GULF NEWS
Mohammed Almezel, Managing Editor
“Gulf News is not just a newspaper, but a fully integrated media organisation that comprises elements of mass communication ranging from print to web to digital,” says Mohammed Almezel, Managing Editor.
Almezel has been a part of the newspaper’s evolution for 12 years, watching it grow into one of the strongest media brands in the Middle East, covering news in the sections Nation, Middle East, Asia, World, India, Pakistan, Europe, UK and Americas, along with special sections such as The Views, Business, Sports and tabloid!. And whether it is about holding forth on the oscillating dynamics of the Arab Spring or the bloodletting disruption that has Syria in its grip, Gulf News remains one of the most vocal and credible proponents of public opinion in the region.
Over the past five years, the newspaper has carried out a number of structural changes to the newsroom – there is a hub, a multimedia desk and a desk dedicated to managing reader interactivity. Almezel sees all these as the building blocks of integration. “By integration, I mean that all our resources are integrated — print, web and digital,” he says.
— By Krita Coelho, Staff Writer
ADVERTISING SALES
Rajeev Khanna, Group Advertisement Manager
When Gulf News started out as a fledgling newspaper, it had a circulation of 5,000 copies. That number now stands at 108,750.
“No one in the advertising and media industry gave us a chance of survival. Most folks reckoned we were wasting our time,” recalls Rajeev Khanna, Group Advertisement Manager, explaining about how he brought media heads to the press late at night to show them how many copies were being printed.
From a department of about 12 people in 1985, the growth has been exponential in every vertical of the sales and marketing divisions. Khanna recalls many milestones, from making the publication’s first BPA-audited figures public to being unofficially recognised as the number one English daily.
Khanna, who has been with the company since 1985, says it took a lot of hard selling, networking and intensive PR to get clients to believe in Gulf News. “I give all credit to our brilliant team, who have given their best in facing difficult and challenging circumstances,” he says.
— By Krita Coelho, Staff Writer
CLASSIFIEDS
Shakun Mohnani, Group Advertisement Manager
Shakun Mohnani, Group Advertisement Manager, is a proud GN veteran, having joined Classifieds in 1985. She has witnessed the department grow from the years classified advertisements were taken down with pen and paper to full automation while heading a massive team of 125, which is expected to expand further by year-end.
From taking up a couple of pages in tabloid! to a humble four-and-a-half pages in the business section of the main paper, Mohnani’s department has come a long way. “We were always fighting for space, so in 1990, we became a separate product,” she says. And there has been no looking back. In 1995, Appointments was introduced, in 2000, Properties became a separate pull-out and in 2004 Freehold was launched. Then came Wheels, the earlier Property Weekly and GNads4u. The regular products now are Commercial Properties, Residential Properties, Freehold, Jobs & Careers and Classifieds.
The department takes anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 new ads and publishes more than 100 pages daily.
— By Tania Bhattacharya, Staff Writer
OPERATIONS
Irshad Nooruddin, Executive Director – Operations
The operations division of a company is its very nucleus, and this holds true for Gulf News as well. Key departments including IT, finance, HR, legal, procurement, production, technical services and facilities management all come under this division, headed by Irshad Nooruddin, Executive Director – Operations.
Nooruddin joined Gulf News in 1989 as a financial controller. “It was exciting to join at a time when the UAE was on a progress march and so was Gulf News,” he says. “Gulf News was striding towards the digital era, bulky ledgers had given way to sleek computers and the finance function evolved from being purely bookkeeping to playing a key role in management decisions by providing a sophisticated information system to operating managers and the board of directors.”
Innovation is one of the key points in the Gulf News philosophy and this extends not only to cutting-edge technology for production and editorial systems, but also to the core support systems that include finance, administration, HR etc. Besides being responsible for implementing the sophisticated digital accounting and budgeting systems for the group, Nooruddin has also been closely involved in the group’s expansion project at Dubai Investment Park.
