Cost reduction for a publishing house

How a publishing house reduces costs and dependence on the service provider

Our client is a publisher of the leading daily newspapers in Austria and plays an important role in providing information to the population in the south of Austria.

Initial situation

Due to the increased provision of news services free of charge in recent years, the media company has been confronted with stagnating or partly declining circulation figures.

As a customer service, the newspaper offers its customers customised billing options, which are, however, capital-intensive. Due to long-standing partnerships (“lock-in” effect), there was a close relationship with the existing service provider. The outsourcing of customer data processing also led to a loss of know-how for Kleine Zeitung.

Objective

The objective was to reduce costs for data preparation, printing and dispatch of invoices and reminders. Furthermore, an approximation to market prices and their long-term safeguarding was to be achieved in order to avoid future increases.

In addition, overlapping and complex processes were to become more comprehensible through better coordination and an optimised exchange of information between several business areas.

Approach: Billing processing

First of all, cost transparency was created by separating the expenses for invoice and reminder printing as well as the associated data preparation from the costs of delivery.

Since achieving savings ideally without a change of service provider (“lock-in”) is a particular challenge, the focus was on preparing for negotiations in order to be able to maintain the option of a possible change of service provider in the negotiations.

As part of the preparation for negotiations, an alternative offer was obtained as a benchmark for the currently valid prices. The conditions were renegotiated with the existing service provider, with the chance to continue the long-term cooperation.

Results

The concrete project results show clear benefits for the company:

  • Direct EBIT effective results
  • Securing prices in line with the market by concluding long-term contracts
  • Reduction of dependence on the service provider

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