Is Ford�s Move to Eliminate Individual Magazine Subscriptions at Work a Bellwether Event?
Ford Motor Company is planning to save millions of dollars by ordering employees to cancel all paid-magazine and newspaper subscriptions (exempting only the public affairs staff). I decided to weigh in on this story with only the facts from the B2B Online story, since it raises many critical issues that publishers face in selling to institutional clients. I�ll gather more facts and report again when the reasons for Ford�s extreme action become more clear. It�s surprising to me that there hasn�t been more noise from publishing pundits in response to this announcement.

Here are some of the questions the news of this action raises for me:

Is it an indication that senior management will forcefully steer employees to information services delivered to the desktop and away from what management may view as redundant business news in print publications? And, is the reason because the company wants to justify the money that has been invested in systems to deliver the desktop information services and the associated content? Or, does it reflect a view from management that the information in most of the magazines can be found for less money (or free) on the Web?

Cost savings is clearly part of the rationale for ordering the cancellation of the subscriptions. But, does management have a handle on the value of information delivered via the magazines versus other media? Or, does management calculate the value of the information in the magazines to be too low no matter what the delivery medium?

If the trade-off is between print and online subscriptions via an aggregated news service such as those offered by ProQuest or NewsEdge, does management understand what is left out of the online versions of many online magazines and journals (namely ads and some articles for which publisher doesn�t hold the copyright)? Furthermore, do the online subscriptions provide equivalent value, considering the pricing models used for enterprise sales of aggregated news services, which are usually based on number of employees that have access? Basically, could management be providing a more expensive, less valuable alternative to its employees, since most of the hundreds or thousands of publications aggregated into the major collections offered online are read by relatively few employees on a regular basis? And, will employees overlook important information that isn�t compiled and packaged in the portable and browsable print format?

Heck, if the majority of the publications are general interest and entertainment magazines, I side with the CFO. He�s just eliminating a non-business related perk. But, I think there�s more to this story and that vendors that sell news and general business information in print or digital form to institutions should watch the fallout from this event carefully.