AgTalk | Indian market is in a much better state: Femina Group's Svida Alisjahbana

Femina Group is one of the leading publishing companies with seven home titles and six licensees under their belt. Femina group, started in 1972, came into existence with the launch of the most popular magazine, Femina which was the first women's magazine in Indonesia.

Ever since then, they have grown to become a trusted media group as the contents are evenly balanced with the Indonesian values. The company continuously flourishes to provide various brands and products that are very well appraised by Indonesians. With 14 magazines, as well as other divisions like creative boutique, event organizer, radio station, publishing house and online publications, they have moved beyond the limits.

In an exclusive chat with Adgully at the precious World Magazine Congress 2011, Svida Alisjahbana, CEO of Femina Group, shared some insights about her company and their strategies.

Svida's career in the publishing industry began as Commercial Director responsible for the operational and directing the group's future directions. Now, as CEO, Svida is reporting directly to shareholders ensuring all lines of business to run efficiently and its corporate development to include meeting the current multi media challenges to transform print into content maker in digital format.

Working closely together with the senior team devising strategic plans, that will generate revenues, creating new business opportunities, to maintain its leading position, is her motive as a CEO.

Prior joining Femina Group she worked for GE Capital in Connecticut for five years. Svida (46) obtained her bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1988 and continued her MBA degree at Columbia University, New York.

Svida is actively involved with the Young President Organization (YPO) as Regional Board Member and has been honored to Chair the magazine section for the Indonesian Newspaper Publishing Association. Svida is also a Board Member of The International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP)-World Magazine since 2008. Svida was a fellow of the Eisenhower Fellowships' 2010 Women Leadership Program.

Adgully (AG): Firstly, state some of the key highlights of your company?

Svida Alisjahbana (SA): Femina group, a company that was found 39 years ago, was a family business started in Grash with my family. It has grown from the liberalization of press into a number one print magazine company. Now we have 16 magazines including Femina, Reader's Digest, Men's Health etc. mostly we have women magazines.

AG: What have been your strategies in terms of marketing?

SA: Our main focus is to produce women magazines in lifestyle structure. It is more like a marketing company. We have magazines that are really dominating the market. We try bringing out stuff that is really close to women community. We try to know women more deeply like what they are in the vein of, what they aspire, what they love. Most importantly we believe that we should bring fresh aspirations for them. Secondly we towards providing entertaining stuff for them. Also we make sure that our approach is community oriented. For example our magazine, Femina, is completely publishes about latest trends, apparels, Bollywood, Hollywood, who goes on diet, etc. we even focus on career oriented women and women entrepreneurs.

AG: What have been your growth plans?

SA: We want to produce content that touches women's heart. We want our company to grow in a way that it marks its presence everywhere, whether it is social media or business websites and what not. we want to come up with e-magazines as well.

AG: What has been the growth and vision of the company?

SA: The vision of the company is to be part of Indoasian modern community and make the valuation correctly so as we can grow at a faster rate. We want the women community to grow in a smarter way.

AG: What according to you, have been the key issues that have been faced by the magazine industry?

SA: It is just an identity crisis. Whole world face such kind of issues. And we being a magazine company we dwell more into a specific community unlike a television channel. Our focuses are different in terms of content, publishing and marketing. I guess this media industry does not find these points relevant.

AG: How are you looking at utilizing social media and the digital medium in monetizing the digital property?

SA: At the moment social media alone cannot be met. Our richest investment is when we engage to a particular community. We focus on how we engage towards a specific community, it could be through anything whether digital media, social media or anything else. Our prime focus is not towards cracking the social and digital media platform but obviously yes both these terms are really important and we will move on towards that direction at a slow rate because we need to make our content very strong at that particular platform. And yes, utilizing a wide variety of modern platform such as the Internet, brand activation and the communities, enables us to optimize the potentials of all divisions and create collaboration in any form.

The word "impossible' does not exist in our vocabulary. Every opportunity is a step to progress, and every challenge is the chance to innovate.

AG: Where do you rate the Indian magazine market in your graph?

SA: I think Indian market is great. I guess Indian market is in far much better state than we are. Here in India people engaged very deeply in a magazine.

AG: How important or easy, do you think, is it to hit the Indian market?

SA: It is really difficult to hit Indian market as people have a very specific and particular taste. Also the have developed their tastes since long and it is not easy for them to change and shift their preferences. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]