Situation Analysis and Problem Statement: Harrison-Keyes, Inc

Running head: SITUATION ANALYSIS AND PROBLEM STATEMENT: HARRISON-KEYES, INC

Situation Analysis and Problem Statement: Harrison-Keyes

Denise Hillian

University of Phoenix

Situation Analysis and Problem Statement

Why do some companies succeed while others fail? The strategies that organizations implement have a major impact upon its performance in relation to competitors. If it wants to succeed, a company must put its strategy into action and achieve a fit among its strategy, structure, and controls. “If they are to learn from the inadequacies and failures of strategic planning in the past, organizations need to look at how they formulate their business strategies, and when they are developed, how they go about implementing them” (Corboy & O'Corrbui, 1999).

Situation Background (Step 1)

Harrison-Keyes, Inc (HKI), a global publisher of print products, was founded in 1899. Originally earning their money by publishing works of the literary giants, they shifted gears to meet the demands of the mid-1950’s with business, scientific, and technical information. Recently, declining sales due to industry consolidation and competition has led HKI to pursue a new strategy in e-publishing. However, implementing this new business model seems to be fraught with issues.

Issue Identification

HKI has hired another new CEO, William Guardo. He replaced Meg McGill who was originally brought in to revitalize the company with her new strategy. However, unlike Meg, Bill does not strongly support this e-publishing strategy. He favors traditional publishing, has little high-tech experience, and is not a big fan of e-books. He is also trying to quickly get up to speed on all Harrison-Keyes strategic initiatives but this is not an easy task seeing how this position has such a high rate of turnover.

Heavy coastal flooding in South Asia has claimed a significant portion of the region’s burgeoning business community. This includes Asia Digital Publishing who they outsourced to format their e-books. To make matters worse, HKI has a stack of critical deadlines and no backup plan. They briefly discussed it six months ago but they were sloppy and consequently have no oversight or disaster planning to speak of. They also did not put any performance management checks and balances in place at the beginning of this implementation. The Senior Vice President of Business Development and Head of the Implementation Team, Jan Peters is trying to lay the blame on the previous CEO. However, it is the “project managers [who] are responsible for integrating assigned resources to complete the project according to plan” (Gray & Larson, 2006, p. 312), not the CEO.

The outsourcing to Asia Digital has caused morale issues as well. While HKI is only off-shoring the digital designs, employees fear it may lead to additional staff layoffs. In fact, Jaclyn Crighton and Tim Dorn both have resigned to take jobs with Brighton House Publishing. Another morale issue is the fact that quite a few staffers seem to be unhappy with the e-publishing plan. In addition, a few departments that are part of the e-publishing process cycle seem to lack integration. Either they do not understand the process or they just do not want to cooperate. This may be due to lack of understanding about what HKI is trying to accomplish or it may just be a matter of miscommunication but it is something that needs to be determined and acted on before it gets worse. “The difference in productivity between an average team and a turned-on, high performing team is not 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent, but 100 percent, 200 percent, even 500 percent” (Gray & Larson, 2006, p. 343)!

HKI’s weak e-book marketing campaign has failed to drum up enthusiasm for their product. The original budget was $3 million but budgets were reduced 20% across the board leaving them with only $2.4 million to work with. They used a portion to hire a consultant who suggested using e-marketing tactics such as pop-ups, e-mail mailings to opt-in e-mail lists and banner ads on portal sites. However, measuring the results has shown that these tactics are not doing as well as expected. Either these marketing techniques are not working, just not working for this type of customer, or the customers do not want to read e-books. It appears that the initial market research on customer adoption of the e-publishing model was wrong.

If HKI cannot get these issues worked out, the new CEO is going to pull the plug and redirect the