The Utah Symphony Before The Merger Management Essay

The Utah Symphony Before The Merger Management Essay multiple financial and leadership strengths and weaknesses of the Utah Symphony, which were in place before the merger. The Symphonys main financial strength was their endowment fund, which was more than $10 million. The revenues that were earned as a result of the performance of over 200 concerts earn more than $3 million in the year 2000. All of the musicians had signed contracts with the Utah Symphony, which put into agreement a yearly salary for each person in return for their work. The companys main financial weakness is that it was not able to make changes to the amount that the media shows were paid per year since the decisions for amount of funds for each contract were set in stone in previously agreed upon by the leaders of the Symphonys board. After the terrorist attacks of, stock market crash, and Americas recession. There was a large decrease in the the sales of tickets for the Symphony, and many other visual and performing arts facilities in this country. These events al so calls many of the foundation pledges of supporting organizations to become a unfulfilled because those organizations were also going through a financial crisis due to the economy. The main leadership strength of the is Keith Lockhart who is the Symphonys director of music. He presents the role of a true leader by helping out his musicians in the building them into one of the top 20 symphonies in America. The leadership weakness is that the CEO of the Symphony, Scott Parker is resigning from his position. A1a. In this section I will recommend the key steps that Anne should take to address these weaknesses to ensure a successful start of the merger: 1. Analyze the problems that both organizations had been facing before the merger. 2. Discuss the details of the merger with the leaders of both organizations. 3. Discuss the details of the previous contract and salary agreement for the musicians, so that everyone could be aware what types of decisions should be avoided. 4. Interview potential candidates who are qualified and can take the position of the previous CEO. 5. Inform the musicians and employees of the advantages and disadvantages that may occur if the merger may or may not take place. 6. Provide feedback to all who have concerns or ideas that could increase the success of the merger. 7. Produce a balanced scorecard, which shows the strategic goals of the merger. A2. There are multiple financial and leadership strengths and weaknesses of the Utah Opera, which were in place before the merger. The main financial strength is its endowment fund and the amount of $5 million. The opera also had assets in the amount of $4.8 million in performance equipment and landscape ownership. The hardwork and support in fundraising by Anne Ewers lead to the paying off of $450,000 in bills of the organization. The financial weaknesses of the opera before the merger are lower profits from revenues of decreased tickets sales and fundraisisng events. There is also adequate funding to make up for the increase in annual expenses. The main leaderdship strength is the support and work ethic of Anne Ewer. She has been working for the organization for eleven years and lead in the accomplishments of promoting fundrisiang andhelping the organization to get out of debt. The organizations leadership weakness is the lack of negotiationg that is allowed for the musicians salaries Another weakness is that it also no longer has its director of operations, Leslie Peterson to back them up in their efforts since that person is no longer with the organization. A2a. In this section I will recommend the key steps that Anne should take to address these weaknesses to ensure a successful start of the merger: 1. Analayze the budgets and financial performance of the organization to determine the areas of weakness. 2. Have weekly meetings with all the leaders of the organization. 3. Brainstorm to obtain all possible ideas that could ensure that the mergers gets started off on the right track. 4. Assign job tasks to all of the leaders so that they could aid in the support of the merger. 5. Create new guidelines for the collective bargaining process. 6. Design more fundraising opportunines for the Opera to raise money. 7. Research and request additional grants that would support the merger. A3. Utah Symphony Financial: The financial aspect shows the financial goals that the organization want to achieve in the future. It also shows what the budgeting and fundraising that needs to be accomplished in order to meet these goals. Customer: The customer aspect shows the organizations goals to meet the needs of its customers. The Sympony is aware that they have to work hard to maintain a audience because they are the main source of income for the ticket sales. They must always provide quality performances to keep their current customers and attract new ones. Internal Process: The internal process aspect focuses on increasing the funding that the organization receives. The symphony must come up with new ways to earn money through fundraising it can promote profability. Adherance to budgets would also be beneficial for them because it can allow them to steer away from spending too much on expenses which they cannot afford. Learning and Growth: The learning and growth aspects can greatly contribute to strengthen the Symphony at this time in the economy. The performance should be fexible and not stick to one standard performance, so that it could attract new audiences which were not previously interested in what they had to offer. Utah Opera Financial: The financial aspect focuses on the goal to have a financially strong opera by increasing the endowment funds and promotion of fundraisers. It would be a working progress since they are not currently financially stable but their productivity will pay off in the long run. Customer: The opera needs to increase the attendance of the performance. They can do they using new marketing techniques and lowering the prices of the tickets so that more customers would be encouraged to attend the performances. This could lead to the opera becoming recognized on the national and regional levels. Internal Process: The internal process aspect fouses on keeping quality musicians on staff and attracting new talented musicians. This could lead to a financially stable opera because they would have the talent to back them up in their efforts. This talent would also encourage the customers to spread the word to others about the astounding performances of the musicians. Learning and Growth: The learning and growth aspects focus goals to increase the amount of tickets that are being sold at the performances and also increase its endowment funds. They are