Action Plan for Anne Ewers - Term Paper Example

? Organization Management task 2) Table of Contents Task A- Action plan for Anne Ewers 3 Task B- Balanced scorecard for the merged company 8 Task C- Analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the merged company- Recommendations for addressing the four aspects of the business scorecard 10 Task D- Probable issues expected to arise 11 Reference 12 Task A- Action plan for Anne Ewers 1. Financial and leadership strengths and weaknesses of the Utah Symphony As the economy was struck with recession most of the arts organizations in America suffered losses in terms of the numbers of visitors and numbers of performances too and so was the condition of Utah Symphony. Industry experts had forecasted that the attendants would fall considerably during the recession. However, increase in the price of tickets would not be effective as the expense increased by 2.5% leading to considerable operating deficit. However, the strength of the Symphony lies in the fact that it had earned a huge brand name for itself being one of the most famous orchestral groups. The financial strength of the organizations is also revealed through the immense reputation that it enjoyed and which consequently reflected through high ticket sales. Also the high paid musicians employed by the organization earning full time salaries only depicts the financial stability of the organization. The financial weakness of the organization was that it did not get any funds from the state and was the entire was generated through individual contributions and tickets sales. Moreover, ticket sales kept fluctuating depending on external conditions which weakened its financial position even further. The leadership strength of the company gets reflected by the fact it was led by Maurice Abravanel, who was hired as the conductor in the organization. The orchestra had developed under Abravanel starting from a small and part time community ensemble to a huge and renowned world class symphony. He was responsible for the growth of USA and for becoming the first orchestra in USA to have performed in the international platform. The leadership weakness of Utah Symphony gets revealed through the fact that it was subjected to too many leadership changes. The leadership of Abravanel was taken over by Lockhart and Lockhart continued to follow the initial strategies. However, since external conditions had changed it was necessary that Lockhart had made his own strategies which would be suitable for the present conditions at Symphony. a. Recommendations for addressing the weaknesses Firstly Anne should ensure that the organization would continue functioning under strong leadership and guidance as they had done before. Otherwise it would lead to a fall in quality and performance. Secondly she would also have to ensure that the crisis which had resulted in revenue losses for the company would be eradicated. The crucial aspect of the merger was to ensure that the merger would result in economic benefits and remove the deficits which had been prevailing (Dymski, 1999, p.56). The merger would definitely result in realizing scale economies as both the organizations were into the same business. This would be possible by making thorough analysis of the financial position of the two organizations, measuring their strengths and weaknesses and working on them. The key strategy would be to use the strength of one organization to realize the benefit of the other. Merging Opera with Symphony could be effective in drawing audiences having affinity towards traditions and culture which could control the problem of falling ticket sales to an extent. Enhancing the brand name and reputation through advertizing and publicity would also be effective in earning reputation and fame drawing in additional audiences which would consequently strengthen financial position of the organization. The improved financial position would be make it eligible for being part of the big merger. 2. Financial and leadership strengths and weaknesses of the Utah Opera The Utah Opera was also initiated and led by the best operatic talents existing in Europe, Glade Peterson. Its strength lies in its commitment towards staging the opera productions, and promoting the knowledge of public about opera and its appreciation too. It also gained considerable support from the artists for giving them a platform and support to enhance and showcase their talents. It has also given a lot of opportunities to the young artists to pursue their careers in the organization. However, the recession accounted for a major reason for the company’s weakness which resulted in the loss of viewers and falling popularity of the organization. Because of this it had suffered significant loss of revenues. The financial strength of the organization lied in its ability to attain support from the nationally and locally based foundations, corporations and individuals. The organization was also a huge owner of assets and owned assets worth $4.8 million. The leadership of Anne Ewers can also be considered to be a major strength of the organization as she had a number of successful experiences in her prior endeavors (Alexander, 2004, p.3-6). Opera under the leadership of Glade Peterson did not continue for long and was taken over by Anne Ewers, which was again a leadership transformation. Moreover Ewers’s resistance against the merger could also be considered to be a leadership weakness as it demonstrates lack of confidence, expertise and positive outlook. a. Recommendations for addressing the weaknesses Firstly, the popularity of the organization and opera would have to be regained. This would compensate for the revenue loss that the company had suffered in the