Lets hope this publication, an institution in it’s own right, can be turned around and re-branded if necessary. Whilst the £125m deficit in it’s pension fund is a major factor in bringing the company to its knees, could it have operated more efficiently as a business in the first place?
‘The magazine also became associated with free gifts – from pens and alarm clock radios to encyclopaedias – as it looked to lure new readers. However, Reader’s Digest has failed to shake off its image as a publication favoured by older people and in dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms. Despite attempts to modernise, including launching an online edition, its readership in the UK has fallen dramatically from about two million in the 1990s. “In many cases its readers have been, quite literally, dying off, and nobody has been replacing them,” said BBC correspondent Nick Higham. “And the underlying business, like lots of other magazines has struggled, as people bought fewer of them as they migrated to the internet. That has made life very difficult.” As reported on the BBC news channel, 17/2/10.
Could the records held by the company have been put to better use with more use made of data cleansing and suppression bureaus? Often overlooked as a method for reducing company cost, data cleansing should be initiated at the start of any costs saving exercise. It is criminal how much miss-directed direct mail falls on the door mat, residential and corporate. Apart from the environmental impact which is now a major topic of conversation the man hours spent dealing with the knock on effect, mail rooms, IT dept’s, etc is very costly to business.
