La Presse

1. Diagnosis: why change is needed?

Performance gab and opportunity change: In 2009, younger consumers were less and
less interested in reading print newspapers, thus renewing its readership with younger readers
became a priority to remain a mass medium. In addition, in an industry faced with lower
circulation trends and decreasing advertising revenues, Crevier was convinced that the printed
newspaper business model was not sustainable in the long term.
2. Scope of change: what short of change is needed?
Radical because it affected almost every aspect of business but slow as it took 3 years for
research and development before the app was launched.
3. Origin of change: Top-down initiated by Guy Crevier, president and publisher, of La Presse
4. Type of Change: Transformational as it affected its whole type of business. Sales,
marketing even archiving were some of the sectors that were rethought.
Rollout: system-wide as changes were rolled out across multiple units simultaneously:
the company adopted an agile approach by combining people from different fields of
expertise to work together and even reorganized the office for departments to be closer
in order to be able to collaborate in more effective and efficient way e.g. development of
the app by the digital team was done hand in hand with the editorial team
5. Time: Slow- it took 3 years for research and development before the app was launched.
During that time all staff form various departments and teams had to redefine themselves
and adjust to the new system. The pattern of change was CONTINUOUS, as there was a
stream of low intensity changes that could be accumulated to transform the organization
over time and aligned with the external environment.

Readiness assessment - Were they ready for change?

Bearing in mind there was a period of 3 years that they devoted for the research and
development of the app and how carefully the transformational change was guided and
implemented, we can assume that they were ready for the change. Most specifically:

 DISCREPANCY: La Presse+ initially received scepticism from the journalists as they did not
like the idea of changing their writing method. Trying to convince them was quite difficult.
However, senior management’s support in the transformational process along with
Crevier’s determination successfully managed to extend his vision to the operational
levels.
 APPROPRIATNESS: Yes, and therefore Jean -Marc De Jonghe as a newly appointed vice
president of operation and digital marketing, was responsible for creating the new
business model and strategic vision which would be able to facilitate the transition.
 Efficacy: a team of highly skilful individuals (a new vice-president of operations and digital
strategy) was appointed to be in charge for creating the new business model and strategic

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vision for La Presse. Additionally, the hiring of an entirely new team composed primarily
of professionals from various fields of expertise programmers, system architects,
developers, and graphic designers. The newsroom staff was also expanded by hiring more
journalists, photographers and page designers.
 Principal Support: There was principal support as from the beginning of the
transformational process, with the leading figure of Crevier focusing on buying-in the
senior management and then with its support he extended his vision to the operational
levels.

DICE FRAMEWORK ON LA PRESSE+

The DICE framework is a tool to help assess how likely a change
management initiative or project is to succeed

 Duration (amount of time between reviews of milestones): the transformation process

lasted 3 years. During that time, various teams of experts were constantly working
together, on assessing and developing apps and pilot projects. They were working on
several mockups, and extensive testing was taking place.
 Integrity: by performance integrity we mean the extent to which companies can rely on
teams of managers, supervisors and staff to execute change project successfully: for the
successful implementation of the change, a team of highly skilful individuals (a new vice-
president of operations and digital strategy) was appointed to be in charge for creating
the new business model and strategic vision for La Presse. Additionally, the hiring of an
entirely new team composed primarily of professionals from various fields of expertise
programmers, system architects, developers, and graphic designers.
 Commitment: To get visible backing from most influential executives (C1) and to take
into account the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of the people who must deal with the new
system: visible backing from most influential executives was evident during the changing
process. Form the leading figure of Crevier to the senior levels of management : e.g. in
the contamination method they were detecting the enthusiastic writers and using them
to form pilot projects and new editions in order to “spread the good news of the project”.
 Effort: how much above the usual work the change initiative demands of employees:
since the implementation of the transformational process, intensive team work was
needed, and collaborative sessions during which journalists, photographers,
videographer had to work in groups.
The development of the app by the digital team was done in collaboration with the
editorial team which was directly involved into a vast research program measuring the
user experience and advertising effectiveness with readers prior to the launch.

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KOTTER MODEL
1. ESTABLISHING A SENSE OF URGENCY: from the very beginning of the La Presse+ project
Crevier exposed the important challenges facing the printed newspaper industry to the
employees and presented them with the new vision of the organization. He made it clear
to the entire organization that developing the new medium was their top priority by
constantly explaining how the project was a solution to transform the declining business
into a growing one. He constantly explained how this project was a solution to transform
the declining business into a growing one. In other words, he made it a full-time job!
2. CREATING A POWERFUL GUIDING COALITION: The president and publisher of La Presse
had focused on senior management buy-in from the very beginning of his venture.
3. DEVELOPING A VISION AND STRATEGY: The new vision: to rethink the news consumption
experience, to transform the company’s business model from a traditional newspaper to
a successful, multiplatform digital publication, while preserving La Presse+’s newspaper
DNA. Thus, a number of actions were taken from both the leadership and the
management:
 Creation of new departments highly connected with new technology; an entire team of new
people (programmers, system architects etc.) was hired by the vice-president for the best
realization and implementation of the new business model.
 360° focus on all stakeholders
 adoption of an agile software development
 agile roadmap in the office was used to communicate how the backlog of development
jobs would be prioritized.
 Office reorganization so that the editorial and technology groups occupied 3 floors of the
same building to facilitate the communication.
 devoted a great amount of money for extensive research and development of the app, so
that they can make use of the latest technological research.
 Rethought- redesigned of operational and support functions, including sales, marketing,
and archiving.
 All job positions had to be readjusted based on the new business model.

