Establishment of NDC Mediagroep (2008)

The NDC VBK publishing company in 2007 decided to combine the activities of its subsidiaries Friese Pers, Hazewinkel Pers, and Hoekstra Uitgeverij into a single company, the NDC Media Group. Bridgecraft was asked to design an overall model for the new company, and to submit detailed proposals for setting up specific parts of the new organisation.

The three subsidiaries involved operated as independent companies. Friese Pers (which published the Leeuwarder Courant newspaper and a large number of free local papers), Hazewinkel Pers (which published the Dagblad van het Noorden newspaper and also a large number of free local papers), and Hoekstra Uitgeverij (which published free local papers) each had their own management, their own editors, their own marketing and sales departments, and to some extent even their own support organisations.

The NDC Media Group combined all the activities of the three companies under central management, with the exception of the editorial staff of the two newspapers. The process resulted in considerable savings and increased the effectiveness of the marketing and sales organisation.