Utah Symphony Analysis

Financial Strengths:
The Utah Symphony received approximately 5% of its incoming from their endowment fund annually. The organization raised $3,829 in revenue from rental fees, sets, props, costumes, box office, etc. However, the symphony believes that the fundraising contributions are sufficient enough currently to allow ticket prices to remain the same as the prior year is successful. The up side is that there was a $116,308 in surplus at the end of the year.
Utah Symphony Financial weakness:
The Utah Symphony’s goal is to become stable financially stable through the raising of sufficient annual profitable. The Symphony relies too heavily on government grants. The performance revenue is only 18.5% more than government grants. Moreover, contributions are 14% higher than performance revenue, which means that the symphony relies too heavily on contributions and not enough on tickets sales.

The program expenses are $10,447,384 and are significantly high, which include salaries, benefits, and taxes. It is 60% of the total expenses. The expenses are too high, without enough revenue to keep it going. Without the aid of grants and contributions, the symphony would not be sustained. The symphony is not sustainable without contributions and government grants. Furthermore, there is $1,164,026 in bad debt expense from pledged dollars that were not paid. Unfortunately, this is potential income cannot be used to pay for the organizations expenses.
The symphony goal is to increase profitability in the future to $500K annually.

Utah Symphony Leadership weakness:
Leadership is lacking the connection with their staff and patrons alike. Thus far leadership is out of touch with performances and what the desires are of the customers. They are not attuned with their goals of raising the bar for their performances. Being in touch with the desires of the organization’s desire to become world-class performers needs to be re-visited. Assessing ways that the organization can meet the goals for the up and coming year is in order. There needs to be in place a way to bench mark the progress or lack thereof that is made. In addition, performance measurement must be instrumental in the growth. The symphony has an opportunity to hire new top quality talent to take their organization to a new level. A program to scout and recruit new talent is required explore other performers around the world. Furthermore, with the symphony’s reputation, it should draw in new performers. Perhaps a look at the current salaries are in order to attract new talent.

Financial and Leadership Recommendations;

Anne Ewers must take the following key steps to address above stated financial weaknesses. She needs to reduce the overall expenses as it relates to the profit; the percentage of profit is less than one percent of the total expenses. The symphony should increase profits by increasing ticket prices. In order for Anne to increase the profitability from $116,000 to $500,000 annually, she needs to increase their number of performances and make the musicians earn more of their salaries. Furthermore, the symphony can expand the music selection to include other cultures and communities that are appealing and invites new customers. Anne needs to solicit feedback from patrons that attend the opera as well as potential customers. She needs to find out what they would like, what would bring them back and invite friends and family.

Anne could look at new ways to retain key employees by providing non-monetary incentives such as symphony and opera tickets annually. She needs to expand the scope of their performances to other states and communities. Furthermore, Anne needs to look at the overall structure of the symphony and to determine if each job is a necessity for the sustainability of the organization. Also she needs to assess whether management is doing an effective and efficient in managing the administrative. In this instance, she needs to interview employees and management alike to determine how well the organization is being run. She needs to utilize her staff in additional ways such as provide new ideas to reduce costs and bring in new revenue streams.

Utah Symphony Balanced Scorecard

The Utah Symphony’s vision is to become a world-class symphony and retain 83 quality full-time musicians. There are four aspects of the scorecard that requires analyzing are: 1) increasing and 2) improving profitability, 3) receiving feedback, 4) improving ticket sales. The symphony is lacking a sufficient reach into other demographics and increases their revenue stream. The organization needs look a new ways to improve profitability by increasing revenue to $500K a annually. Anne can encourage marketing to expand their reach to communities outside their current reach. Moreover, the organization needs to look at the tactics and tools that they are currently using to determine how well they are informing potential patrons to buy tickets. Although, the symphony is recognized in eight states, there should be a plan to expand into one additional state per year.

