The newly-appointed chief executive of a regional publisher has outlined a plan to reorganise the business in a bid to become “the best local media company in the country.”
Jeff Henry, pictured below, set out his strategy for Archant to become more “customer-centric” during a conference at the company’s head offices in Norwich yesterday.
Addressing 120 senior managers, he outlined a plan to reorganise the business from 1 January, with editorial staff reporting to a group-wide chief content officer rather than through a regional business structure.
The new structure will see a senior management team made up of chief officers for content, commercial, marketing, technology, finance and HR. The company has made clear there are no redundancies planned as a result.
The posts of chief content officer and chief technical officer are being recruited currently, while Johnny Hustler will be interim chief commercial officer is Johnny Hustler with recruitment for the permanent post under way.
The other three senior roles will be occupied by existing Archant employees – namely Will Hattam as chief marketing officer, Brian McCarthy as chief financial officer, and Dee Wilmott as chief HR and development officer.
Jeff, who took up his current role in September, told the conference: “I have spent my first three months in the business listening to our people across the country and looking hard at our portfolio, the markets we operate in and how we relate to our stakeholders.
“My conclusions have been positive. I believe this is a great company, with strong brands, trusted in its communities and full of committed, talented and creative people.
“There are, however, a number of things which I think we can do differently to produce better results and to be more customer-centric.
“I plan to bring content to the top of our agenda, ensuring that it is relevant, timely and cost-effective. We also need to get our technology right, and generate enough profit and cash to allow us to invest for the future.”
“To achieve this we need to operate as one team, with one plan and one goal – One Archant – to enable us to become the best local media company in the country.
“From the start of 2015, we will organise the business along functional lines with leaders in content, commercial, marketing, technology, finance and HR.
“This means that instead of reporting through a regional business structure, staff will become part of a functional one, with all editorial people, for example, reporting through the Chief Content Officer and so on.”
Archant publishes four regional dailies in East Anglia, a host of weeklies in East Anglia, London, the South East and South West, and a countrywide network of regional lifestyle magazines alongside other specialist publications.
As reported on HoldtheFrontPage yesterday, it has applied for planning permission to remove the signage of two of its flagship dailies – the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News – at its Norwich head office, to be replaced by its own corporate branding.
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Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground and you in mid-air?
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Any plans to address Mustard TV’s output? It’s called Mustard because it’s spread very thinly and only palatable in small doses…
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So, In summary, then. A pledge to learn from past mistakes and correct the cultural issues which are hampering us, leading us to become the best UK regional media business to work for in 2017. Then a “new” team appointed to the board – which contains four of the previous management team. Two super new appointments planned. But a raft of senior managers still in place, seemingly with less responsibilities and reporting lines, yet a pledge of no redundancies. And my colleagues and I have not had a pay review in two years and I gather Mr Henry swerved a question about this somewhat yesterday when he was asked when this would happen. Go figure.
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God help them.
Another misty-eyed geezer with a “vision.”
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He addressed 120 “senior” managers!!!
How many middle managers are there, then? Do they all have secretaries?
Talk about being top heavy. Perhaps he should have a word with JP about the benefits of centralisation.
At least, Jeff Henry is appropriately dressed for the job (the cool dude look), but I hope he as circulation-centric as he is customer-centric.
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Management speak aside, they have to try something, and he is articulating what he has to articulate as the new chief executive. If they weren’t trying to do something – anything – they would be accused of fiddling while Rome burns.
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No tie, blue sky thinker…la la land here we come.
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More changes, more knee jerk reactions I dare say but let’s see. I pity the staff – how many changes can they go through & still keep motivated?!
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‘Customer-centric’…why does that phrase chill my blood? Perhaps because it implies editorial policy dictated by focus group, and publications bending over backwards to accommodate every whim of advertisers.
And as for ‘One Archant’, it’s not even an original buzz-phrase. I recall the ‘One Trinity Mirror’ mantra being uttered even as experienced (and therefore expensive) old hacks like me were being handed their P45s.
