benchmarking for newspaper and magazine publishers: schickler consulting

Benchmarking for newspaper and magazine publishersImproving performance by comparing to industry bests

Approach

Targets

23 SCHICKLER – Expertise in the publishing industry

1

When should a publishing house consider benchmarkin g its business activities?

Reasons for benchmarking your publishing house

You want to understand the cost and quality levels of your publishing house compared to industry best practice

You want to improve profits and effectiveness in your core business to finance necessary investments for future growth

You want to accelerate and manage change , achieve breakthroughs and innovations by seeing “outside the box”

Benchmarking aims at improving publishers’ performa nce, a search that never ends. Therefore, benchmarking is not a single action but a perpetual, cyclical process.

(Re-) Benchmarking

Comparing to industry best

Analyzingperformance

gaps

Identifyingimprovement

initiativesImplementingimprovement

initiatives

Tracking progress of

im-plementation

efforts

Benchmarking cycle for newspaper and magazine publis hers

Approach

Targets


1

SCHICKLER created a four-phase benchmarking methodo logy for use in the majority of its benchmarking projects.

SCHICKLER’s benchmarking methodology

…

Performanceanalysis

BData

collection

A

Optimization enablers

C

Implementation Scenario

D

Tasks

• Evaluate companies key performance indicators

• Compare KPIs with Schickler bench-mark database

Tasks

• Collect financial and operational data

• Understand the organization and its key processes

Tasks

• Identify existing performance gaps

• Identify optimization enablers that lead to best practice performance

Tasks

• Define improvement goals and an action plan to achieve them(timeline, milestones, dependencies etc.)

As for the quantitative assessment, we collect info rmation on all relevant business areas through specific questionnaires.

Standardized benchmarking sheets

Information includes:

� No. of incidents and departmental tasks (= quantity of main effort drivers)

� Assignment heads/FTE to tasks or working areas

� Total costs of department

� Overhead and personnel costs

Phase A - Data collection

In addition to the quantitative data collection, st ructured interviews are used to gather qualitative information and an understanding of str uctures and core processes.

Phase A - Data collectionGuideline Interview

1 Organisation1.1 Explanation of the Organisational Chart. (Please, have an Org Chart ready available). Does your organisation cover the entire geography or selected regions?1.2 Which (sub-) departments does your business area consist of? 1.3 How many FTEs / employees work in the respective department?1.4 Which organisational entities are located centrally, which are based in the regions?1.5 How are the capacities distributed between organisational entities?

2 Performance Delivery Structure2.1 Which functions/services are performed internally?2.2 Which functions/services are performed by external partners?2.3 Which departments are the users of the functions/services?2.4 Do you co-operate or collaborate with other publishers/ companies?2.5 Do you process third party orders?2.6 How is the delivery of work divided between the Head Office and the regions?

3 Core Processes and Major Tasks3.1 Which core processes are performed within your Business Area?3.2 Where exactly are core processes located?3.3 Which systems are used to support/ enable execution of the core processes?3.4 Who are the business owners of the respective processes?

4 Steering and Management4.1 How do you manage your area, especially with respect to remuneration model, planning approach, goal setting and approval procedures?4.2 How do you manage your area, especially with respect to capacity and resource planning and optimisation and quality control?4.3 Which logic/ considerations support the current management structure within your area?

5 Personnel5.1 How do you assess current remuneration model within your business area? Does it currently reflect performance levels of individual employees?

The benchmarking is based upon the SCHICKLER KPI da tabase for publishing companies which covers the whole value chain of a p ublisher.

Phase B - Performance analysis

Example for structural KPIs and benchmarking

Quantitative Benchmarking

� Analysis of efficiency ratios

� Internal Benchmarking

� External (International) Benchmarking

� Comparison to ideal process design

SCHICKLER KPI database for publishing houses

The SCHICKLER KPI database covers all key business areas of a publishing house.

Editorial department

Editorial production

Advertising sales

Advertising processing

Marketing / Sales

Customer Services

Printing

Cross media production

Online Sales

IT-Services

Finance

Administration

Logistics and Delivery

Free sheets

Magazines

(Online) Classifieds


We structured the value chains of a publisher into several KPI levels which are linked to each other.

Cost per net page

Personel cost per net page

Royality cost per net page

…

Cost percapita

Net pages per capita

First level KPI Second level KPI Third level KPI


We developed deficit-lever-matrices for each value chain of a publisher – we are able to quickly and systematically derive proven levers to raise productivity.

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ith

System break 1

Media break 1 1 1

Interfaces inside departments 1

Interfaces between departments 1 1 1

Long approval process 1

Many process participants 1 1

Many control loops 1 1

Atomizing of processes 1

High degree of manual work 1 1 1

High level of documentation 1 1 1

Redundancies 1

Many alignment steps 1 1 1

Unnecessary process steps 1

Changing procedures 1

Unclear procedure / responsibility 1

Unclear competences 1

Punctual capacity overload of employees 1

Delay in delivery of resultsLow qualityLow efficiency levelKnowledge "silos"Individual interpretation of process 1

Missing understanding of the process

Optimization levers

Com

mon

pro

cess

def

icits

Interfaces

Process participants

Process execution

Proceeding transparency

Process management

Phase C - Optimization enablers

We will define clear responsibilities for „working p ackages“ and cluster these packages by effort and priority.