Gulf News has grown phenomenally over the years and with this growth has come technological advancements, restructuring and added responsibilities. Today, in his role as Executive Director – Operations, Nooruddin is at the head of a vital division of the group — one that is on par with the best worldwide.
— Staff Report
XPRESS
Bobby Naqvi, Editor
From posing as a labourer buying illegal alcohol as part of a sting operation to exposing bootlegging mafia in Dubai, to acting as a fat man with a pillow tucked beneath the shirt in an attempt to find out about a weight-loss scam, XPRESS reporters have done it all.
The weekly tabloid, which focuses on Dubai, was launched in 2007, and within just two years had established itself as a strong brand with hard-hitting investigative, social and community-based stories. Over the years, it has helped raise funds for numerous people in need. But the journey was not easy — XPRESS Editor Bobby Naqvi and his team faced numerous challenges in their efforts, from determining if the people featured are genuine to convincing victims to talk about issues. The team hence tries hard to maintain a balance in their stories by giving equal space to both parties concerned. And it has paid off. “The readers now give us valuable feedback and also come to us with stories as they know we can handle them,” Naqvi says.
Initially a Dubai tabloid, XPRESS has now expanded and is also available in Abu Dhabi, with 55,000 weekly copies being printed for Dubai and 25,000 for Abu Dhabi. Its online reader base is growing as well.
“In the past six years, XPRESS has become an established paper, exposing scams, covering social, health and human interest stories and has become hot property wherever available. Our content is 100 per cent local and 100 per cent staff-generated and we are proud to say that we cover the UAE like no one else,” says Naqvi.
— By Saba Siddiqui, Staff Writer
GN BROADCASTING
Vikram Dhar, Head of GN Broadcasting
When Gulf News signed an MoU with Emirates Media (now ADM) in 2005 to manage its English Audio services in the UAE in the form of Radio 1 (104.1 and 100.5) and Radio 2 (99.3 and 106), it was Al Nisr Publishing’s first business outside print. No one could have predicted that it would become the third-largest radio network in the UAE in a span of just seven years. However, today, it has five FM services (two English, two Hindi and one Arabic), and is also the commercial manager of the UAE’s leading radio station, Hum 106.2 (Hindi). GN Broadcasting is fast on its way to winning the number 2 position.
The journey hasn’t been easy. “Being the youngest entrant into the market posed several challenges; there is a lot of competition for business and audiences from well-established brands with star talent, loyal advertisers and listeners,” says Vikram Dhar, Head of GN Broadcasting. “There are more than 38 radio stations currently offering FM services in this market in ten languages. With advertising revenues stagnant after the recession of 2009 it was a major challenge to become dominant and profitable.”
However, being in tune with market needs and anticipating them have helped the brand garner huge successes. For instance, GN Broadcasting has pioneered the concept of mall radio in the UAE with the establishment of Oasis Radio. Similar contracts are in the offing with Spinneys, Carrefour and other stores. Another initiative was launching the first mobile radio portal in the Middle East. It was also the first to have a tie-up with Ogle, an augmented reality programme, to take listener interaction on site and online to a new level, says Dhar.
— By Karishma H. Nandkeolyar, Staff Writer
GN PUBLISHING
Nirmala Janssen, Publishing Director
GN Publishing, the commercial publishing arm of Gulf News, was established in December 1985 as the Supplements Division, and has since gone from strength to strength.
Publishing Director Nirmala Janssen, who launched XPRESS in 2007 and has been with Gulf News since 2004 when she joined as Kuwait correspondent, took charge in August 2010, when she was asked to take over Supplements along with Contract Publishing and Commercial Printing. “From that point on its titles have grown incrementally year-on-year to be the most widely read after the Gulf News newspaper, and the department is recognised for the quality of its content despite being purely commercial,” she says.
Coming out with a publication once every three days, the GN Publishing business unit has 65 members. “It does 210 editions a year, out of which 90 are newspaper supplements, and the rest are third-party publications,” Janssen says.