Still, as long as the ‘content’ is ‘relevant, timely and cost-effective’, I’m sure the business has a very bright future.
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… And I will start by removing the name of our local newspapers from the front of our offices…
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Ah – the old content (we used to call it news) that is not cost-effective question.
You know, the crimes, the fires, the deaths, the council stuff, the investigations, the campaigns, the collisions, crashes and catastrophes, the elections, the courts, the innocent, the exploited, the unheard and the unexpected.
They are a damn nuisance if you are trying to run a local media company these days!
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My wife demanded that I too became more “customer-centric” and, by golly, I’ve never looked back since. Also, “120 senior managers”? 120??!? Are these the people who can’t write stories, plan pages, book ads, sub stories or take photographs? I think we should be told.
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Aaaah, chief content officer. Love it.
Wonder who will get that…I could not possibly predict
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The fact that he didn’t use the word ‘exciting’ has to be a good thing though, doesn’t it?
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Not so much a case of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, more like 120 senior mangers (stop sniggering at the back) working out how to open them before struggling to make the furniture more customer-centric.
Abandon ship!
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Boys with Recorders are calling last orders.
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Is this an ‘exciting’ announcement??? Godammit, how are we supposed to tell unless they tell us? I demand to know.
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“no jobs at risk” with 120 managers maybe there should be,presumably there’s managers managing managers without managing to do anything productive about managing us out of this spiral of chaos we are getting deeper into
He can start by managing with a few less managers I would suggest
I’m sure we’ll all manage very well without them thank you
120!? It Beggars belief, no wonder we are in the state were in
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Stakeholders, brands, portfolio, content – the usual management-speak cobblers from someone who doesn’t appear to own a tie – and dropping the traditional newspaper names from the front of the building. If only those pesky newspapers didn’t get in the way of all our brilliant new ideas.
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`120 managers`,say it slowly,120 managers??!
and the business is in freefall, theres a correlation there me thinks
Maybe shed a few of the deadwood yes men who “manage” the business and who were presumably the ones at the helm and leading them into this chaotic state and maybe staff morale would increase and the focus would be back on quality and the customer,not a quick buck and self serving financially driven interests.
if the staff see the same tired old faces either in the same jobs or sideways moved again and again then its no wonder the ones i work alongside have lost faith.
The statement that no jobs are at risk has done nothing to inspire or reassure people as it simply implies we will continue to run with the same old same old doing the same old stuff with the same dire consequences.
All this hackneyed talk about being the best in the business and popular in the communities is hot air,speak to the people on the ground,speak to those business people who used to advertise and dont any longer,speak to some of the thousands of people who no longer buy the EDP or embarrassing Evening News and a true and very different picture will emerge,one that will give some real pointers about moving the business forward,not going through the motions and flogging dead horse daily and weekly printed output.
Real journalists,not editors lap dogs,professional business minded sales people as opposed to the stack it high knock it out cheap merchants, and professional photographers instead of reader supplied,Twitter lifted photos and maybe the pride and quality will return to this once credible publisher,or carry on as has always been the case with jobs for the boys and drop even deeper into the mire,your choice Jeff.
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‘120 managers’? Quite right, Dick Minim, after seeing that, I didn’t need to read any further.
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You really couldn’t make this stuff up could you ?
And hey Dee Guillimot:
How does the rest of that song go?
Send in the clowns
There ought to be clowns
Don’t worry they’re here
Merry Christmas and a very interesting new year to all you 120 very important people
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A bit late now to be concerned about bringing content “to the top of our agenda,” and “need to get our technology right.” Fifteen years and several million pounds later and many good people thrown overboard in the meantime – and we’re still talking the same old language albeit in newspin.
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What’s the rest of that song Dee Guillimott?
Ah yes,
Send in the clowns
There ought to be clowns
Don’t bother they’re here
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invest in content – i wonder if it will be £200k on a content director from the US. Good for morale.