4. COMMUNICATING THE VISION: the senior-management communicated openly and

across the organization about the implementation of change and its success.
5. EMPOWERING BROAD-BASED ACTION: Extensive reorganisation in all aspects and a
flexible way of working;
i. There was close involvement of the editorial team in the process to meet their
goal of providing the most complete and engaging experience possible to the
readers.
ii. Enthusiastic writers about the change were being identified by senior managers
and forming small teams of volunteers to work on pilots. This was they built new
competencies based on the new model of work.

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iii. Teamwork was essential for the creation of optimum layout for each subject
before a single word was written.

6. GENERATING SHORT-TERM WINS:

i. Easier interaction of the public with the journalists. To his way the journalists were
given the chance to receive the readers’ reactions and comments on the quality
of their articles.
ii. Since La Presse+ became fully digital, the whole organization will have to reinvent
itself in order to catch up with the competitive external environment.
iii. Important to keep the momentum results of pilots were short win They formed
small groups of enthusiastic volunteers to work on pilots. These groups were
acting as “ambassadors” of the new pilots and first editions with the intention
to convince the rest of the resisting journalists to participate

7. CONSOLIDAING GAINS & PRODUCING MORE CHANGE:

 Developed a planned communication strategy to generate extensive media
coverage pg5
 invested 5 million dollars budget
 “the contamination” process was a typical example: key writers who were
enthusiastic about the transformation process and willing to adapt to the new
model, were detected by senior managers. They formed small groups of
enthusiastic volunteers to work on pilots. These groups were acting as
“ambassadors” of the new pilots and first editions with the intention to convince
the rest of the resisting journalists to participate.

5 ANCHORING NEW APPROACHES IN THE CULTURE:

 until the new behaviours become social norms and shared values they consciously
tried to show people how new attitude and approaches have contributed
performance; e.g with the contamination process and convinced by the results of
the pilots and first editions
 By appointing Jean -Marc De Jonghe as vice president of operation and digital
marketing to be responsible for creating the new business model and strategic
vision was a strategic movement to ensure that the launch of digital products
would become reality.

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Objective behind La Presse+: to rethink the news consumption experience, to attract more adults aged
25 to 49.

The inspirational figure of Guy Crevier, president and publisher of La Presse transformed the
company’s business model from a traditional newspaper to a successful, multiplatform digital
publication with the launch of the widely hailed La Presse+. He believed that a change of the
business model was needed along with the attraction of younger readers who by no means
would be willing to pay for a newspaper. He was convinced that by ending the printed edition
of the newspaper, advertisers would also follow to the tablet version.
Extensive reorganisation in all aspects and a flexible way of working especially in the field of
software development:
 adoption of an agile software development; small teams of 4 or 5 people worked on pilots
imagining what the digital edition of La Presse+ would look like
 agile roadmap in the office was used to communicate how the backlog of development jobs
would be prioritized.
 Office reorganization so that the editorial and technology groups occupied 3 floors of the same
building to facilitate the communication.

Pg. 4 Testing the business model with neuroscience: extensive large amount of money was invested in
researching both the reading and the advertising experience. There was also closed involvement of the
editorial team in the process to meet their goal of providing the most complete and engaging
experience possible to the readers.

Pg. 4 Redefining the roles and getting internal buy-in:

 by the beginning of the transformation, Crevier (president and publisher of La Presse) focused
on senior management buy-in.
 he extended his vision to the operational teams as well.
 Jean -Marc De Jonghe the newly appointed vice president of operation and digital marketing
was responsible for creating the new business model and strategic vision.
 The newsroom staff was also expanded by hiring more journalists, photographers and page
designers
 Rethought- redesigned of operational and support functions, including sales, marketing, and
archiving

 Resistance was evident at the early stage of the transformation from journalists, for being asked
to transform a text of 800 words into 8 capsules of 100 words which was a new approach.
Although most journalists in the newsroom knew that the change was coming, they paid little
attention to it. Convincing the journalist to change the way they used to work was not an easy
thing to do. Due to the nature of their job they were strongly attached to the paper of, and thus
it had less value for them if their work was published on the digital version of la Presse+ as the
print edition was more important.

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 Journalists enrolment or contamination process: key writers who were enthusiastic about the
transformation process and who were willing to adapt to the new model, were detected by
senior managers. They formed small groups of enthusiastic volunteers to work on pilots. These
groups were acting as “ambassadors” of the new pilots and first editions with the intention to
convince the rest of the resisting journalists to participate.