Schibsted Media Group has just launched a global recruiting campaign in support of a digital transformation. We are making a global effort to recruit top notch people – truly “world class” data analytics, pricing and technology experts – in support of our digital growth ambitions. We now want to find and attract the best digital minds, whether they are located in Oslo, Stockholm, Rio or anywhere else. Therefore, a dedicated recruiting website has been launched where anyone interested in the opportunities we offer can find more information and also apply for the positions. You can also tip us about candidates you think we should contact by clicking on this link.
INTERVIEW WITH FRODE EILERTSEN, EVP STRATEGY AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
On 1 September, Frode Eilertsen takes charge as Schibsted Media Group’s new EVP Strategy and Digital Transformation. Here is an interview with Eilertsen about the new global recruiting campaign and Schibsted’s thoughts on how to maintain our position and stay ahead of the development in the years to come.
Frode Eilertsen, what are we doing, and where?
The primary target group for the new campaign is Schibsted Media Group’s own people and global reach. With 7,800 employees in approximately 30 countries on five continents, chances are that the people we are searching for now either already work in one of our companies or are someone that a Schibsted employee knows.
We are also using the power of Schibsted Media Group’s massive global presence, reaching out to several hundred million internet users and posting online classified postings on all our job sites around the world. Soon we will also launch online advertising on our sites. In addition, we are carrying out advertising campaigns on LinkedIn. Most importantly, we hope that everyone in Schibsted Media Group will spread the word by alerting their social networks on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, etc. about these amazing job opportunities!
What are we hoping to achieve?
We are building on Schibsted Media Group’s past track record of success and leadership. Currently, Schibsted is greatly admired around the world for our early long-term understanding of and commitment to online and Internet, and more recently our focus on mobile. It’s because of our early, stubborn and long-term embrace of these disruptive changes that Schibsted today is one of the only media groups in the world which is not only succeeding in the current digital transition, but is set to thrive going forward. All the other media companies which started focusing on this at a later point are now either hurting or going out of business.
We are now embarking on the next chapter of Schibsted Media Group’s journey. Not only will we have to translate our print content, products and services to a website or a mobile phone. Even more importantly, we have to redefine these categories and invent new ones by taking full advantage of the richness of a multi-media, multi-device channel that is deeply personalized and accessible anywhere, all the time.
Doing this requires a strong digital transformation, both using data to create better products that are deeply personalized for each user, and using technology to innovate with speed and magic. We have started this work across all of Schibsted and in every single company, from media houses to online classified sites to new startup ventures. The recruiting campaign is an attempt to hire the very best experts in the world to help us master these disciplines at the same level as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, which are our future peers and competitors.
How will advanced data analytics and technology help Schibsted Media Group make a step-up?
Most importantly, by enabling better products. Improved data analytics will help us develop and deliver what the consumers truly need and want. Better technology allows us to “create magic” by delivering services that help people in ways they never dreamed possible, similar to what companies such as Apple and Google at times have done.
Additionally, this competence will also benefit our business model online by improving marketing and sales. Data analytics supported by the right technology will help us do a better job informing people about our amazing contents, products and services. In this way we can be even better at providing our customers offers that are personalized, packaged and priced to meet their individual needs.
And lastly, this will enable us to move quicker and be even more innovative. Bad technology will slow us down in anything new we want to do. Good technology will allow us to prototype a new idea in a matter of just hours or days. And good data analytics will give us quick and precise user and market feedback. The result is fast innovation based on rapid iteration, invention based on experimentation!
How do we ensure that this new competence will benefit our companies – where the real value actually is created?
By working together and collaborating closely. Global pools of experts are of little use if they don’t roll up their sleeves and actively and operationally work alongside the people in our local companies that are responsible for this on a day-to day basis. One of Schibsted Media Group’s values is “we are a team”. Just like in sports where one great athlete helps make everyone around him much better, our goal is to create a stronger team spirit by recruiting experts who will work with all our companies. They will assist in developing and implementing technology, pricing and advanced data analytics initiatives, and then support and help develop the local competence required to make these initiatives sustainable and enduring. That’s the only way we can succeed in our digital transformation and create real value in every company.
Our primary focus will be on raising the competence level to a (high!) minimum threshold across a number of disciplines within technology, pricing and advanced data analytics. On top of that we intend to develop truly world leading capabilities in a few select areas that we believe are the most important to us and where we have an opportunity to differentiate ourselves from others.
All this also means that it remains just as important that we have a strong corps of local experts. Currently we are working with all the companies in Schibsted Media Group to assess the competence gap and positions that will need to be filled. Many of these local positions will be filled by very competence people already working at Schibsted, complemented by external recruiting efforts.