Feedback is very critical to learning more about how to attract returning audiences. Need to know what the audience wants and what will it take to bring them back. For instance, will more performances or affordable ticket prices or more local showings. Perhaps smaller performances at smaller venues will attract new and old patrons. It is critical to find out what will take the symphony to the next level. Furthermore, how well is the organization collecting patron information to send the mailings on new performances? The goal is to grow the company into the next century.

Utah Symphony Balanced Scorecard

The vision for the Utah Symphony is to be a world-class symphony.
The business model is to provide sufficient high-quality concerts to sustain the 83 full-time musicians under contract.

Financial
• Strategic Goal: Being financially stable with sufficient annual profitability
• Critical Success Factor: Having fundraising sufficient to allow ticket prices to stay same as last year
• Measure: Having profitability increase in coming years (from $116K to $500K a year)

Customer
• Strategic Goal: Being attuned to their desires for world-class performances
• Critical Success Factor: Hiring top quality talent
• Measure: Receiving feedback from exiting patrons

Internal Process
• Strategic Goal: Having flexibility in decreasing expenses due to fundraising gaps
• Critical Success Factor: Renegotiating contracts with musicians
• Measure: Improving profitability

Learning and Growth
• Strategic Goal: Including a wider variety of symphonies offered to appeal to a more varied audience
• Critical Success Factor: Having a successful marketing campaign that advertises different symphonies to younger audience
• Measure: Having improved ticket sales and returning audience
Utah Opera Analysis

Utah Opera Financial Strengths:
The Utah Opera received support from national and locally from individuals, corporations, and foundations. By January 2002, their national endowment fund has grown to $5 million. Anne has increased the budget from $1.5 million to $5 million over a period of 11 years, she was successful in raising funds from different states. Moreover, the Opera received $977,322 in government grants. The Opera has not utilized the dividends from or interest from its endowments, they only reinvested money into the fund. The organization raised $1,027,177 in performance revenue. The up side is that there was a $582,409 in surplus at the end of the year. The Opera has production studios on 2.9 acres of land. In addition, their costume inventory is valued at $4.8 million.
Utah Opera Financial Weakness:
The opera does not rely too heavily on government grants, it is almost as equal to performance revenue which is a positive. The performance revenue is only .0494% more than government grants. Moreover, contributions are approximately 50% higher than performance revenue, which means that the symphony relies heavily on contributions and not enough on tickets sales.

The program expenses are $3,017,069 which is significantly less than the Symphony’s program, these costs are relative to the performance schedule. The expenses are significant; there is not enough revenue to keep it going without contributions and government grants. Without the aid of grants and contributions, the opera would not be sustainable. Furthermore, there is $210,031 in bad debt expense from pledged dollars that were not paid. Unfortunately, this is potential income cannot be used to pay for the organizations expenses. Unfortunately, there are $384,339 in expenses incurred from renting props, wigs, set, props and costumes.

Leadership Strength & Weakness

The leadership weaknesses of the Utah Opera are the resignation of Leslie Peterson from the Director of Operations position. Being that Ms. Peterson resigned; Anne will have to consider hiring a new director of operations. There is a leadership gap created by the resignation of Ms. Peterson. Currently, her position is vacant and essentially there are no person directing and overseeing operations. According to the organizational structure chart, it was difficult to determine whether the director and managers reported to Anne Ewers or Leslie Peterson. The organizational chart is not easy to determine who reports directly to whom, thus creating difficulty in the flow of information and accountability.

Furthermore, Keith Lockhart is not happy with the idea of reporting to Anne Ewers, He has expressed his discontent for this structure. Keith could make the transition and future decisions very difficult for Anne as he will have veto power, if he is to in agreement with Anne’s decision. This could pose a problem for Anne, Keith has the power to undermine her efforts in uniting the organizations in a cohesive manner. It will already be a big chore for Anne, but without the support of Keith, the merger will be extremely difficult. Moreover, if Keith disagrees with Anne, it will be difficult for her to get things accomplished especially if Mr. Lockhart staff is loyal to him and backs him up on his decisions.