Four separate divisions now make up GN Publishing. GN Focus titles supplement the newspaper package with special reports on countries, and the latest consumer products and services in the market — the circulation of these titles stands at 108,750 copies. Contract Publishing produces numerous multilingual and tailor-made publications for a host of national and multinational organisations. The Commercial Printing division offers a range of cost-effective solutions, with Al Nisr Publishing having the biggest and best waterless press in the region, Janssen says. Travel Retail and Duty Free Markets is a leading B2B magazine in its 24th year, and has recently undergone a relaunch.
— By Azar Zaidi, Staff Writer
GN MAGAZINES
James Hewes, Publishing Director
The grand old lady of the UAE’s magazine industry also gave birth to Gulf News’ magazine division. Published as a supplement to the main newspaper (in 1985), Friday evolved out of the erstwhile Gulf Weekly, which was relaunched in 1997 with a family focus, and became the women-centric Friday. A quality, glossy publication with mass circulation, it set a new standard for lifestyle magazines in a market that was decidedly event-led.
The year 2000 saw the expansion of the magazine offering. The interior design publication InsideOut saw the light in 2003, and the then-A5-sized women’s lifestyle magazine Aquarius was acquired and relaunched in a bigger format.
The magazine business unit as we know it was created in the middle of the last decade as Al Nisr Media (ANM), a separate business unit with its own staff and publications such as the bulky Property, the car magazine Wheels, and the Friday for men, 4Men, which became Alpha, under its portfolio .
From a modest editorial staff of just more than ten, ANM grew gradually to about 65 in 2010, when it became a separate unit with its own sales team. And Publishing Director James Hewes has big plans for the operation. “Our aim is to double the size of our business in four years. We have a strong magazine division, and this is a magazine market in terms of the market size. We have a growing population roughly the size of Portugal, but the magazine market is nowhere near Portugal’s. There is a demand for niche publications of different interests,” he says.
“Magazines are the way the world is going.”
— By Eduan R. Maggo, Deputy Editor — Supplements & Contract Publishing
GULFNEWS.COM
David Westley, Portal Manager
It seems rather difficult to believe that the popular Gulf News website began as a two-member team that manually worked on HTML to publish news, shortly after the internet was launched in the UAE. Run from the library, it was updated once a day, excluding Fridays.
That was in 1996. Today, Gulfnews.com is the Number 3 news website in the Middle East and the top English language news website here. Under the leadership of David Westley, Portal Manager, the website is riding the crest of the web-first strategy wave and achieving outstanding results with publishing news online as and when it happens. Another achievement has been Gulf News at Midday, when a host of editors and writers come together and present major news items every afternoon in an online video.
“Gulf News has seriously invested in capacity, which ensures that the website can handle high traffic. This, along with the quality of the site in general and the depth of content, has helped in catapulting Gulfnews.com to where it is today,” says Westley, who joined the company in 2011.
From its humble beginnings, to the content management system used, the website has come a long way. “Because people depend on Gulfnews.com for quality and reliable news, managing it comes with a lot of responsibility,” says Westley. He emphasises the importance of original content. “Most of our material is exclusive, and we work out a lot of human interest stories. We also position our content intelligently across the website; we have analytics programmes that guide us, but in most cases, we trust our own judgement,” he says.
— By Tania Bhattacharya, Staff Writer
PRINTING AND PRODUCTION
Alan Finch, Head of Production
Today, there are around 250 permanent and temporary staff in production, technical services and support functions working at the three Gulf News printing sites. Two printing factories are located at the Safa Park site, while the third was set up in May last year at Dubai Investment Park (DIP). Alan Finch, Head of Production, describes the last as one of the most technologically advanced newspaper printing presses in operation outside Europe. “We have five robots that work in the press at night to move our paper reels to the press,” he says. One press prints 80,000 newspapers per hour. Currently, two presses are being used to print the newspaper, one for the main Gulf News sections and the other for Business and Sport. This allows the unit to print at the last possible moment.
