Problem Solution: Harrison Keyes Inc

Running head: PROBLEM SOLUTION: HARRISON-KEYES INC.

Problem Solution: Harrison-Keyes Inc.

University of Phoenix

January 2008

Problem Solution: Harrison-Keyes Inc.

In recent years, Harrison-Keyes has suffered from the competition of low-cost retailers that eats into the profits of publishing companies. CEO, Meg McGill plans to update the company’s strategy for e-book publishing however, many of the executive leaders and authors do not support her plan. Harrison-Keyes needs to improve its strategic management process or give up on the idea of becoming an e-commerce publisher. Defining what is needed before implementing changes will cut out confusion among the teams and decrease bad publicity, but this will not make up for the other issues that need to be addressed within the organization. Harrison-Keyes is a century year old company that normally does not move quickly when it comes to taking risk and making changes. This paper will address the company’s issues and opportunities, find alternative solutions and offer guidelines to assist CEO Meg McGill and her staff in making some major decision of what and where Harrison-Keyes will be doing in the new millennium provided it can survive until then.

Describe the Situation

Issue and Opportunity Identification

The century old, Harrison-Keyes Publishing, has been regarded as a leading publisher of business, scientific and technical information since the mid-1950. However, in recent years, the company is feeling the competitive crunch from low-cost retailers and is finding it a challenge to survive. My analysis reveals that Harrison-Keyes like other companies are feeling the impact of having to make the switch from the traditional ways of conducting business to e-commerce and other new technologies that will guide their business into the new millennium. The company also suffers from poor communication, there are under educated and or less qualified executives, some stakeholders do not believe that the e-book initiative is the right direction the company should be taking, and bad publicity generated from a snitch within the company. However, the key concepts outlined in our reading over the last three weeks assist in identifying the major issues and opportunities of the Harrison-Keyes scenario. Those issues are:

• Harrison-Keyes’ executives failed to communicate its company strategy for becoming an e-book publisher to all its major stakeholders.

• Harrison-Keyes does not have a company wide implementation strategy for its new initiative.

• The company’s organizational culture appears to be stuck within its traditional ways and is uncomfortable taking risks and moving towards the future.

• CEO McGill needs to define the elements of the e-book project.

• CEO McGill is concerned over the projects problems that have arisen concerning deliver time and project costs.

• Asia Digital Publishing may not be able to make deliverables on time and CIO Evans has started to pull resources from other areas to work on problem areas within the IT department.

A company with issues is in a good position to generate opportunities that can create overall improvement. Harrison-Keyes opportunities are:

• Establish a good strategic management plan for the new initiative and pervade all parts of the organization. This creates an opportunity for setting short term wins, developing rewards system and gaining company wide consensus on the strategy.

• The implementation plan will need to permeate the entire company. This will set the stage for having opportunities of implementing strong successful projects.

• Harrison-Keyes is in the position to confirm Gray & Larson’s belief that strong relationships are among project management structure, organizational culture, and successful project management.

• The executives at Harrison-Keyes can create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) that will provide insight on the project at hand and can be utilized in future projects.

• Executives must develop an approach for estimating project time, cost, and budgets.

• The project team must develop a resource scheduling process assist in meeting timely deliverables.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

Stakeholder perspectives and ethical dilemmas cannot be resolved through one or two solutions. Ethics is the very core of an individual and this is not something that can be redefined because some of one’s values, interests, and rights have or have not been met. The solution to have Harrison-Keyes to set a merger or acquisition will not nullify the stakeholders’ requirements. In today’s society some scholars deem that only when one can tap into what one thinks is morally right; will an individual do the right thing. There are three potential stakeholder groups that Harrison-Keyes with have to attempt to negotiate with and they are as follows: Board of Directors and stockholders versus Harrison-Keyes’ survival - This group has the interest of getting the most profit possible. The ethical dilemma in this group will be that the Board and stockholders will place demands on the company to do anything it takes to increase profits. The ethical dilemma with the company will be that it could decide to create derivative accounts to increase profit margins. The next groups of stakeholders are the authors versus Harrison-Keyes digital rights, and competitors versus Harrison-Keyes. Please see two groups’ interests, rights, and values and ethical dilemmas on Table 2.

Frame the “Right” Problem

Harrison-Keyes Inc. aspires to be a global e-book industry leader, whose organizational culture knows how to accept the changes of a growing e-commerce technological company that has a 10% projected annual revenue from products. This company will seek to achieve its vision by benchmarking its competitors’ successful tactics, learning from its previous mistakes, and through reviewing the concepts of the strategic management process; the