The leadership strengths of the Utah Opera is hiring Anne Ewers, she increased the budget from $1.5 million to $5 million over the last 11 years. She has successfully raised funds from different states. Furthermore, the Opera revenue and contribution is projected to increase from $4,741,206 to $5,116,049 in the year 2001 – 2002 which is an increase of $374,843. Prior to Anne coming to the Opera, she was the general director of the Boston Lyric Opera where she retired $450,000 in debt. Anne has proven herself as an effective leader, she has the ability to raise funds and reduce the overall organization debt.

Financial and Leadership Recommendations;

Anne Ewers must take the following key steps to address above stated financial weaknesses. Anne could expand her fundraising efforts to include additional states. She must aggressively pursue the Utah Opera’s vision to become a nationally renowned opera house thus bringing in more revenue. She needs to expand the scope of their performances to other states and communities. She could increase the overall revenue through the merger with the Utah Symphony which will give the opera more exposure to new audiences. The opera should increase its profits by increasing ticket prices slightly by 1% percent. It will be a small increase for lovers of this art and raise additional funds for the organization. An increase in revenue may require an increase the number of performances as well. Furthermore, the opera can expand into new communities to invite new audiences and lovers of the arts. Anne could look at new ways to retain their musicians by providing non-monetary incentives such as symphony and opera tickets annually. Providing tickets to musicians’ families can save the organization having to compensate the musicians monetarily.

Anne has an opportunity to streamline the organization. Being that Ms. Peterson resigned, the organizational chart needs to be restructured for better information flow and accountability. The organizational chart needs to be restructured for clarity. The structure should have all directors, managers should report directly to Anne in the interim until a new director of operations is hired. Furthermore, Anne needs to assess the overall function of the symphony and to determine whether each position is a necessity in the organization. Also she needs to assess her management staff to determine how well they are doing their jobs through a performance appraisal. A performance appraisal will give Anne the feedback she needs to be an effective leader and encourage her subordinates and management to do a better job. In this instance, she needs to communicate with employees and management alike to determine how well the organization is running. She needs to find out when you have to let staff go and may result in reducing costs and keeping revenue.

Furthermore, Anne Ewers can empower Keith Lockhart by allowing him to work with her side by side, giving him autonomy and sharing information with him. He has expressed his discontent for this structure; however, if Anne empowers Keith – she could gain his trust in her decision making and his support. It could make the merger and future decision making process less difficult for Anne and encourage Keith to work with her while avoiding his veto power. Keith could be an asset to Anne and the organization. Empowering him will avoid problems like undermining Anne’s efforts in uniting the organizations in a cohesive manner.

Utah Opera Balanced Scorecard

The Utah Opera’s vision is to become a nationally renowned opera house. The goal is to increase their endowment funds and improve the performance quality. There are four aspects of the scorecard that requires analyzing are: 1) raising additional funds for endowments 2) increasing reserve funds, 3) attaining financial stability and 4) attracting top talent. The opera could look into new fundraising techniques using social media such as Facebook, Twitter,, YouTube, etc. The opera could increase awareness the art they represent and solicit donations via social media. Furthermore, it is a wonderful to bring the art to younger audiences. This media tool has more far reaching effects than just marketing to only the lovers of this art form. It is important to introduce new individuals to this art farm. Moreover, these are great ways to attracting top talent and inspire others to get involved.

The opera could also solicit other organizations to contribute to endowment fund. They can also look into reinvesting in new investments that will yield a greater return on investment. Also fundraising events are a great way to raise funds to attain financial stability, a telethon might be another way to raise awareness as well as solicit monies. In order for the opera house to become nationally renowned and attain financial stability, they must team up with the Utah Symphony. The symphony has a larger audience base; the opera can tap into this source of revenue. The opera is lacking a sufficient reach into other demographics and increases their revenue stream. The organization needs look a new ways to improve profitability and increasing their surplus a annually. Anne can encourage marketing to expand their reach to communities outside their current reach. Moreover, the organization needs to look at the tactics and tools that they are currently using to determine how well they are informing potential patrons to buy tickets. The opera should expand into one additional state per year.

