A Large Newspaper In A Highly Competitive Metropolitan Market

TRANSFORM OPERATIONS in Advertising, Marketing, Finance and Production departments for improved customer service, quality, and productivity, and overall revenue performance

Project Focus

Design a viable operating model that meets the goals established by executive management, document and assess the current operations, and develop an implementation plan to move from the current state to the new model.

Financial Benefits

• 5% increase in overall revenue
• 4% increase in sales revenue
• 1% increase in spec ad revenue
• 60% reduction in adjustments
• 59% reduction in rerun (makegood) costs
• 35% increase in productivity
• 37% increase in time sales reps have to sell
• 25% reduction in paperwork
• 79% reduction in problems associated with ad flow

Key Changes and Operational Benefits

• Places the customer in the forefront of the business
• Provides “pre-call” guidelines and templates for prospecting clients
• Provides templates/checklists to guide sales reps through the sales to ad production process
• Provides a storefront for sales reps’ support needs
• Provides focus on turnaround versus deadlines, keeping the work flowing to minimize bottlenecks
• Provides for customer notification before being put on credit hold
• Provides a new work unit responsible for quality, traffic and support of advertisers and sales reps
• Provides for staffing and scheduling based on objective data (workload, customer access requirements and activity volumes)
• Provides for skills training programs across all functional areas
• Provides for management development training to manage to the new model – in the role of coach
• Provides key indicator reporting and daily performance review meetings

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