MediaPrint reinvents itself in terms of data technology

Added value

• Creating a common understanding of challenges and solutions in the data environment across all parts of the organization.
• Strategic realignment in the sharing and processing of data in compliance with data protection and antitrust regulations
• Organizational and cultural realignment to exploit existing data potential

Case study details

MediaPrint is Austria's largest newspaper publisher and reaches several million people every day with the country's two leading daily newspapers, Krone and Kurier, and their digital offerings. Due to the declining importance of the print business, the company strongly promoted the expansion of the digital business even before the initial talks on our project — but had not yet achieved its full potential. The necessary expansion of digital business and the quantification of various control measures were also hampered at the time by a backlog of investment in the area of data. In order to secure and further expand competitiveness and leading market position in Austria, data challenges should now be solved across organizations and in a future-proof manner.

Both in the preliminary discussions on the project and during the project, it became clear that in the past, the complex stakeholder landscape repeatedly posed a greater challenge in initiating and implementing data projects and initiatives. As a result of this complexity and other factors, data knowledge was spread across several parts of the organization and roles and responsibilities were not always clearly defined. The technical systems in the data environment were also either in operation in an organization-specific manner - and therefore only offered fragmentary data - or could no longer meet the increasing demands in terms of performance and scalability. As a particular challenge, there were also antitrust requirements for the processing and merging of data.

As part of the project, we first carried out an extensive status quo analysis, in which we conducted more than 20 interviews and workshop formats with almost 80 people from 10 areas. Of course, we also reviewed and evaluated all relevant documentation and documents using the proven TDI framework. Against this background, together with management and selected decision makers from the individual areas, we then developed a target image for the three aspects (1) organization, (2) culture and (3) architecture. The specific recommendations for action included, for example, the development of data governance, the transformation of the organization into a hub & spoke model, and the establishment of a data governance board, new meeting routines and new responsibilities and roles. In addition, we derived an architectural goal that included the centralization and modernization of the data infrastructure along the first identified use cases.

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