recession. It was important to popularize the concept of opera by publicizing the same. This would help to attain the interest of many viewers who were unaware of the organization. This would help to stabilize the financial conditions of the opera to a certain extent. The diminishing concern towards cultural heritage would have to be resumed by Opera in order to bring back the organization to its original financially stable position. Mere reliance on the financial support of the local foundations and organizations would not be enough. It would gain the support of the audience by putting up more shows and highlighting on the future prospects of opera. It is important that the company continued to nurture the talents, artists and technical elements in its production, administration and community education. Most importantly it would be important to realize that opera accounted for a traditional heritage in Europe which had to regained and retained hence forth. Thus the unique idea would be avoid transforming it into a commercial platform and making it a profit making body. The unique idea would be to highlight on the cultural heritage it carried rather than present it as a maker of profit and commerce. Thus it would have to target those people who had artistic and classical interest rather than targeting the entire population which would have very little or no knowledge of the subject. Since Anne Ewers has earned a considerable amount of favorable reputation by serving as stage directors for more than 60 opera production houses in the US, it is expected that Opera would be able to do good under her leadership and guidance. A good step towards eliminating the weakness by Ewers would be to identify the positive benefits that the merger was likely to yield rather than oppose it. Moreover the frequent leadership changes would require elimination for attaining steadiness and stability. 3. Analysis of four aspects of business scorecard for Utah Symphony and Utah Opera Utah Symphony Financial perspective- The present financial perspective of Utah Opera is to remove the operating deficits and overcoming the effects of the recession in the form of revenue losses. Customer perspective- Utah Symphony must try to regain their customers who are their audiences by popularizing the concept of orchestra. However, ticket prices must be kept low to attract them. Internal Business Processes- the company must increase the numbers of concerts it performs through the complete participation of its musicians and orchestra. The Learning & Growth Perspective- in Symphony, the workers or the trainees, musicians must be provided with adequate training to enhance their talents and provided with growth opportunities within the organization. Utah Opera Financial perspective- The financial perspective of the company was to attain as much support from the local and global foundations as possible to strengthen its financial position and also enhance ticket sales to generate revenue for the same purpose. Customer perspective- It must try to attract more number of audiences for its opera and arts. For this purpose it must hold more stage shows and focus on popularizing arts and culture. Opera must be seen as being the cultural and traditional heritage of UK and this must act as the USP for attracting audiences. Internal Business Processes- Opera must employ number of technical staff for improving its administrative functions and also involved in music administration and community education. Each one hired in the organization must be focused towards betterment of its functions and facilities and work towards attaining a better position of opera among all arts organizations. The Learning & Growth Perspective- Not only should the organization attract musical talent from across the world, but it must also work towards generating ample opportunities for them to grow and demonstrate their talents. They must be provided with the opportunity to develop and nurture their talents within the organization and pursue their careers also. • How do these scorecards represent the differing cultures and visions of the companies? The primary differences which reflect from the two business score cards of opera and symphony is that the former tries to promote art and culture through the development of talent and art. The focus was more on the development of cultural heritage and culture in UK rather than attaining commercial success. The scorecard reflects greater emphasis towards promoting public appreciation and knowledge of opera rather than generating greater profits and output. The business scorecard of Symphony, on the other hand reflects the vision of attaining greater commercial success through the generation of more revenues and profits. The aim was to attain greater profits and success through more number of stage performances throughout the nation and higher attendance. • Do the scorecards address the strengths and weaknesses you noted, and, if not, should they? The respective scorecards reflects the individual strengths and weakness of the two organizations and their areas of concern by identifying the areas on which they could improve and those which would act as strengths. Task B- Balanced scorecard for the merged company Financial perspective- Merging the two organizations would help to realize economies of scale and cut down costs considerably. Since the economy was largely hit by the recession it was resulting into revenue losses and low profits. Moreover the merged organization would be able to reduce the operating costs through scale economies and also remove the operating deficits in which the two companies were demonstrating. Opera would be able to attain greater financial support from the global and local