“When not printing our core newspaper, the presses are used for Commercial Printing and Contract Publishing jobs. We print magazines, directories, brochures, tabloids, leaflets, flyers and whatever our clients need. We are expanding our third-party printing and the combination of speed and quality gives us a big advantage,” says Finch. The printing machines keep wastage to a minimum and offer cost-effective solutions.
Finch and his team work to tight schedules. “We have no time to lose and have very strict deadlines to follow. If we are unable to meet our deadlines, readers call the distribution to know what happened to their newspaper. Printing [newspapers and magazines] is a complicated job. From editorial to pre-press, printing and distribution, everything has a very tight timeframe and needs the perfect amount of coordination; any link breaks and we will not have a newspaper.”
— By Saba Siddiqui, Staff Writer
DISTRIBUTION
Sanjay Malik, Group Circulation Manager
From a total field staff strength of about 150 and an administrative team of 15, the distribution department of Gulf News has grown to a team of 810, of which the field operations and sales teams total 790.
Sanjay Malik, Group Circulation Manager, says the initial distribution task was to discover and define the right doors, after which the team launched campaigns to solicit subscriptions. In the early days, the newsboys were grabbing sales at roundabouts and a few street sales points. “This operation had its own distinct challenge as newsboys vanished without paying us and there were many instances where they were involved in hit and run scenarios. Tough times, but a very resilient team! The boys used to stand at traffic points for seven to eight hours every day, and over time, developed their fixed clientele among commuters,” says Malik.
Malik recalls an incredible journey of growth, moving from 20,000 copies when he joined in 1990 to an audited 108,750 now. Over time, the department had to embrace sophistication in communication systems. And with new areas springing up and more people moving in, challenges have mounted. Malik says the market continuously evolves, and in the process the company has to change its systems and processes to try and keep up. However, one underlying element runs through all the work executed – the subscribers’ needs are a priority.
Over the years, the activity of Gulf News’ dedicated call centre, digital interaction and marketing efforts have changed in terms of customer contact points. It has an active call-out programme for existing subscribers, as well as regular follow-ups through qualified subscription leads.
— By Krita Coelho, Staff Writer
PROMOTIONS
Naheed Patel, Promotions Manager
Gulf News has always found unique ways to engage with its readers and the Promotions department, now headed by Naheed Patel, has played a substantial part in this. Having joined Gulf News in 1986, Patel started out as an administrator, but took on a variety of other responsibilities within a very short time, such as recruiting telephone operators and helping with relocation to the new offices on Shaikh Zayed Road.
But it was events and promotions that became her home ground, and Fun Drive, the iconic civilian off-roading programme and the quiz game Blockbusters were launched the year she joined. “In those days, raffle draws had such glamour to them. People used to send in their entries by the sackful,” Patel reminisces.
Gulf News played host to a number of major music and movie stars as promotions began to grow bigger and better. “We are the only media house today that sponsors every big event and we have been associated with some of them for ages,” says Patel. Next February, for instance, the Dubai Desert Classic will celebrate 25 years of its inception, and of its association with Gulf News. Other major UAE events sponsored by Gulf News include the Dubai World Cup, Dubai International Film Festival, Dubai Tennis Open, Dubai Ladies Masters, Superstars and Festival of Indoor Games, along with various conferences. Recent CSR campaigns, promoted through a series of advertisements, have really caught people’s attention. “We ran campaigns on various issues such as conserving water and children’s safety, especially on roads,” says Patel.
The department hit a high earlier this year with a convoy of more than 1,000 cars for the Fun Drive — just missing out on an entry into the Guinness World Records due to bad weather.
— By Tania Bhattacharya, Staff Writer
FINANCE
Naresh Bhaya, Finance Manager
Otherwise largely anonymous, the Finance department of Gulf News is manned by a diverse group of people who have constantly embraced innovation, as a chat with Finance Manager Naresh Bhaya reveals.
