page_title: Media management
section_title: Value chain and core competencies
hierarchical_section_title: Media management / Value chain and core competencies
caption_attribution_description: English: Image describing the value chain of the media industry.
context_page_description: Media management is seen as a business administration discipline that identifies and describes strategic and operational phenomena and problems in the leadership of media enterprises. Media management contains the functions strategic management, procurement management, production management, organizational management and marketing of media enterprises.
  A uniform definition of the term media management does not yet exist, and "the field of media management in its present form is neither clearly defined nor cohesive."
  Notwithstanding this fact, among existing definitions there is a shared base concerning the business administrative character of media management and the functional understanding of management. In the following a number of definitions are provided.
  "Media Management consists of the ability to supervise and motivate employees and the ability to operate facilities and resources in a cost-effective manner."
  "The core task of media management is to build a bridge between the general theoretical disciplines of management and the specifities of the media industry."
context_section_description: The value chain analysis by Michael Porter
  can be adapted for the analysis of value creation in media enterprises. Although the media sector is very heterogeneous and has different branch-specific features, the presented value chain of the media industry form the basic principles.
  As for business companies in general, for media enterprises their core assets and core competencies are decisive for the long-term success. Core competencies considerably contribute to the perceived customer benefit of a product and ensure the competitive advantage of an enterprise. Competencies which are crucial to successful media management can be classified as technical skills, human skills, conceptual skills, financial skills and marketing skills. Core competencies of media enterprises are, for example, an exceptional editorial ability or cross-media marketing competence.  There are six subgroups of core competencies of media enterprises: content-sourcing competence, content-creation competence, product development competence, promotion competence, cross-media utilization competence and technology competence.
  The content-sourcing competence means acquisition of high-quality information and/or entertainment content for content production. Especially the production of exclusive content leads to unique competitive advantage. Content-creation competence is one of the most important core competences in most media enterprises. Media enterprises with content-creation competences are, for example, especially good at realizing social trends and implementing them into their media products, making them highly attractive for the customers. The product development competence is the qualification for a product portfolio with a steady flow of revenues. In order to achieve this, media enterprises have to be able to develop promising media products and to assess their marketability. The promotion competence is specifically relevant for media products belonging to the film, book or music categories as these are individual products. Here a different promotion strategy than promotion of brand identity is needed. Achieving public attention and thus a better market position for media products constitutes the promotion competence.  Media enterprises with cross-media utilization competences can provide content to the recipients in a timely manner, in the desired amount and via the right channel. Finally the technology competence refers to the employment of modern information and communication technology for the creation and marketing of content.
  Core competences form the foundation for the strategy formation process in media enterprises. For their future success, the media enterprises have to analyze the current competence basis and compare them with the required, strategically important, core competences derived from an external market analysis. There is a range of different influences on the media management decisions and actions that have to be included in the external market analysis. The influences are "the licensee, competing media, the government, the labor force, the labor unions, the public, and advertisers, economic activity, the industry, social factor and technology." In case some strategically important core competencies are not yet acquired by the media enterprise, they have to be developed.
caption: Image describing the value chain of the media industry.
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