foundations and Symphony would be able to attract greater audiences and allow more ticket sales which would generate more revenues and profits (Blokdijk, 2008, p.145). Customer Perspective- The reputation of Symphony would help to attract audience which would benefit the prospects of opera. The audience which it was losing would be retained easily. Most importantly both the organizations would help to boost the other by providing more audiences and increasing the number of seats. Opera would help to enhance popularity of arts and culture and Symphony would help to showcase that culture in front of a large audience. The idea would be to use the competitive advantage of one for the benefit of the other. Moreover, Symphony was financially stronger than Opera which could be an added advantage for Opera to eliminate its financial crunch and instability. Internal Business Processes- The internal business process of the merged organizations should be directed towards improving the technical and administrative activities which would reduce operating errors and help to curtail costs to a considerable extent. The Learning & Growth Perspective- The objective of the merged body should be to improve the condition of arts and culture by popularizing orchestra and opera. The musical talents which the organizations possess must be treasured and valued. This can be possible through the nurturing of musical talents and giving room for the development of that talent. The talented people should be provide with the requisite training and opportunities of growth within the organization and allowed to consider music as their career. They must be provided with adequate compensation for contributing to the organization by demonstrating their skills and talents. Being musical organization talents must be considered to be the main and most valuable assets in the organization and nurturing that talents must be accounted as one the prime objective of the merged organization. It can be said the true commercial and cultural success can only be attained through proper learning and development opportunities for the musical talents. Task C- Analysis of strengths and weaknesses of the merged company- Recommendations for addressing the four aspects of the business scorecard The strength of the company would lie in its ability to derive the artistic vision which is sensitive to the real world and also gathering, securing and managing the available resources. Moreover the position of employees of the merged body was likely to improve as they would be united which would lead to greater bargaining power. This would consequently be able to fetch them with more salaries and other benefits. However the probable weakness would be that orchestra would become an appendage of opera because the General Director of opera was likely to become the CEO of the merged body. In addition to this since the two bodies represented two different forms of arts it was likely that in future the two forms would clash and generate rivalry among each other. This could keep them from attaining their vision properly and completely. It is recommended that the authority of the merged body would act towards keeping the unions satisfied by providing them with their requisite benefits and advantages. No distinctions must be made between the employees of Opera and Symphony in terms of their salaries and benefits. Also all chances of Opera overruling Symphony would have to be eliminated in order to give positive consequence to the merger. This would create disharmony in the organizations and ruin its purpose. The aim should be to bring the two organizations under a common leadership that would guide both of them towards a common goal and objective and remove all kinds of misalignment between them. Task D- Probable issues expected to arise • Finance- Symphony was likely to generate greater finance because of greater strength and reputation which would subside the opportunities of opera. • Human resources- Opera employees were at a lower salary as compared to Symphony. This could create discrepancies and chances of biasness and distinction in compensation. • Customer satisfaction- There could be a clash between customers with artistic vision and customers with instrumental passion. It is likely that the merged body would not be able to satisfy the two different natures of customers. 1. Recommendations for the merged company executive for mitigating actions The most important recommendation for the merged body would be to bring all aspects of the two different bodies on a common platform to avoid possibilities of clashes between them. This is applicable in terms of their HR policies, allocation of financial resources, learning and developing of artists and musicians and also their vision, mission and objectives. Increased number of stage performances would generate for the merged organization and improve its financial position. However, it must be ensured that the financial resource allocation must be made unbiased and equal for both organizations and not undermine the importance of any one. In order to eliminate any discrepancies in customer satisfaction the merged organization must combined act towards working for a common objective which should be to popularize music, orchestra and opera. Reference Alexander, K. (2004). Utah symphony and Utah opera: a merger proposal. Retrieved August 25, 2011 from http://www.kristianalexander.com/english/Utah.pdf. Blokdijk, G. (2008). Balanced Scorecard 100 Success Secrets, 100 Most Asked Questions on Approach, Development, Management, Measures, Performance and Strategy. Lulu.com. Dymski, G. (1999). The bank merger wave: the economic causes and social consequences of financial consolidation. M.E. Sharpe. Read More