Business, in pursuit of business objectives, tends to falter on marketing communications, with an increasing focus on profitability and business goals. As is obvious, business, ultimately, is about profit maximization. A business organization is started and gets operational with the hope of making it good on profitability, on the return on investment, and to drive growth rates that would become benchmarks for the industry. And that’s what management is all about, in making it easy for business to make profits, increase sales and revenue, achieve financial goals and enhance one’s standing in a competitive market.
Competitive forces, on the other hand, work towards reducing the very profit margin that business tries to increase. Competition tends to work against large profit margins and an increase in competition would invariably mean falling profitability and margins under stress. And companies tend to offer more for less, free offers abound and the consumer rejoices, till business starts feeling the pinch of reduced profitability. At one point, business has to reduce its freebies and hike prices so as to sustain, especially when faced not just with competitive forces but also with industry dynamics that give less room for profitability.
That’s what seems to be happening in the media industry, with the internet revolution having brought all media and journal online. Electronic versions of famous news papers and journals have been free for all, in an attempt to capture market share and for customer retention. Then, Wall Street Journal announced it was going to charge not just for its contents but for contents of all publications of the News Corp Group. And then, New York Times has followed suit with a similar announcement, but has chosen to be less stringent in erecting walls around its sites, perhaps starting 2011.
It is tough to communicate this to the market, after having been favourable to the consumer. All the time, the consumer has been allowed to gain access to contents for free – and to make the consumer adapt to a new world of paid content is tough. However, there is a flaw in the marketing communication part of it that stress so much on paid content and walls, and much less on what the consumer would stand to gain in the new system.
Marketing communications should be aimed at emphasising much on value added services, the value that the consumer would derive out of paid content; communication should not focus on what the consumer would have to bear with in the coming days but should rather be on how much the consumer has to benefit in terms of improved services.
Negative actions would have minimal impact if positive communication is applied.
Passion for Writing and Business; Post-graduation in Management; Some useful managerial experience and International Exposure; Belief in Risk-taking and in the spirit of the entrepreneur. That's me. 
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