United Daily News Group A Building Hybrid Business Models Case Solution

2. Hybrid Business Model

Many modern businesses are revolutionizing their business models by taking the necessary leaps of transition. Many traditional businesses have transformed their products to platforms for the sake of a hybrid business model (Furr, 2016). For the UDN group. First of all the company needs to create separate business units as per their core functions e.g. the news network should be a separate entity from its media business for better management.  Secondly, it needs to apply some new business techniques to its units as follows:

i. News

The transformation of news from the traditional platforms to the digital era has its own challenges and opportunities. With the plethora of information available on digital media, the quality of the news has suffered. It has been found that for revenues the quality is often compromised in online news sources (Martens, Aguiar, Herrera, & Langer, 2018). In this scenario, UDN can leverage its brand name as a credible source of news. It can focus on delivering quality over quantity to become the number one preference of the readers. 

Apart from improving its digital layout, the company can introduce some services and content with the subscription fee for the selected readers. The content to be available on the subscription should be decided on the basis of viewership of the content. If the Economic Daily has the most consumers then in-depth economic analysis should be offered only on subscription. The company can also offer magazine-like content with detailed quarterly, half annually, and annual reviews on selected topics that have a wide readership for e.g. politics. In addition to it can use data analytics to gather insights on the consumer's preferred product and focus on it to generate revenues through advertisement. Both of these strategies are found to be effective for the newspapers to generate sustainable revenues (Olsen & Solvoll, 2018). After providing some content free like one or two months free articles the company can build readership through quality content and later charge a subscription fee.

The company is already collaborating with other newspapers, magazines, and media teams to launch supplements and organizing events, it can create its exclusive content which can be available on subscription or through the mobile app of the business. Although much traditional business has launched their apps there is room for creativity in the market (Cantarero, Neira, & Valentini, 2017). UDN can use its expertise in media and news to create a compelling app with specialized content and can charge a fee for that. It will help in capturing the youth market as well. The company can develop specialized content for different market segments and launch it on the app for a minimal fee. Apart from launching the e-books, UDN can create specialized courses for media students and can sell them through its platform to generate revenues.

ii. Media

In its media business, the company has already done some collaboration and experimentation through events management and the exhibition’s arrangements. The company can move this strategy one step further by arranging the exhibitions for the inch markets. It can e.g. arrange exhibitions and seminars on health issues and charge tickets from the audiences. It can arrange education and employment expos for the youth and collaborate with other companies to generate revenues. UDN can transform its products into an entire platform which is a successful strategy for hybrid business models (Furr, 2016). For this, it needs to create more diversified content and use its existing products and platforms to sell the newly developed content.

The company is already successful in the traditional news media and has a strong brand name it can do a number of activities to leverage it. In addition to its existing news channels and digital presence for news, UDN can open sports and entertainment channels with wider audiences. This strategy would be related to diversification where the company is using its skills and expertise in the related market instead of diversifying in an entirely new domain. Companies can use the digital media streams to promote content on the web to gather the attention of younger audiences. The existing product news can be used to draw traffic to these channels where other products, the new content can be sold. It has been a successful business strategy for the media outlets (Barland, 2020).

UDN can also generate revenues through partnerships in sports events. Sponsorship of sports events is an important source of revenue for many companies and it also helps to shape the consumer’s attitude towards the brand (Ko & Kim, 2014). World’s largest media companies are generating revenues through the sponsorships of sports events including the Pro Sieben Sat of Europe and the Yomiuru Shimbun Holdings which are generating revenues through media sponsorships of sports events (Reilly , 2016). It can be a sustainable source of revenue for the company. The viewership of the sports events would be far more than the news audience and will require less investment as the business model would not be much different. The sponsorship and coverage of local sports events would be helpful with the revenues,