able to achieve this by maintain quality performances and incorporating new ways to attract customers to the performances. The scorecards for the opera and symphony both represent the differing cultures and visions of the company by focusing on the desires of the people in society while at the same time increasing its profitability. Their visions of becoming a world class symphony and nationally renowned opera can be accomplished by keeping their customers happy by giving performances that go above and beyond their expectations. The scorecards for both addresses their strengths and weaknesses because it lists important details of the factors that strengthen than and also the factors that are not beneficial in promoting their stability. B. Balanced Scorecard Balanced Scorecard The vision for the combined organizations is to become a unified world class and nationally renowned organization. The business model is to provide high-quality performances which would result in an increase in profits and endowment funds. Financial Strategic Goal: Become financially stable by increasing revenues received annually. Critical Success Factor: Increase fund raising and endowments. Measure: Increase the reserve fund and organization profitability. Customer Strategic Goal: Focus on the desires for their performances regionally, nationally, and around the world. Critical Success Factor: Hire talented musicians who can aid in the success. Measure: Reach out to society, sell out performances, and receive feedback after performances. Internal Process Strategic Goal: Sustain financial flexibility by decresing expenses and recruiting new talented musicians Critical Success Factor: Ensure that the contracts of the musians are renegotiated. Measure: Improve profibalitiy and increase ticket sales. Learning and Growth Strategic Goal: Increase the varitety of performances to attract new audiences. Critical Success Factor: Develop new marketing plans to increase revenues. Measure: Increase ticket sales and sustain a returning audience. C. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed merged company, addressing the  four  aspects of the scorecard you developed in part B. Financial Strenghts : This merging would offer the necessary supplies, cost discount rates in management, employment and purchasing that the company needs to help maintain functions while maintain solution prices. They would also benefit from the mixed fundraising events, and increase in revenues from the ticket sells from the combined larger audience that would be in attendance for the performances. Financial Weaknesses : Both of the organizations have to efficiently market this merging to the public to be able to have a increase in the size of the audience due to he viewer being unfamiliar with the experience of a merger. The organizations must also hire new musicians who are more talented than the current ones on the staff so that the audience would be motivated to attend the performances. Customer Strengths: The merging would be regarded an achievements if it is able to entice a new viewers while creating sure that the activities are developed to provide them what they want to see. Additional performances would allow flexibility and encourage more viewers to attend since it would fit with their schedules. Customer Weaknesses: The merging could be regarded as a failure if the viewers are not impressed by the skills of the performers . They could also be discouraged from attending it the quality of the performances do not meet their expectations. Internal Process Strengths: Both of the organizations have hardworking leaders whose efforts would be used toward ensuring that the merger is a success and overcoming obstacles that they may face in the future. This would result in a stronger management team that could be a backbone for the organization and its musicians. Internal Process Weakness: The merger could be considered a failure if the organizations are not able to renegotiate the salaries of its current musicians. This could result in the musicians leaving the organization, and also the inability of the organizations to recruit new musicians due its current situation. Learning and Growth Strengths: The merger could lead to a variety of performances which would attract new viewers who were not previously interested in performing arts. It would also increase the talent of the musicians by allowing them to teach each other new skills that they may have not known before. Learning and Growth Weakness: The merger of the organizations could possibly present an obstacle because their expenses are more than the revenues. If the amount of the revenues are not increased in the future to take care of the expenses, the merger would be a failure and increase the debt of the organizations. D.   Identify  one  highly probable issue that could arise during the merger process for  each  of the following areas: †¢Ã‚   Finance †¢Ã‚   Human resources †¢Ã‚   Customer satisfaction Finance: The merger could result in a increase of overhead and operating expenses since there would have to be a increase in space to accommodate the combine audience and the group of musicians. This could be over come by increasing the amount of fundraising that both of the organizations promote each year. human resources: The staff of the human resource department could feel like the merger has become a burden for them because they now have more job tasks to deal with due to the increase in staff. If the organizations do not hire additional employees for the human resource departments, their merging efforts could lead to much confusion. customers satisfaction: The satisfaction of the customers decrease if the talents of the opera are not increase to equal to the amount of talent as the symphony. Both organizations have skills, but the symphomy has become more established by reaching larger audicences and obtaining higher revenures in ticket sales. If the musicians from both organizations do not practice as a group, the customer could notice a difference in lower quality of the performances. D1. Finance: To efficiently create new fundraising events, selected board members from the opera and symphony would need to evaluate their previous successful fundraising events concepts and create a plan for applying new finance increasing strategies. Human Resources: To be able to efficiently settle agreements and incomes the management organizations must have a solid combined negotiating unit. The organizations could also share wheir management techniques. Customer Satisfaction: To be able to keep an open line interaction with their customers, the staff must create a survey to be able to receive reviews from their new and existing customers, also by developing a strong strategy as a way of hiring new customers.