SCOTT McCulloch is business development manager at News International (Scotland). He has been in the post since March but has been with News International for 17 years, in various roles. He submitted this on Friday, July 13.
What exactly is it you do?
It’s really an extension to my previous position as sales and circulation manager. I am responsible for all sales forecasting, market analysis and retail relationship, as well as working internally with our editorial, marketing and commercial teams on a daily basis to look at ways at driving our brands, sales and revenues.
What did your working day today or yesterday comprise?
Today, like most days, started with a trip to the gym at 6.30am and then into the office for around 7.30am where I looked over the distribution and production reports to see what is happening in the market. The next job was to look over [the monthly] Audit Bureau of Circulation data in anticipation of its noon release to ensure it held no surprises. Afterwards, I had a meeting with our heads of sport and marketing to talk over some future activity.
From then, it was a quick lunch at my desk, then into ABC reports, followed by projections and planning for the weekend through to early next week. With the breaking news in Ireland from the Michaela McAreavey trial, I had to drop everything and start looking at what our coverage will be in Ireland and how many extra copies we would need to put out.
How different or similar was it to your average working day?
To be honest, our jobs here vary most days which is why it is a very interesting place to work. There are a few tasks that need to be done each day but mostly every day brings something new.
How different or similar was it to your average working day when you started in post?
Pretty similar to all of my roles at News International: long days but never a dull moment. This current role brings many new challenges for me, to bring different parts of the business together and I have been working hard at doing that since taking the role on.
How do you see the job evolving?
The role will continue to evolve by building internal and external relationships. This coming year, I’ll be concentrating on bringing to life digital and social media plans to ensure News International is the ‘go to’ media group in Scotland
What gives you most job satisfaction?
I have always been really proud to tell people that I work for News International. I still enjoy the buzz around sales figures when we are looking to see the impact of big exclusives and marketing campaigns.
To know that I work for a newspapers group that makes a difference to the people of Scotland works for me.