As old as the organisation itself, this department has skilfully maintained a balancing act between continuity and change since 1988, when it first moved from a completely manual system to computerisation. “The accounting department and reporting systems were completely manual. The systems used were Cardex and American Journal, and slowly, sometime in 1988, under the leadership of the financial controller at the time, Irshad Nooruddin, we embarked on the first computerisation phase,” says Bhaya, who was with the company from 1987-1995 before rejoining in 1999.
“We were among the first to get computerised in the UAE, so we were leaders at the time. Setting up a complete in-house electronic data processing department — what is IT today — with programmers, analysts and database administrators was a huge investment,” he says.
In 2003, the department moved to the J.D. Edwards (JDE) enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which Bhaya describes as a quantum leap. JDE was also a paradigm shift for the staff. A partial migration to SAP in 2005 was followed by a full migration last year. The organisation balanced and managed this process of upgrades by training staff in new ways of doing things. “It also brought the team closer,” says Bhaya.
— By Azar Zaidi, Staff Writer
CREDIT CONTROL
Santosh Shetty, Group Credit Control Manager
The Credit Control team might be the bad cop of GN Media, but they’re still revered — after all, they’re the people who make it possible for us to get our salaries on time. And heading it all is Santosh Shetty, Group Credit Control Manager.
A part of GN Media since 1997, Shetty joined as Assistant Credit Controller and as part of the Marketing and Sales Division of GN Media. He leads a team of 39 people today.
“We occupy the back office of sales, taking care of billing, invoicing, credit and receivables management. I like to call it accounting with a sales touch,” smiles Shetty. “One always fears losing clients, so we have to be tactical and effective at the same time,” he adds.
Of course, the biggest aim is to not lose money. “Running a credit management team is not easy. It often seems like we are trying to block business or revenue from coming in, but that’s far from the truth,” says Shetty. Before 2006, GN Media had various divisions, which sometimes made it difficult to zero in on potential defaulters. With the implementation of ERP, though, credit and receivables management was consolidated and brought under one roof, making credit control much more organised and effective.
“We believe in doing business honourably, and we expect the same from our clients. Our policies thus, come across as conservative on many occasions, but we manage to keep the cash flow going favourably,” he says.
Shetty recalls how workload peaked in 2008, with the highest revenues, lots of stress and client complaints in tow. But today it’s a full house nonetheless; and something of an enigma to the world.
— By Tania Bhattacharya, Staff Writer
PROCUREMENT
Philip Eapen, Procurement Manager
Philip Eapen, Procurement Manager, recalls his second day on the job with a shudder. “We almost ran out of paper,” he says. “Everything that could possibly go wrong happened together — from an industrial strike in Finland to an acute shortage of containers in Europe. Thankfully we managed to get the paper on the presses in the nick of time. It was almost like a baptism by fire.”
The department has come a long way since then, with greater emphasis on planning. “At any point of time, we have enough inventory to last about three months,” he says. During the early days, it mainly sourced production-related material such as paper, inks, spares etc. Today, it gathers everything from hardware and promotional material to equipment for radio. “It is the group’s policy to adopt best practices by centralising procurement across the entire organisation.”
However, its main buys in value terms are still paper and production-related materials. “We procure significant quantities of paper, inks and print-related chemicals,” says Eapen. The Procurement department is a highly critical function, responsible for the nation’s number 1 newspaper running smooth. The department has grown exponentially both in volume and complexity since he joined. “We have added storage facilities in Al Quoz and at our new DIP facility,” he says. “We have also invested heavily in developing systems that have resulted in efficiencies both at the operational and strategic levels”.
The department sources the most cost-effective alternatives without compromising on quality. “Paper is imported from leading mills in Europe that can meet our stringent quality requirements and with whom we have developed excellent relationships over the years.”