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If staff are not happy then spending £200k on a “Content Director” seems like a jolly good investment, although the job title appears to be another of those awful Americanisms.
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What morale?
You should try working here with this clueless lot convincing themselves a quick remedy is round the corner
Save a few thousand by cutting out most of the 120 dead wood managers and get in people who know how to run a media business and motivate staff
But I suppose Hooray Henry and Tally ho hustler or ‘ the proprietor’ as he shall forever be known have to justify their huge salaries somehow so a bit of bluster and proclamations weee to be expected
Same old same old I’m afraid
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When times were better we tolerated the incompetents raised by good fortune above their station to management. In these harder times they cannot be carried and if they cannot produce practically they are passengers. On all companies we know who they are. Time for a cull outside the shop floor?
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I left Archant for Newsquest. I’m happier where I am. That says it all, doesn’t it?
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What a load of rubbish. I want my money back!
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What a load of tosh…if this newest muppet had actually been speaking to staff on the ground (and as a current employee, I know he hasn’t really) then he’d know that what he’s proclaiming is nothing but a joke… these sharp suited dickwads are all the same. they couldn’t care less whether they’re flogging papers, ad space, or toffee flavoured popcorn… it’s all just profit and losses. so for this idiot to babble on about creative souls is laughable… oh, and what I do is not ‘content creation’, it’s bloody journalism you idiot… I really do hope the figwick imbecile reads these comments, and realises the error of his, and many of our other exulted leaders, errors…
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As one of their ad managers said to me the day after the ‘conference’
”we are expected to sell thrown together adverts that get no response,into papers that no ones buying and to businessss that aren’t intetested and with majority of staff who don’t want to be here’
So speaks one of the 120
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I don’t know where some of you have got the idea that managers are there to produce successful newspapers. The received wisdom is that managers can manage anything and therefore their careers are in no way related to the product. In fact it’s better if they aren’t. All they have to be able to demonstrate in order to escape the wreck and earn a place in the lifeboat of a better-paid job somewhere else is that they did appropriately managery things in their previous position. Outcomes are of secondary importance because their failure can be blamed on someone or something else – the internet, probably, in this case. As long as the process is observed, they have succeeded. See also chairmen of NHS trusts, banks, council chief executives etcetera. In this instance Mr Henry has played it strictly by the book by calling a big meeting attended by managers, which is one of the main things managers do, in the absence of any genuinely productive work. Those 120 managers will then have called meetings of more junior managers and at the end of the day a hell of a lot of management will have been seen to have happened. Job done.
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120 mangers for 2900 staff is one in twenty so not that bad everyone.
Customer centric well can’t argue with that but who are our customers of today and more importantly tomorrow readers advertisers.
These comments show we have become irrelevant and writing our own funerals.
So get on the red bus or get a life and find something else to moan about.
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Well another moving around of the deck chairs, this time with “chief xxxx” written on each of them. I didn’t see any mention of a position for some of the previous top table – obviously mr Henry has finally seen through them. However there’s enough of the old brigade to continue to help sink ss-archant-titanic.
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What chance something constructive from HTFP commenters for a change? Or is it simply you haven’t a clue so gave up trying ages ago in favour of becoming a serial moaner?
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You never could make sense of what a publisher had to say back in the day when we had hot metal, printers, journalists and an Editor.
No doubt we can trust them now, though…
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Keithy, Norwich:
we used to run a chip-wrapper with around 300 staff and only 4 or 5 managers and the t/o was about 208 million – 1 in 20 – go figure.
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spoken like a top tabler, bored-of-htfp-commenters.
What you fail to realise is its nearly a decade of frustration and demoralisation from the masses aimed at the few, pseudo-elitists, those whose occupy the top table, that have built there internal quangos, surrounded themselves by yes men, and have delivered what exactly……… Confusion, lacklustre performances and a business strategy of buy high and sell off/close down low. It’s akin to watching an episode of the apprentice, where egos get in the way of common sense, and the end result is and should be…….”you’re fired”.
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