The Sarasota Journal Case

Wilma Collins is a sales manager at a daily print newspaper called The Sarasota Journal. She has been working in the newspaper business for her entire 35 year career. The Sarasota Journal has been declining in sales over the past few years.

Like many print newspapers in the United States, The Sarasota Journal has been seeing declines in sales and advertising. Wilma Collins is a Sales Manager who has invested 35 years in her career being in the newspaper business. Wilma has endured many challenges but also struggles with layoffs, terminations and set-backs due to a floundering market. She has been offered and refused a job with a small company that would triple her salary and require a lot of travel which would physically limit her due to her rheumatoid arthritis. The Internet has made a huge impact on the newspaper industry forcing managers like Wilma to monitor and stay abreast of a fast changing market that prefers instantaneous updated Internet news, advertisements and different formats as opposed to the simple printed newspaper.

The President and Editor in Chief of The Sarasota Journal, Bob Bowen remains confident that the newspaper will survive and has fought to stay profitable by cutting back on the staff, tailoring its product, purchasing new technologies to gain efficiencies and introducing a news Web site. Bob embraces the newspaper's online division that is experiencing growth, but has requested a three-year plan from his managers on how to organize and manage their departments to embrace the changes occurring in the marketplace. The plan is to focus on personnel, training, execution, competitor's reaction, compatibility with other departments and revenue streams.

Bob presented numbers from recent study that surveyed shoppers to assess the strength of newspapers as an advertising medium. The numbers were positive and Bob's message was optimistic, but the real fact of the newspaper industry is grim. Wilma has a tremendous amount of knowledge in the industry and it is questionable whether she will have the endurance to restructure the current sales force. Currently, the eight sales consultants are only producing $1,230,000 in online advertising which contributes 20% of the total advertising sales. Each representative will be required to capture a minimum of 30% of their sales in online advertising. In order to be able to reach that goal, computer training will be mandatory and those consultants who are unable to meet the required target of 30% will have to be released. Salaries will be restructured with a base salary and incentives in the form of bonuses will be paid once their required online advertising goal has been met. A CRM program will be implemented so that managers will be able to monitor progress and examine deficiencies.

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