Gap Analyssi

Gap Analysis: Intersect Investments

In the business world today many companies are undergoing changes. This may include an array of situations from mergers and acquisitions to outsourcing, organizational change, legal lawsuits and much more. Change may not always be the popular choice but does it have to be a bad one? When set in motion does change turn out to be a beneficial option for the good of the whole company? In this paper, Intersect Investments and its direction for the future will set the stage. Intersect Investments is a financial services and advisement company undergoing tremendous economic pressure due to various issues that must undergo organizational change in order to stay afloat. The senior leadership team along with their (CEO) Frank Jeffers is faced with many challenges, concerns, and opportunities that will impact stockholders as well as stakeholders' future. There are many strategic decisions to be made for the company so that Intersect Investments may reach its end state goals of increasing its customer base with a new "customer intimacy" model. Intersect Investments potential is to increase sales and revenue by gaining their customer's trust and financially by exploring innovative product ideas to meet the needs of their customers. Intersect will also have to keep in mind their stockholders perspectives balancing the ethics and morals of the company, in order to strategize into becoming trusted advisors.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Since September 11, 2001 the financial services industry has been in a constant state of instability. This environment has left Intersect Investments along with others in the industry struggling to keep both their clients' trust and maintain its credibility with Wall Street. Intersect Investments has undergone same major diminishing revenue targets, experienced an increase in employee turnover in the sales department up to 25%, and has shown in their analysis that customer satisfaction has declined by more than 10%. "In the past four years Intersect Investment Services has at times barely managed to survive, but resisted making a drastic, strategic shift" (Scenario: Intersect Investment, 2007, University of Phoenix). This has placed Intersect in a financial position to make strategically good sound business decisions. The (CEO) Frank Jeffers has developed a new strategy that he proposes will enhance Intersects ability to gain future growth, increase revenue, and become one of the top three trusted advisors in the industry. This new "customer intimacy" strategy is set forth as a goal in making Intersect more competitive in the industry as well as a financial success. He has put Janet Angelo new executive VP of marketing and sales in charge to improve customer loyalty and increase sales in just 12 short months.

First issue to be addressed is that Intersect must move from a traditional selling model to a "customer intimacy" model, which will require major organizational restructuring. The main focus of this first issue is to gather all leaders in management down to the employees to build an alliance to align the vision of Intersect. Once the goals and vision are in alignment then the company can proceed with the opportunity for transformational change. Currently at Intersect the leaders are not communicating effectively to the shareholders, thus creating disbelief in the leadership causing high turnovers, loss in sales, and customer dissatisfaction. The employees are not getting the correct message and information to do their jobs producing a poor work environment and poor customer satisfaction. However, the blame should not be on the employees but