TNG Canada Web Editor's note

The following is an unedited copy of a memo on official company letterhead distributed Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006 to Osprey Media employees in the wake of a four-city protest against the company's job outsourcing policies. The text is as written, with no corrections to spelling, grammar or punctuation. The emphasis on certain statements, however, is ours. Phrases highlighted in blue bold are links to our editorial comments or asides — which open in a new window — on what is stated here by Osprey CEO Michael Sifton.

Memorandum

Date: February 15, 2006
From: Michael G. Sifton
To: The Osprey Team
Subject: Change and Evolution

The words 'change' and 'evolution' are probably two of the most overused yet least understood words in business. I think it is clear to all observers that change is constant, and that the world evolves daily. Yet we have a natural human tendency to want to stay with what is comfortable and familiar.

At Osprey, we have the great privilege of working in a business or craft that has been practiced (sic) for more than 400 years. Of course I am talking about the business of putting ink on paper. We gather information, whether it be news or commercial information, and then we put it on paper to sell or give to our audience. This great tradition is both a benefit and a curse.

On the one hand, we derive wonderful benefits from our very long standing relationships with our readers and our advertisers which include trust and respect. On the other hand, we can be saddled with outdated notions of how we are to get our information to our readers, liaise with our customers and generally conduct our business. This is where change and evolution come into play. Our great traditions are both a strength and an impediment for our future success.

Newspaper publishing remains a very attractive business to be in — but only for those who are prepared to adapt and change to changing (sic) customer needs.

Gone are the days where revenue flowed in because we simply opened our doors in the morning. Gone are the days where we could institute circulation and advertising rate increases because we wanted more money. Gone are the days when "media moguls" enjoyed unsustainable profit levels because they controlled the medium.

Today our customers are king and queen. They have more choices than ever. Our readers are not limited to the information we provide, nor are our advertisers limited to what we have to sell.

The business has changed. The question is: Can we change? Can we evolve?

I truly believe the answer is yes, we can evolve. In fact we have come a long, long way already but we cannot allow ourselves to stop evolving. We need to continue to evolve our product offers, our frequency and delivery, our media alternatives and our advertiser relations. But we cannot stop here. We must look for ways to do things differently within the business in order to keep the business financially strong in order to compete with other large media companies.

One such initiative is the addition of our classified sales center (sic). This is just a part of a strategy to meet advertiser demands, defend our classified franchise and at the same time evolve it and grow the revenue. We now have the ability with this sales center to augment the good work done by local on-site classified sales people by having a solid team of phone sales people who are adept at selling our many classified "up-sell" features as well as our multi-market advertisement opportunities. Start-up problems aside, the results speak for themselves. Since its startup in November, the sales center has been able to generate very significantly more revenue per booked advertisement than the sales folks at the corresponding newspaper. We are now looking at ways to augment the sales training of the classified sales folks in the newspapers to improve their sales output.

Let me be clear. We want to continue to employ classified sales people on-site in our newspapers. The question is: What is the right balance of staff between the newspapers and the sales center? This is all about serving our customers better and in the end being rewarded with more revenue.

Another initiative we have been working on is creating ways to improve the way we service our subscribers. With the creation of our new circulation customer service center, we have recently discovered that at least one of our newspapers was experiencing an abandoned call rate of an unacceptable 28%. The new center is staffed by circulation customer service representatives to ensure we are prepared for the peaks and valleys of our busy days.

Let me be clear again, we will continue to employ circulation customer service representatives on-site in our newspapers.

Another initiative has been our consolidation of print centers. This has been an effort to offer our publications better quality, more page capacity and greater colour opportunities while reducing our capital expenditures. This seems like a win-win situation.

I realize these changes don't occur without challenges. I realize we are asking people to do their work differently and in some cases we have asked some our team members to leave the organization. I realize that change is difficult. It would be nice if we could just continue to do things the way we did before, but we cannot. We must embrace change and evolve, for if we don't, we will become a footnote in history books.

Our business methods may change, but our values will not. We must avoid at all costs the reverse. We must not fall in love with our traditional ways of doing business while failing to be honest with ourselves about where some of these old practices (sic) may be leading us.

I believe in our newspapers and the role they play in our communities. I am proud of our traditions. I am even prouder of our team. I believe we need to get on with change so our newspapers can stay strong into the future. Lastly, I believe we have created the best newspaper group in Canada and I want to see it continue as a strong entity. I hope you do too.

Michael Sifton

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