Case #2 USA Today
Valentina Salazar (202123640)
1. What are USA Today's core competencies? Justify your answers
Core competencies are the skills in value-creating activities that enable a company to
achieve superior efficiency, quality, innovation, and customer responsiveness (Jones, 2013).
USA Today was forged in 1982 by its corporate parent Gannett Co., at the beginning, there
was a lot of skepticism towards the success of a national daily paper. USA Today was heavily
criticized by Newspaper traditionalists that complaint about its color, style, and brevity. But
this is precisely one of USA Today's core competencies, the fact that the newspaper features
are short makes it possible to cover a wider range of news. After all, USA Today is a national,
not a local paper.
Other of USA Today's core competencies consist of the fact that they invested money and
time into ensuring the quality of their news and features. "The investment in journalism and
the independence that the newspaper gave its journalists made it known as serious, informative
and with excellent news content." (Tushman & Roberts, 2005, p. 4)
2. How do those core competencies help USA Today move into the business? ONLINE or does
it require creating new skills, if so, what would they be and why?
USA Today is a national newspaper that features concise and relevant news that impacts
the nation. This type of structure should make it easier for the newspaper to adapt to an online
news platform because concise news are easier to read in a digital format and to update quickly
so that the readers can constantly be in sync with what is happening in the country.
USA Today is supported by the news conglomerate Gannett Co., The newspaper has
the resources to pursue a "network strategy" that searched to convert the newspaper to a news
company in the broadest sense. Despite this USA Today directives and employees struggled to
take the Online business seriously and integrate it with the paper, taking advantage of growth
opportunities. To stay relevant in a changing environment they need to be able to work as a
team with a single identity, that can perform to the highest standard of the industry. USA Today
needs to further encourage a culture of collective learning and coordination across all its
platforms. USA Today may have all the specialized resources it needs to succeed and stay
relevant in the news delivery industry, but all of this falls short if it does not have the
coordination abilities to manage those resources.
3. Based on chapter 8 of the course guidebook (Jones, 2013), recommend 1 action at every
level of strategy for USA Today
Levels of strategy in USA Today:
Functional
On a functional level, USA Today needs to create new coordination and collaboration
culture between its multiple news delivery outlets. To achieve this, it needs to retrain its
management team as well as its remaining staff to understand that they work for a big news
conglomerate that thrives on the interconnection of its multiple platforms, not just for USA
Today newspaper.
USA Today could greatly benefit from a more integrated managerial team for the online
news platform as well as the newspaper, or the tv component of the company, they could save
cost by sharing talent and information across all scales of the news conglomerate.
Business
With the core competencies, USA Today network already has, such as its distinctive
color and style in developing simple yet engaging news reports, covering news from all states
of the US. Combined with the new integration that they should implement through USA Today
media outlets, they could differentiate themselves further from their competition and find a
comfortable niche in the market where they can grow comfortably and efficiently. The
companies aim should be that of combining its core competencies to achieve a competitive
advantage in the already saturated and constantly evolving news market.
Corporate
If USA today succeeds in its efforts to evolve from a newspaper into an array of media
platforms where anyone can catch up with the news, anywhere, anytime, its corporate parent
Gannett Co., should consider implementing the same strategy of media diversification in its
other 85 papers throughout the nation. This would bring massive growth to the corporate news
domain and would benefit even the smallest of its newspapers, in addition to contributing
massive value for stakeholders.
Global
This strategy, if proven successful can be exported into their international division, such
as their integrated editions in Asia and Europe. These efforts could well constitute a news
revolution.
References:
Jones, G. R. (2013). Organizational Design and Strategy in a Changing Global Environment.
In Organizational Theory, Design, and Change (7.a ed., pp. 1–33). Texas A&M University.
ROBERTS, M. J., & TUSHMAN, M. (2005, septiembre). USA TODAY: Pursuing the
Network Strategy (A). Harvard Business School.
https://services.hbsp.harvard.edu/api/courses/906167/items/402010-PDFENG/sclinks/a8457decea6c5652f8620f5fe6c94c45