Shenzhen Press Group Discussion On Strategic Orientation Change

In the 30 years since reform and opening began, Chinese media has developed rapidly. In 2007, the value of the Chinese media industry's economic output reached RMB 480 billion. However, revenues from advertising in traditional print media are decreasing. Meanwhile, Web 2.0, P2P networking, and user-generated content are changing the industry boundary between internet and newspaper. These technology innovations bring up challenges to the traditional media industry; moreover, they bring up great opportunity.Shenzhen Press Group (SPG) is the largest traditional media corporation in China, with the highest advertising revenues in the past five years. Yet, in 2005 Chinese newspaper industry experienced its first annual decrease in advertising revenues. In the three years since, advertising revenues of SPG have failed to grow sustainably. Newspaper industry in China, including SPG, is eager to be strategically re-positioned, finding the appropriate business model.Based on a strong command of the related literature, this thesis employs strategic research and management theories to analyze the future of Shenzhen Press Group, illustrating that SPG must take the advantage of its comprehensive capability of reportage and editing. Technically, the marginal cost of the internet is low. According to my research, Shenzhen News Group should act quickly to transform itself from a traditional "print" media corporation to a complex media group. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations on how Shenzhen Press Group and other similar news industries can re-envision their strategic position and control risks.This thesis is comprised of seven components. The first introduces a discussion of theories, logic, and analytical methods employed throughout. The second component explains strategic positioning and strategic change, proceeding on to a brief overview of the domestic news industry. The third part utilizes PEST to analyze the microenvironment, combining with the analysis of the five-forces framework, competition environment, industry life cycle, and strategic group. The part is the fundamental of Shenzhen News Group's strategic position. The fourth section looks closely at Shenzhen News Group's internal resources and competencies. The fifth component employs SWOT and critical success factors and GE matrix analysis for a more complete perspective and proposes a new strategic position tailored to the realities of Shenzhen News Group. The sixth element provides an overview of strategic position implementation and necessary related innovations and reforms. Finally, the thesis concludes with a discussion of policy suggestions and potential future research directions.The unique contribution of this thesis lies in the series of proposals and reforms derived from thorough analysis of the newspaper industry value chain, core competences. The paper offers a new strategic position, together with suggestions on how to execute it. These suggestions and opinions have positive effects on the enhancement of media's competitiveness.The author believe that strategic position and change faced by Shenzhen News Group can also be used as a reference for the national media. The deficiency that exists in this thesis lies in the difficulty of proposing more scientific management strategy caused by the un-transparency of the publishing quantity and commercial income of Chinese newspapers.