— By Karishma H. Nandkeolyar, Staff Writer
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Marclino Fernandes, Business Applications Manager and Imtiaz Sutterwala, Customer Support Manager
Always blamed for most problems, a job at the IT department cannot be an easy one. As Marclino Fernandes, Business Applications Manager, Information Technology (IT),
Gulf News says, the challenge is to turn from firefighters to well-oiled machinery.
“In 2006, we had more than 380 complaints per week. We have successfully brought them down to an average of 40 a month,” Fernandes says. “We have daily, weekly, monthly and yearly meetings to set our goals.”
From a staff of five in 1988, this department now has 35 to 37 people. In 1997, there were around 400 computer users in the organisation, today there are 1,000. In 1995, there were six to eight servers, today the office has more than 200. “The IT department has grown along with the company. We have moved from small applications to bigger ones,” says Imtiaz Sutterwala, Customer Support Manager.
Through the year, the department faces many challenges, which Fernandes and Sutterwala say are also their achievements. “Our department has to function 24x7. We support the editorial division during the day, production in the evening and have maintenance work at night,” says Sutterwala.
— By Saba Siddiqui, Staff Writer
HUMAN RESOURCES
K C Nissar, Personnel and Administration Manager
“An organisation’s staff is its strength.” The Effie Effectiveness Index ranks the marketing communications industry’s most effective companies, awarding competing brands points based on finalist and winner data from 40 worldwide Effie Award competitions. A huge achievement for Gulf News came in the form of third spot in the award’s Middle East and North Africa edition this year, along with globally acclaimed brands such as McDonald’s and Dove.
“We are trying to be one of the best employers [in the region],” says K C Nissar, Personnel and Administration Manager, Gulf News. Having been with the newspaper from 1979 and the Human Resources department from the time it was founded in 1989, Nissar is in a position to evaluate the growth of the section, and the paper with it.
“Implementing SAP in February last year was a major achievement. It helped us adopt a more integrated structure,” says Nissar. The grading system was another positive step, allowing Gulf News staff to slot themselves in the overall hierarchy of the organisation, while its salary structure helped the group to become one of the best paymasters in the regional media industry.
But it is the focus on the employee that holds the key to the brand’s rapid growth. “Gulf News has grown over the years and currently employs 1,769 staff. It is only natural that many of our new employees will feel rather lost in such a huge organisation. HR Connect was a recent initiative that helped overcome this, allowing GN staff to get acquainted with new faces and providing access to HR services online,” says Nissar.
“Ultimately, an organisation’s staff is its strength,” says Nissar. “It’s what makes Gulf News a leader in the publishing business.”
— By Sankar Sri Pillai, Deputy Editor, GN Focus
LEGAL
Anastasia Pavlou, Senior Legal Counsel
The legal department was established in May 2008 and consists of two qualified lawyers — the senior legal counsel assisted by a legal counsel. The department supports all business units and divisions under the Al Nisr Publishing umbrella, including operations, IT, marketing and sales, publishing and radio broadcasting. “Primarily, the team focuses on developing and implementing the legal strategy and framework for its operations, minimising the group’s exposure to risk, resolving legal disputes and administering its contracts,” says Senior Legal Counsel Anastasia Pavlou.
The department is relatively small in size but has taken on a wide variety of responsibilities since its inception. “We do everything from providing primary legal advice to senior management/board of directors, drafting and vetting commercial agreements, renewing the group’s annual maintenance contracts and office leases, to approving ads before they are published, dealing with cases of intellectual property infringement, registering the group’s trademarks, updating its internal policies and so on,” says Pavlou.
Legal advice and support are consistently required by every division across the group. Pavlou says: “All of the publications that we print, publish and distribute on behalf of third parties need a formal contract in place.” Projects such as the group’s current push to develop a digital presence and last year’s launch of the Hindi and Arabic radio stations, Josh and Hayat FM, would not have gone ahead without the department’s involvement.
Pavlou says the department’s priority is to provide comprehensive legal advice with a quick turnaround time, aligned with achieving the business goals and strategies of the group.
— By Azar Zaidi, Staff Writer
