3 ways SCMP optimizes operational efficiency | Reuters News Agency

3 ways SCMP optimizes operational efficiency

South China Morning Post’s director of data analytics, Korey Lee, shares exclusive insights

By Alice Rizzo | Feb 2, 2018

Korey Lee, South China Morning Post’s (SCMP) director of data analytics gave us exclusive insights into the company’s strategy to harness data-driven decision & automation.

Let’s take a look at their approach and how this can help you refine your content strategy & workflows.

1. Data analysis, insights & automated recommendations

As the SCMP goes full speed ahead with its digital transformation, one of their key challenges is to accelerate operational efficiency. This is where data analysis, mining for insights, and articulating recommendations via automation becomes pivotal.

Lee suggests three ways to achieve these objectives:

  • Automated digital metrics, reporting and analysis
  • Scaled cross-functional business intelligence
  • Training, educating and evangelizing why data matters.
     

2. Centralized data warehouse & ETL processes

According to Lee, designing & implementing centralized data warehouse and ETL (extract, transform, load) processes enables them to aggregate data from over 40 disparate data platforms.

“We also trained non-technical team members to use SQL and other data processing tools to automate workflows and report generation processes freeing up over 75% of one headcount” says Lee.

This in turn, enabled them to focus on developing insights, recommendations, and action items, eradicating time-consuming and tedious report creation.

With better tools and more responsive ad hoc analysis, we’re building a stronger data culture at SCMP, empowering business leaders and managers to access real time data and make more powerful data-informed decisions

3. Put in place a “Growth Team”

SCMP management decided to create a “Growth Team”, pulling resources and talent from various disciplines including data analytics, product development, digital marketing and editorial. The goal was to drive user growth, engagement and loyalty across various customer segments.

 

This article is part of a series that goes “behind the strategy” of the world’s most successful media companies. If you want to receive more exclusive insights & actionable information for your company, sign up to our newsletter below.