CCI Sourcing Shuts Down

By: Jennifer Saba Just one day shy of its first anniversary, Stibo (parent company of CCI Europe) and the Indian daily newspaper The Hindu, decided to shutter CCI Sourcing.

The European arm of CCI Sourcing, which handles mostly agency work, was bought by the Danish company Mindworking.

Jeff Rogers, CCI Sourcing's vice president of North American sales, said the board did not see a fast enough return on its investment. The board had met for regular meetings in January and again after NEXPO before a decision was made.

Rogers said North America is a very viable market. "We have an extremely talented design team in India. It's very easy to pick up and run."

CCI Sourcing signed its first U.S. newspaper, the Anderson (S.C.) Independent Mail. Three weeks after that, the board decided to shut down CCI Sourcing, confirmed Rogers. "I felt we were close to signing several papers. We were having intense discussions and tests. I had a lot of work in the pipeline," Rogers said. "I'm eager to continue in this role."

According to Rogers, the Scripps-owned Anderson paper has another three months with CCI Sourcing before they have to find another vendor.

Indeed, over the past year, several U.S.-based newspaper companies have been outsourcing part of their advertising production departments. Several other companies, like Express KCS, 2AdPro, and Affinity Express handle work through their overseas operations, mainly in India.