Harrison-Keyes Gap Anlysis Week 4

Gap Analysis: Harrison-Keyes

Recently, there have been some major changes that have taken place at Harrison-Keyes Inc. The question that is on everyone’s mind is if organization will survive these changes and continue in the efforts to achieve the new organizational direction of e-publishing. The newly appointed CEO, William Guardo is not a firm believer in the new strategy and direction of the organization, however, is willing to give it a shot if the leadership team can turn things around and present a new plan on how to achieve this vision successfully. The Senior Vice President has been given one month to accomplish this task or the mission of attaining e-publishing at Harrison-Keyes will be cancelled.

William Guardo has been brought into a situation where the organizational structure and leadership has been less than adequate. He is in the process of questioning all the employees and leadership team members to get to the bottom of why the plan and strategy has failed as it has. Once he can determine the faults of the plan, he can figure out how to improve the overall organizational effectiveness of Harrison-Keyes Inc. This may or may not include the pursuit of the e-publishing process, as this has created much turmoil both internally and externally for the organization. The new CEO needs to decide if this new strategy can be saved, and salvaging the project is worthwhile both in time and costs.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Many issues and opportunities exist for Harrison-Keyes. The organization has many decisions to make and numerous opportunities to explore in the near future. The question on everyone’s mind as of late, is will the organization survive the failed attempt to implement the e-publishing vision or will the organization suffer greatly and potentially go out of business due to the poor implementation and planning strategies of the previous CEO and still existing Board of Directors.

One of the most influential changes that recently happened at the organization is the hiring of the new CEO William Guardo. William Guardo has replaced Meg McGill who resigned due to many issues and concerns with her strategy and implementation process of the e-publishing process. Margarete Wiersema, author of Holes at the Top: Why CEO Firings Backfire, would certainly question the need for hiring a new CEO at this crucial time, as the Board of Directors are often where the blame lies for errors in strategic implementation and organizational performance, as they are the ones that are making the decisions, the CEO however, is the one that ultimately takes the fall publicly.

William is not altogether on board with the new strategy and is skeptical about e-publishing because he has seen success with traditional publishing for over 30 years (University of Phoenix H-K Scenario). He is not a very technical person and prefers traditional methods. However, he is willing to see this strategy through if the proper plans are in place and he can see that the plan is not only worth the time but worth the money that will be put into implementing such a massive change. He has taken on the responsibility of cleaning up the mess that has occurred during the past year where lack of planning and organization has disrupted the very livelihood and existence of Harrison-Keyes in the marketplace today.

Another area of major concern is with Asia Digital Publishing, who has fallen victim to a catastrophic natural disaster. The floods that occurred in Chennai India have not only claimed precious innocent lives, but also resulted in a massive area of land completely covered by water. Asia Digital Publishing is now under five feet of water and is out of business. Harrison-Keyes Inc. has just realized that they are now in some serious trouble with the completion of the e-publishing plan, as they no longer have a publishing company to use. The disaster in India and with Asia Digital Publishing has caused a major problem for Harrison-Keyes Inc. because the company never created an alternate plan should such an emergency occur. Therefore, Harrison-Keyes is unable to meet important deadlines and has no publishing company to help. This is quite damaging to the organization and will greatly affect business going forward if another publishing company is not found immediately.

The lack of a strategic control process has damaged the success of this strategy. Had Harrison-Keyes had a control process in place should such a situation arise, the loss of Asia Digital Publishing and the problems with the writers would have either been avoided or been worked through in a more effective and efficient manner. “Control is the process of comparing actual performance against plan to identify deviations, evaluate possible alternative courses of actions, and take appropriate corrective action” (Gray & Larson, 2006, chap. 13). A control process is what is needed in order for this strategy to work going forward, and Jan Peters needs to pay special attention to ensuring that a strategic control process is implemented immediately.

Another area of concern is the lack of effective budgeting. If one is unable to budget effectively, and control costs then one will not be able to predict and plan. “Without time-phasing of costs to match scheduled activities, cost control cannot yield information that is reliable for control purposes” (Gray & Larson, 2006, chap. 13). Harrison-Keyes Inc. has not used an integrated information system to properly plan budget spending and actual work completed during that time-period. There have been major miscalculations due to poor planning and strategizing. Harrison-Keyes projected earnings have been drastically affected due to the lack of having this type of system in place. Harrison Keyes earned less than 1/5 of the projected earnings for a half a year of sales. This is a considerable difference between the projected 16 million and the actual 3 million earned.

Plans seldom materialize in every detail as estimated-identified and unidentified risks occur, estimates are wrong, the customer wants changes, technology changes. Because perfect planning doesn’t exist, some contingency funds should be agreed upon before the project commences to cover the unexpected (Gray & Larson, 2006, chap. 13).

There should always be special funds set aside to be available to “cover the unexpected” (2006), as too many risks are involved with not being prepared for the absolute worst. Nobody could have expected a natural disaster to put the publishing company out of business, however, had such a reserve fund been established and a back-up publishing