|
|
IKS |  |
Choon Kiat
Pei Jing
Esther
Sing Yee
Jonathan
Singapore Press Holdings Report
Introduction
Singapore Press Holdings Limited (SPH) is the leading newspaper publisher in
Singapore. It is licensed to publish 15 newspapers in the four official
languages, and six periodicals. Everyday, SPH newspapers reach 2.78 million
individuals, or 90 per cent of persons above 15 years old.
SPH’s success is due to two flagship newspapers: The Straits Times, the English daily which has been in publication for 157 years, and Lianhe Zaobao. The Chinese daily started in 1983 from the merger of Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh, which dates back to 1923. Berita Harian and Tamil Murasu, are for the Malay and Indian readers respectively.
SPH’s
core products are newspapers and periodicals. Newspapers published by SPH
includes The Straits Times/The Sunday Times;
Lianhe Wanbao (Chinese);
The Business Times
Shin Min Daily News (Chinese);
The New Paper/ The New Paper on Sunday;
Friday Weekly (Chinese);
Streats;
Thumbs Up (Chinese);
Lianhe Zaobao (Chinese);
Berita Harian/Berita Minggu (Malay)
and Tamil Murasu (Tamil). Periodicals such as Her World;
Young Parents;
Her World Brides;
Citta Bella (Chinese);
Home and Décor and
You Weekly (Chinese) are also published by SPH.
Although
its core business is a newspaper publisher, SPH has ventured into providing
Internet portal services with online news and e-commerce facilities. SPH
MediaWorks Ltd, run two free-to-air TV channels. SPH has also expanded into
property investment. It acquired Paragon and The Promenade. SPH also holds
stakes in MobileOne (M1) and Starhub.
In
1996, SPH launched AsiaOne. It is a website which consists of internet editions
of SPH newspapers such as The Straits Times, New Paper, Business Times and etc.
Since the establishment of AsiaOne, there are more and more people making use of
the internet to get hold of the latest news. We will look at the electronic
newspaper in greater detail and find out the strength, weakness, opportunities,
threats, advantages and disadvantages and how technology affects our lives.
Strengths
One
of its strength is that people can easily access into the internet and view
SPH’s website from anywhere in the world. This is true especially for the
Singaporeans who live in overseas. They can know what is happening in Singapore
although they are outside the country. It brings about greater convenient as
people can log on from computers at home, or at their relative or friends place
(need Internet access). They don’t to spend the time waiting for the
newspapers to arrive or walk through a distance to buy the newspapers where
their locations are inaccessible.
In
addition, news can be updated at
anytime of the day. This will be very useful for the businessmen when they need
the latest information to make certain decisions. It can also save time for readers as they can choose to read
the summarized news for some quick updates instead of reading the detailed
article. Readers can access the website for very detailed or specific
information that they need, instead of having to wait for prime time news on
television. Finally, people can also save money on newspapers since they can get
information from the internet..
On the other hand, there are also several weaknesses. Some of the computers may be obsolete and slow in processing. Thus, the users may have to wait for a long time to upload the pages. Furthermore, users may encounter computer-related problems such as virus, hackers, computer hang. While viewing some news website, readers may even stumble across some websites that has virus on them. Some of the examples are Trojan horse and Welchia worm.
Some users may need to find some old news, which requires to pay a subscription fee in order to view them. In the process of transferring money, there may even be some frauds involved. Some news requires readers to sign up as their members, and readers have to provide their e-mail accounts. After a few days, readers may find the news website flooding their e-mail account, which can be quite disruptively
Opportunities
By
placing the newspapers online, using the Internet, SPH can reach out to the
local market as well as the global market. SPH can make use of the internet to
market its products to the world and hence enhance its reputation as more and
more people have internet access. With the increasing number of people accessing
to electronic newspapers, more companies will like to place their advertisements
on AsiaOne. With that, it will help
to generate additional revenue for the SPH.
SPH
can also collaborate with companies to conduct on promotions or contests online.
This is a win-win situation because it helps the companies to save cost as the
companies do not have to spend money on workers and rental if they were to
conduct the promotions or contests on land while SPH can get more people to
access their electronic newspapers as they participate in the contests and etc.
Since SPH has placed the newspapers online, it is considered as a global newspaper. This means that SPH not only have to compete with the local competitors but also the others from all around the world. They have to compete with other well- established online newspapers such as Washington Post, CNN and etc. Thus, SPH have to come out with strategies in order compete with them.
Since more and more people are accessing to the electronic newspapers, it is no doubt that there will be a decrease in the sales of newspapers. Thus SPH must think of ways to retain the customers or impose subscription fees for accessing the electronic newspapers. If these are not done, SPH is likely to suffer financial loss.
Finally,
SPH have to spend lots of money to maintain the electronic newspapers and
prevent it from any viruses and hackers. Hackers may also hack into SPH website
to destroy information, therefore SPH will need to spend a lot of money on
internet security. This process is tedious and time consuming.
Impacts
The great improvement in technology has brought lots of improvements and wonders for people. Organizations especially, made use of technology to enhance their management and operation efficiency. The impact is significant, as clearly shown of how efficient our society has become.
By using the Internet, SPH can lower their cost of production, and expand further. With Internet, they are able to reach out to a lot of audiences. The richness of the news are also there. There may be a lesser demand for a copy of the newspaper when readers can access the Internet, and they have no use for a copy of the newspaper. In addition, readers can make use of their digital Palmtop to download the news from the Internet and they can read the news anywhere, and any time they like. Having a palmtop is also more convenient as readers need not have to have a computer in front of them.
SPH
can create awareness to the audience with the exposure of Internet. They have a
chatroom for readers to discuss about the latest news, etc. Their website also
has flight schedules, and with all this available information, people need not
turn on the television for news, or check the Teletext for flight schedules.
Readers can access to the website for very detailed or specific information that
they need, instead of having to wait for the whole news to be reported before
they can know what they want to know. As a result, more and more people will
rely on internet to complete their task in the future.
Conclusion
Instead
of competing with competitors, SPH can collaborate with other big players to
form a joint website. In this way, they can share information with each other
and this website can definitely attract more readers. SPH can also provide
additional services besides deliver the news to make it into a differentiated
product.
Based
on the analysis, we can see that technology has indeed made a difference in our
everyday life any everyone is making use of technology to make life easier.
Although internet has its pro and cons, our group firmly believes that the pros
outweighs the cons. With internet, news can be updated much quickly which is
critical in today’s world. Internet has opened up many business opportunities
for SPH and brings about greater convenience for readers. Although reading
articles through internet has so many advantages, we believe that there is still
a room for improvement for the establishment of the electronic newspapers.
THE
END
Here's our presentation slide...
