CNTI’s Business Success Initiative (BSI)

Core Idea

The sustainability of journalism depends on redesigning organizations around emerging forms of customer and community value, not on restoring legacy operating models. CNTI’s Business Success Initiative seeks to help local news providers of all kinds by providing a strategic framework and toolkit that offers market analysis, relevant and proven business models, and benchmarking mechanisms to track progress alongside a new business-oriented mindset.  Today, businesses operate in an environment of continual societal and marketplace change. It’s critical to continuously watch for disruptions in the value chain, assess the new opportunities and evolve the business products and practices to meet market needs.

Phase I: Completed

In phase I, we crafted a series of cross-industry case studies to understand how they have responded to structural disruption, both successfully and unsuccessfully. From those case studies we built CNTI’s Business Success Framework: a strategic, cyclical response to disruption. It is not only as a diagnostic tool for understanding disruption but also as a strategic model for organizational adaptation, institutional resilience, and sustainable value creation. It is also a continuous cycle, not a one-and-done. 

The case studies included:

The full version of the report, including a detailed walk through of the framework and each case study will be available soon.

Phase II: In the Works

In Phase II we will be creating the tools and programs to put the framework into action. The core components are as follows: 

Metrics: Building a scalable set of rigorous metrics and market analytics to enable accurate assessment of customers needs and market opportunity. 

Business Model Templates: Crafting an array of applicable business models depending on the specific nature of the publishing business be it a local news publishers or an industry vertical.

News Provider Strategy Coaching: Building the coaching program for local news providers: (This includes a round of testing and refinement with 2-3 organizations). 

Academic Coursework: We have strong interest in coursework curriculum for the undergraduate, graduate and executive learning levels as well as with journalism support organizations such as Project C. Teaching those coming into journalism (whether inside an organization or solo) strong business skills and market evaluation techniques could provide some of the greatest impact in the long-run.  

We would love to have your involvement! Please let us know, below, how you would like to engage: working with us as a pilot news provider, being a coach, working on or offering the curriculum program, financially supporting the endeavor or just being kept abreast of the work. Success requires a collaborative approach. We look forward to hearing from you!