Bertelsmann's Ostrowski Doctrine

-SDH Bookspan employees are already feeling the early effects of Bertelsmann’s “Ostrowski Doctrine”. Bertelsmann’s next CEO will be the hard charging cost cutting, take no prisoners Hartmut “Hart” Ostrowski who rose to the top for his disciplined mentality. Though he won’t officially be CEO until the end of this year, Ostrowski without a doubt already has the ears of the Bertelsmann board and is a favorite of the controlling Mohn family which leads us to believe that recent announcements of consolidations in the U.S. are part of his plan to merge and purge business units with top heavy management structures and high overheads, much like Bookspan. But besides Bookspan, what else will get a taste of the “Ostrowski Doctrine”? The company has been up and down about its stake in Sony BMG but all evidence point to them holding on to their 50% stake at least for now. A major part of the “Ostrowski Doctrine” is an aggressive push into U.S. media markets. The company recently announced that it is setting up a war chest with Morgan Stanley for a planned shopping spree which could see the company stocking up on internet properties to have a foot print in the digital arena. Could there be an Amazon-esque Bookspan.com in the future where book worms can read excerpts from books before buying them? Or perhaps a Bookspan.com which serves as not only an online book store but an online Myspace-esque community where book worms can meet other book worms and meet up to read together at a Starbucks? Not bad ideas but in order to roll out such plans, some heads have to roll which is unfortunate for many. It’s the coming of Hart Ostrowski kids.