Dominic Feltham described to Barry the “amazing shift” in the way his company did business over the past twenty years, shifts which he saw as typical of the B2B information sector as a whole.
Aviation title Flight International, a title Dominic worked on in his early career at RBI, is a good example. In the mid 90s, the title was heavily dependent on advertising, primarily recruitment, but also display. Sister title, Estates Gazette, had just launched its first online paid subs offering and Dominic took this model and led the launch of web-based information services for his title. Thus, Flight International started its inexorable migration from an advertising model to a data services one, to the extent that 75% of its revenues now come from subscriptions to their information services.
And, furthermore, this new model, with a “recurring revenue stream” at its heart, is now the pre-eminent model across the whole group. Dominic sees no return to the ad-funded days.
Previously an advertising led, print based, UK focused business, RBI is now overwhelmingly subs based, digital and global.
75% of revenues are now overseas and the group employs over a 1,000 staff outside the UK, based in big hubs in Chicago, Shanghai and Houston.
At the core of everything is data; the provision of deep level, company-critical data which the company embeds into the workflows of their customers in the petrochemical (ISIS), aviation (Flightglobal) and Banking (Accuity) sectors.
“Some of the propositions we now take to our customers”, said Dominic, “add a huge amount of value to their businesses”, and for which RBI is able to charge six figure sums.
This new global reach and the task of “managing teams from afar” have led to a cultural shift in the way RBI conducts its business. Whilst “many of the values and team behaviours are still the same”, the practical challenges of managing the business over far flung locations and across different time zones has challenged senior management to come up with new ways of working. Face to face meetings between senior management are quarterly events, and modern communications tools, like the soon-to-be-introduced enterprise level social media solutions, help fill in the gaps, although it has to be said, day to day operational control has largely been devolved to the regional hubs.
Over the last couple of years, RBI has conducted an asset by asset review. Each asset was assessed for its potential to generate paid online subs and for international growth. The first was deemed essential, the second desirable.
Those assets that did not meet those criteria were closed or sold; Variety being perhaps the best known example, a strong brand, but one where its ad-funded model meant that it no longer fitted with group strategy.
The business objective of embedding their data sets into customers’ workflows has lead to a more systematic approach to customer insight. To have any chance of “owning the desktop” requires an intimate knowledge of customers’ precise requirements: what data do they want, when do they want it and how do they use it.
Gut instinct, hunch, hearsay and the odd focus group here and there, no longer cuts it. A more scientific approach from a beefed up Customer Insight team is now central to the company’s operations. The department is responsible for a whole range of activities, including the annual market health checks on every brand in the group, conducting traditional qualitative and quantitative research where it is required, and, increasingly, shadowing activities. Joining the customer in their place of work, sitting with them at their desks, watching and analysing what they do, is the only way to provide the depth of insight that really drives the business.
It is through thorough and robust customer insight that the company aims to remain in step with their customers and one stop ahead of their competitors.
“Customer demands and expectations are going to change,” he says. “Flat data will no longer be good enough; there is a need to overlay data. The future of the business lies in the provision of more workflow solutions and analytics on the back of flat data.”
To achieve that, the skill sets the company requires are evolving. Yes, journalistic skills are still needed, but increasingly the company is looking for technical excellence and analytical and data visualisation skills.
There remains a continuing and strong need for marketing, a function which Dominic, with his background in marketing, sees as a much more interesting proposition that it once was, due to advances in real time feedback and marketing automation.
“What”, asked Barry, “keeps you awake at night?”
“The talent in the organisation”, he answered. “The ability to attract and retain the best, particularly in high growth areas such as Hong Kong, Singapore and China where there is such strong growth and great pressure to maintain that growth.”
To this end, RBI puts great emphasis on “reward and recognition programmes to celebrate innovation.” The company is planning to introduce talent management groups, whose task it will be to develop personal development opportunities for key staff.
Listening to Dominic, it seems that the company is incredibly focused on the delivery of essential high value data, well aware of the dangers of complacency and staff churn and very determined not to lose sight of customer needs. It’s hard to imagine anything other than a very bright next twenty years for RBI.