Prioritisation of „working packages“

Estimation effort per working package

Cluster to plan implementation

Phase D - Implementation scenario

Approach

Targets


1

SCHICKLER Management Consulting is focused on opera tional excellence in publishing companies.

Core expertise: Operational Excellence in Publishing Companies

� Operational excellence in publishing processes

� All areas of a publishing house covered – from the editorial department to newspaper home delivery

� Cross media processes and multi-channel publishing

� Founded 30 years ago by former board member of Gruner + Jahr (Bertelsmann, biggest magazine publisher in Europe)

� Focus on media and publishing industry, more than 500 projects in the last 10 years

� Consultants with media experience, strong integration in media industry

Process Optimization Reshaping the Organization Benchmarking

� Organizational structures in the cross media age

� High productivity and cost optimized organizations

� Focus on core business functions

� Centralized functions in a multi title / channel publisher

� Schickler KPI model for the complete value chain of a publisher

� Leading database of publishing KPIs

� Own methodology to adapt KPIs to local structures and markets

SCHICKLER – Professional expertise in the publishing industry

SCHICKLER combines a deep knowledge of the media in dustry with the leading database for publishing KPIs and a state-of-the-art methodology.

Characteristics of Positioning

� Extensive knowledge of the media market and leading database of publishing KPIs

� State-of-the-art methodologycombined with a hands-on approach

� Consultants highly accepted by the clients’ employees

� Solutions tailored to the particular needs of media companies

� Concepts made for implementation - not for the customers’ filing.

Small Consultancies

SCHICKLER SCHICKLER

� Often former managers of respective sector

� Know how based on management experience

Top Management Consultancies

� Standardized solutions and approaches for all sectors

� Expertise ends on a strategic level, not for operational excellence in details

� Broader media experience

� Database of KPIs� Methodological know how to

manage large projects� Experts available for the whole

value chain of a publisher

� Considerably deeper knowledge of media sector

� Strong implementation focus

� Experienced consultants instead of “graduates trained on the job”

SCHICKLER has a leading expertise in the publishing industry in Europe. We are market leader in the German speaking countri es.

References

Rankings are for Germany, Austria and Switzerland* Source: Horizont Ranking of the 100 largest German media companies (2009), without public corporate media** Source: SCHICKLER Market Survey „Zeitungsverlage in Deutschland – Newspaper Publishers in Germany“, 2010*** Source: Horizont Ranking of the 100 largest German media companies (2009), without public corporate media

Top 12

67%SCHICKLER Clients

Magazine Publishers***

Top 100

Media Companies*


Top 100

Newspaper Publishers**


� We have worked for > 250 media companies and > 150 publishing houses.

� Approximately 75% of the bigger newspaper publishers in German speaking countries have already trusted Schickler.

� Besides publishing houses, we also work for other media companies such as TV, radio and online companies.

Overview project experience

Schickler has provided its expertise to publishing h ouses worldwide – up to the present day in more than 20 countries.

� Netherlands

� Norway

� Portugal

� Romania

� Russia

� Serbia

� Spain

� Switzerland

� UK

� United Arab Emirates

� …

� Austria

� Brazil

� Bulgaria

� Croatia

� Czech Republic

� Denmark

� France

� Germany

� Hungary

� Italy

� Macedonia

SCHICKLER has gained extensive experience in over 5 00 projects in publishing houses covering the full range of subjects and value chain s of a publisher.

Editorial Office

Editorial Quality

Editorial Production

NewsdeskOrganisation

Content Management Systems

Advertising

Ad Sales

Ad Sales Back-Office

Ad Production

Ad IT-Systems

Readership Marketing

Acquisition of Subscriptions

Sales Back-Office

Customer Service Centre

Customer Relations

Distribution

Newspaper Distribution

Logistics

Addressed Mail

Publishing-IT

IT-Strategy and -Organization

IT-Outsourcing

System Selection and Implementation

Print Production

Digital Workflow/ Prepress

Print Optimization

Cooperation/ Outsourcing

Overall topics

Publishing Strategy

Online Strategy

Cooperations / Mergers

M&A-Topics

Across-the-board Cost Reduction

Restructuring

Overall Analysis of Publisher

HR & Finance

Publishing House Controlling

Overview Project Experience

SCHICKLER Unternehmensberatung GmbHGroße Bäckerstraße 1020095 HamburgGermanywww.schickler.de

Alexander KahlmannPartner

Tel.: +49 40 376650-40E-Mail: [email protected]

Rolf-Dieter LafrenzPartner

Tel.: +49 40 376650-21E-Mail: [email protected]

Contact details