What is Newspaper Next?
Now Available! The N2 Symposium DVD.
Why is API undertaking this project?
Why are we excited about the project?
What is unique about Innosight's approach?
What will Innosight do in this project?
What is a disruptive innovation?
Newspaper Next is an ambitious, year-long project undertaken by the American Press Institute to research and test viable new business models for the newspaper industry. Understanding that the best answers will come from a broad spectrum of thinking, API has retained innovation consulting firm Innosight LLC and has impaneled a task force of visionaries and thought leaders to collaborate on this important work.
Innosight and the task force presented an interim report on their findings at the Newspaper Next Transformation Symposium on February 8 and 9, 2006, in Washington, D.C. Final recommendations are due in late 2006. Back to top
The newspaper industry is at a strategic inflection point – a period of disruptive changes that threaten its current way of doing business with no clear future path. The threats come from many directions but are manifesting themselves in the form of declining circulation, rising costs and downward revenue pressure. These trends show no sign of reversing themselves. The industry’s very survival is dependent on its ability to reframe completely the way it does business, and find new ways to attract and keep customers. Many industries throughout history have reached strategic inflection points; not every industry has weathered them successfully. This project’s goal is to ensure that newspapers survive these disruptive times. Back to top
Why is API undertaking this project?
API was founded and is supported by the industry it serves, and for the past 60 years it has been the sole source for industry-specific executive education. Its core strength is equipping executives with the leadership knowledge and industry best practices they need to sustain the success of their organizations. This project is a continuation of that role.
API has always been proud to serve the newspaper industry. Through this project it will continue to be the catalyst for and the source of learning about innovative business models to sustain the industry going forward. Back to top
Why are we excited about the project?
The newspaper industry has a chance to do what has seemed so challenging to many other industries. Most newspaper companies have good brand reputations, strong cash positions and a deep well of content. If companies couple those assets with a re-framing of their market and appropriate organizational designs, they can seize the opportunity lurking in the current threat and drive the transformation themselves. Both API and Innosight hope this project helps newspaper companies realize the potential in the threats. Back to top
Innosight is a consulting and training firm that helps companies create growth through innovation. Its services facilitate the discovery of new high-growth markets and the rapid creation of breakthrough products and services. Its unique methodologies and proprietary tools convert the quest for innovation and growth into a more predictable and reliable process. Fueling Innosight are the ideas of its co-founder, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, whose path-breaking books on innovation have sold more than 1 million copies. It has honed its approach through client work with organizations such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Motorola, the government of Singapore and numerous media companies. More information is available here. Back to top
What is unique about Innosight’s approach?
Innosight bases its work on the patterns and frameworks that have emerged from Clayton Christensen’s 15 years of research into the world of innovation and from its experience helping clients wrestle with the challenges of disruptive change. It takes a structured approach to industry transformation, looking for jobs that customers can’t adequately get done and analyzing factors that might constrain leading companies’ abilities to fend off seemingly innocent threats. The use of patterns and principles allows it to focus its research and identify trends before conclusive data arrives. Conclusive data only exists about the past, so making decisions only when conclusive data has emerged consigns managers to take action when it is too late. Back to top
What will Innosight do in this project?
Innosight will analyze the disruptive trends reshaping the newspaper industry and provide a common way to frame some of the challenges the industry is facing. It will analyze “jobs to be done” of readers and advertisers to point to pressing threats and potential opportunities. It will profile case studies of innovative approaches followed by existing newspaper companies in the United States and other parts of the world. It will synthesize the work to suggest specific strategies newspaper companies looking to master innovation ought to consider. Finally, it will provide implementation advice to help companies improve their ability to navigate through increasingly turbulent times. Back to top
Many companies unintentionally limit themselves by focusing on improving the attributes of their products, or seeking to understand different demographic segments of their customer base. Innosight’s view is that customers don’t buy products, they hire them to get important jobs done. Understanding the jobs that customers care about but can’t adequately get done with existing products can point to new paths for growth. For example, people “hire” Research in Motion’s popular BlackBerry devices to kill small snippets of time productively. One challenge for the newspaper industry is that many of the information-related jobs that people used to hire newspapers to get done are now done better by emerging competitors. Back to top
What is a disruptive innovation?
Disruptive innovations typically offer lower performance along dimensions that firms consider critical. In exchange, these innovations introduce new benefits along dimensions such as simplicity, convenience, ease of use or low price. Classic examples of disruptive innovation include the personal computer, discount airlines, steel minimills, Intuit’s TurboTax product and Procter & Gamble’s Swiffer line of products. In the media industry, blogs, Google, eBay, Monster.com and freely distributed commuter papers all fit the pattern of disruptive innovation. Each emerging competitor lacks something that is core to most newspaper companies' value proposition. Some can’t match a newspaper’s broad distribution network. Others can’t compete with the newspaper’s detailed reporting capability or local reach. All, however, compete in different ways than newspapers are used to competing.
Even well-run market-leading organizations tend to struggle with disruptive change because the assets that serve them so well in extending their core business stand in the way of success when the industry changes. Newspaper companies are in the midst of just such disruptive innovation right now, which is why this project is so critical. Back to top
