established in 2006, this market leading media publication business has already developed a strong reputation within the it and customer service sectors. The company owns two magazines and websites targeted at the it sector. The more established of these has a circulation of circa 6,000 copies. The second title for the it sector focuses on software testing. This is obviously a niche area, but one that allows the company to sell advertising simply on the back of the specialist nature of the editorial and the highly targeted readership. the business also publishes a magazine and website that focuses on all issues related to customer services. This title currently has a circulation of circa 3,000 copies. these titles were launched as a result of the founder and owner firstly having experience of working on similar titles and secondly having spotted a gap in the market for this type of publication. A big positive is that there remains very little competition in the sectors that are covered by the business. These titles are aimed at senior management and key decision makers and therefore the editorial is not as technical as other titles aimed at these sectors. Most of the editorial is designed to address how to improve efficiency and profitability. Clearly this makes the titles a must read at this time. Each of the publications has a sister website that help to encourage advertising. Much of the content in the publications is reproduced online, thus delivering a larger audience. Customer service: the business has an excellent reputation within its markets as a result of the quality of its titles. The editorial content is considered informative and for many senior managers it is essential reading. Advertisers are offered highly competitive deals. The advertising is placed ideally to ensure that it is positioned next to or close to relevant editorial content. One of the published titles is aimed at the customer service market, you can appreciate that the owner is fully aware of the importance of providing excellent levels of customer satisfaction. Key strengths: the business has benefited from being led by a sales and client focused individual. This has allowed many solid relationships to be established. These strong relationships in turn are delivering high levels of repeat business. Several market leading it suppliers are now regular advertisers. The owner has built up a very informative client database that greatly assists in the sales process as well as helping to dictate editorial content. The owner has also astutely made sure that the titles are of as high a quality as possible. This strategy has paid off as the business has continued to achieve very respectable sales figures during the slowdown. Profits for the business are in fact up over the last twelve months as a result of the low overheads that are currently incurred. This is a very profitable business with an immediate opportunity to grow. Growth and expansion: as this is a business that has deliberately remained small, growth is inevitable. The current owner and editor between them take care of all aspects of the business. With additional resources, for example sales, achieving additional turnover would be straight forward. The websites will benefit from greater resources and potentially would make a big difference to both sales figures and more importantly would improve profitability even more. Other options for growth include the introduction of an awards programme, conferences and possibly the launch of an association to represent the readers. It is also worth noting that the market for the magazine focusing on software is guaranteed to grow considerably over the next few years.
