. The changes in climates in Australia are offering hindrance in the making of newspaper and for this; the Chronicle Gazette is facing its declining circulation in earning revenues. As suggested by Holcombe (2018), the socio-political perspective of Australia has led to increase in the number of people from the diverse culture coming to a place.
This diversity has led to people with different interest and likings. Based on the preferences the demand also varies for the people. According to the report published by Third Intergenerational Report in January 2010, the population of Australia is projected to reach nearly thirty six billion by 2050. Therefore, this huge population must have different interest of study and gathering knowledge. Hence, the Chronicle Gazette must include a variety of contents, which will attract the people of different demographic, and also of different age groups. Meyer (2017) said that Australians have different cultural practices and likings as the people from different background are living at one place, therefore the Australians do not have any one particular culture.
The people of Australia have a huge interest for the sports and also for travelling and foods. Therefore, the newspaper is lacking in providing appropriate contents that the Australians require to fulfil their interest. Australia being a wealthy country, still faces severe environmental challenges. The natural resources that are abundant like coals, iron ore, gold, copper and uranium have resulted in setup of many industries, which have increased pollution to a major extent. Apart from that the geographical aspect of Australia, the major portion of land is covered by desert. Also on a regular basis, the tropical climate leads to cyclone and forest fires.
On the other hand, as argued by Abdo, Griffin and Kemp (2019), due to the following reasons mentioned, the numbers of trees are declining and therefore the cutting down of trees will
ing further threat to the environmental aspect of Australia. However due to the following problem the usage of paper has reduced significantly and the government of Australia and all the people are mostly focusing on reducing the usage of papers and focussing more on the paperless format. Due to the above reason, the print industry has faced a severe decline. This is also one of the reasons for the huge decline in the print industry.
3.1.3 Political, Governmental and Legal Forces
Regarding the case study, it has been observed that the newspaper agency should have a focus on the political, governmental and legal forces to enhance changes in their business policies. However, political and legal forces are playing a significant role in the business. Through the context of Australian administration and structural factors, it has been found that the business is affected by the outcomes of the elections and the regulatory policies (Ember, 2016). However, the freedom of the newspaper also depends on the regulation of the government.
The Australian government pays attention to these factors and provide the entire freedom to the Chronicle Gazette. On the other hand, the report consists of the tariff policies of the Australian government and provides the entire information of tariff regulatory acts that Chronicle Gazette could have an approach for a positive way to gain their new strategy (Popkin, 2015). The Chronicle Gazette should have an approach for a suitable legal environment that they can operate their business within an effective way and can gain their advertisement revenue-again within a profitable figure.
According to the political issues, the newspaper is publishing the news against the cu
ent government. This may affect the people of Australia who do not want to read the news...