Reflections from the past and our Path Ahead
By M V Shreyams Kumar, MP & Managing Director – Mathrubhumi Group
When you invited me to write this piece on our future focus, I decided to also quickly glance over the past. The year 2021 has been a year of re-evaluation in general and in particular for people, brands, and businesses. At Mathrubhumi, we embarked on a company-wide transformation as we felt it was the right time for us to prepare our nets when we couldn’t go fishing.
As we embark on the New Year, our top business priorities rest on 6 fundamental pillars; Purpose, People, Product, Processes, Partnership, and Practices.
Purpose:
As a responsible and very credible media house, which will soon be celebrating its centenary; a good fortune which very few in the media business are blessed with, we will be building a clear vision to ensure all our actions will be backed by a purpose, making us all answer the question, why are we doing what we are doing.
People:
Human assets are one of our most critical assets. A transformative HR system that will not only focus on helping people sharpen their strengths and mitigate their weaknesses but also deliver on their overall emotional well-being. In our 3000 people strengths, we have different generations of people. Hence customizing initiatives to suit the mindsets of these different generations is also a key priority.
Product:
With Mathrubhumi Daily, our 11 different periodicals, each a leader in their segments (e.g. Arogyamasika, which is the country’s largest health and wellness magazine with 26 lac readers and TozhilVartha with 25 lac readers is again a leader in its segment of helping people with employment options and employability quotient) Club FM, Kerala’s No. 1 FM station, Mathrubhumi News, a credible news channel, Mathrubhumi News, Kappa, a youth TV channel, Mathrubhumi.com and our various social media platforms, which engage with millions of audience, collectively touch 75% of Kerala’s population day after day. Our ambition is to ensure our products become a part of the lives of our audience in as interactive a manner as possible.
Processes:
Coupled with data-driven decision-making for internal efficiency, the newer processes we are building will also include providing efficiency to our advertisers in a never-before manner with our vision of offering a one-stop solution as Gateway to Kerala. We have recently launched Ad Impact and have been able to roll out many innovations under this. The first of its kind Radio innovation, Cinema Katha where we built 3 audio cinemas collaborating with top film directors and the Club FM listeners.
This also won us gold for innovation at the Indian Marketing Awards. Similarly, another innovation was KuttiMathrubhumi (a children’s special product) circulated with our main daily on 14th Nov, children’s day. We have in the pipeline the biggest ever health and wellness initiative as part of the 25-year celebration of ArogyaMasika.
Partnerships:
Real partnership with our audiences, understanding their challenges, giving them a platform to voice their opinions and even becoming a bridge between them and various authorities as well as the real partnership with our advertisers, understanding their marketing and communication challenges, helping them build consumer connect initiatives based on our deep insights.
Practices:
Just to sum up, we believe 2022 will provide business owners with various new opportunities as markets get fully opened up. And there will be those who will go back to where it all ended and there will also be those who would have gathered the strength and the ability to view avenues/opportunities and even developments from a new angle. We certainly belong to the latter and for our business constituents (mainly our advertisers) who also belong to the latter group, our new practice will mean embarking together on a consumer connect journey, like never before and even staying accountable for our actions.
What I have outlined is a broad vision that can be defined as the tentpoles, but many tentacles will help hold these together in harmony.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and all your readers the very best for a great 2022!
