SPH Media Trust hires Accenture veteran as CEO. So where should the focus now be?

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Yesterday, Accenture veteran Teo Lay Lim was named as the CEO of the SPH Media Group with effect from 1 March 2022. Teo took over the reins from CEO Patrick Daniel to overlook the transformation journey of SPH Media Group, and has been touted as a seasoned business leader who has a track record of building businesses from the ground up.

Teo started up Accenture’s Customer Relationship Management practice in 2000, and Accenture Analytics and Accenture Sustainability Services in 2008, when the practices were still emerging sectors. She also spent two years based in Shanghai to develop the CRM practice for Greater China, and was also chief executive of Accenture Southeast Asia from 2011 to 2020.

"As we work to keep pace with a very dynamic media landscape, I will be working closely with my colleagues in our transformation journey to create trusted products for our always-connected audiences," Teo said.

Singapore Media Trust's chairman, Khaw Boon Wan, said Teo has an “acute sense of creating opportunities for commercial growth”.

“Most importantly, she possesses a passion for building and transforming people and organisations for the long-term. The Group looks forward to working closely with Teo on strategies to underscore its vision and mission to produce trusted quality journalism," Khaw added.

Earlier this month, SPH Media Trust also announced that tech and talent are the two main areas that SPH Media Trust will be heavily focusing on to deliver quality, credible journalism. On the commercial revenue front, SPH Media Trust will still place significance on ads and subscriptions, chairman Khaw said. The changes come as SPH Media Trust looks to become more customer-focused, data-driven and collaborative, in line with its transformation.

Last September, Khaw said SPH Media Trust also wants to speed up BT's digital transformation and expand ST's resources in the newsroom, while at the same time doubling down on digital customer interface and customer experience to produce more engaging content for its digital audience.

In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, media veterans in Singapore lauded SPH Media Trust’s appointment of Teo sharing that the language SPH is now taking about “customer focus” and “data-driven” indicates a shift in its core.

Coming from a private strategy and public administration consulting background, she brings relevant oversight process as SPH Media Trust transforms, said Jeffrey Seah partner at Quest Ventures. Seah was previously CEO of Southeast Asia and chairman, Asia Digital Leadership Team, Starcom MediaVest Group.

“SPH Media Trust will be able to tap on her domain network for ideas. She is a known and safe pair of hands for this period of change and stability. Together with her easy conversational style, she will reduce the friction of internal change,” said Seah.

Ranganathan Somanathan, who co-founded consultancy RSquared Global Venture, and was previously CEO of Omnicom Media Group Singapore, said that there are two key paradigms that SPH Media Trust entity has to shift. Firstly, it needs to change up the business operation that is structured to “design and deliver to a collective” to a platform that “designs and delivers to an individual”.

“Consumer intent and signals will have to inform how the content is created, curated and presented to the individual audiences,” said Somanathan, adding:

It’s a fallacy that consumer attention is shrinking, in fact over the last few years the screen time has significantly increased.

As such cumulative attention has actually increased and consolidated into a few ecosystems. Hence, there is an incredible opportunity for SPH Media Trust to leverage this new reality as it plots its transformation journey.

The second major shift it has to achieve is that of its ambition - to aim to be a meaningful and authentic source of news, opinions and insights to the world community while representing an Asian perspective.

Commenting on the current competitor landscape, Somanathan said one media brand that had begun its journey on this change was SCMP. “SCMP had the potential to do this but has vacated the seat thanks to the structural changes Hong Kong is going through and the neutrality of the Hong Kong-based organisation seems to be eroding,” said Somanathan.

By stepping up to take this open space, SPH Media Trust will have a larger audience base to enhance commercial value.

A change in news direction needed?

Veteran journalist PN Balji, known for his years of experience with both Mediacorp and SPH’s newsrooms said Teo’s experience in IT is an added advantage as “digital is already the name of the media game”.

SPH came late into that game and has paid a heavy price.

Balji added that in his view, “The biggest elephant in the room is the government, which through laws and other forms of control kept SPH papers from making its content more relevant to a very harsh audience.”

Adding to the conversation, Goh Shufen, co-founder and principal of R3 shared that the modern marketing approach is powered by data to drive relevance and engagement - a necessary evolution from the mass reach and a one-way communications model.

“SPH has the opportunity to provide a more joint-up O2O platform solution for advertisers who are looking for a more integrated and seamless mapping of the funnel," said Goh.

To attract the eyeballs brands are looking for, SPH will need to be a credible authority on content - not just for Singapore but for the region, and not just a government mouthpiece.

In May last year, SPH announced the news of transferring its media business to a newly incorporated wholly-owned subsidiary, SPH Media Holdings, amidst the ongoing challenge of falling advertising revenue. The exercise involved transferring the entire media-related businesses of SPH including relevant subsidiaries, relevant employees, News Centre and Print Centre along with their respective leaseholds, as well as all related intellectual property and information technology assets.

Prior to the announcement, SPH approached the Ministry of Communications and Information with a restructuring proposal to put the media business on a long-term sustainable financial footing.

While such a model may be unfamiliar in Singapore, SPH previously said many news organisations overseas are operating under these funding structures. These include The Guardian in the UK which has been controlled by the Scott Trust since 1936 and the Tampa Bay Times in the US which is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute.