I am speaking at the QNF regional newsagent conference in Cairns today. My topic is best practice IT but I plan to spend more time talking about the newsagency of the future that the topic itself. The connection is that best practice demands we focus on our future. To do this we (newsagents) need to act as business people. To do this we need suppliers to treat us as business people.
The issue of entrepreneurship is a challenge for newsagents in part because of the history of the channel – being created by publishers as their servants – and , in part because of lack of control current supply arrangements provide newsagents over key levels of their businesses.
The newsagency of the future is something more and more newsagents are talking about and hopefully today in Cairns I can add to that conversation.
FOOTNOTE: Comparing the weather in Melbourne to Cairns today is like comparing winter to summer in Victoria.
How was your trip up to the balmy north. I hope the conference was more interesting than the UK Newsagent Federation ones I have been to.
Your statement ‘To do this we (newsagents) need to act as business people. To do this we need suppliers to treat us as business people.’
rings all the right bells with me, but how does one get the trade out of their slumber and the supply side to recognise their key role as an enabler in the process of change?
Steve