Merged Balanced Scorecard

The newly merged Utah Symphony and Opera vision is be to a world-class arts organization that provides high quality symphonic concerts and theatrical performances. The business model is providing high quality performances that will increase patronage, promote financial sustainability and endowment fund growth.

Financial
• Strategic Goal: Being financially stable with sufficient annual profitability with an increasing reserve fund
• Critical Success Factor: Raising additional funds and having endowments realized, and fundraising sufficient to allow ticket prices to stay same as last year
• Measure: Improving reserve fund amount and having profitability increase in coming years (from $116K to $500K a year)

Customer
• Strategic Goal: Having regionally and nationally acclaimed opera performances and being attuned to their desires for world-class performances
• Critical Success Factor: Hiring top quality talent excelling in quality performances
• Measure: Receiving feedback from exiting patrons and having sold-out or near sold-out performances

Internal Process
• Strategic Goal: Having flexibility in decreasing expenses due to fundraising gaps while maintaining financial stability and attracting top talent
• Critical Success Factor: Renegotiating contracts with musicians and having successful negotiations with selected performers
• Measure: Improving and Measuring profitability and having reviews noting quality of performances

Learning and Growth
• Strategic Goal: Including a wider variety of symphonies offered to appeal to a more varied audience and ensuring production of high-quality performances, perhaps five a year
• Critical Success Factor: Measuring endowment fund growth and increased ticket sales and having a successful marketing campaign that advertises different symphonies to younger audience
• Measure: Having capital need covered by revenue from improved ticket sales and returning audience

Merged Balanced Scorecard Strengths and Weakness

Financial
The merging the organizations’ strengths would be their combined ability to increase reserves and reduce expense in every department which would be instrumental in maintaining the price of ticket. Combining fundraising efforts will increase endowment funds and allow the organization to grow their assets. Moreover the ticket sales revenue generated from the symphony and opera audiences will promote financial sustainability and profitability. However, the financial weaknesses of the newly merged organizations will have a challenge deciding how to market the combined arts to promote the increase of ticket sales and broaden the audience base. The organizations may have difficulty attracting and recruiting top talent to provide the quality performances that will increase patronage base and revenue.

However, the symphony and opera strength is that they could solicit other organizations to contribute to endowment fund to decrease expenses due to fundraising gaps. They have the ability explore new investments opportunities that will yield a greater return on investment. Also fundraising events are a great way to raise funds to attain financial stability, a telethon might be another way to raise awareness as well as solicit monies. In order for the symphony and opera to decrease expenses due to fundraising gaps, they must team up. The symphony has a larger audience base; the opera can tap into this source of revenue and vice versa. The opera and symphony can reach out to other demographics to improve profitability and increase their surplus. Marketing will play a great role in expanding their reach to communities and countries.

The symphony and opera weakness is their lack of ability to increase profitability and attain financial stability and reaching out to other demographics to increases their revenue stream. Both organizations collectively need to look new methods to improve profitability and attain financial stability. The symphony and opera weakness is that their expenses may not decrease due to fundraising gaps.

Customer
The merger strength of the new organization is to deliver more high quality performances by top talent which will broaden the audience base increasing the future patrons. These performances must provide customer satisfaction that is unturned with the patrons’ desires. Furthermore, the combined marketing department has the ability to expand their reach to communities beyond their current audience base. Also, the merged organization has the opportunity to look at their measurement tools that are currently using to determine how well they are informing potential patrons to buy tickets. The symphony and Opera can collectively devise an expansion plan to perform into additional states and countries.

On the other hand a weakness of the organization is if they fails to provide what the public desires like quality talent, increase in performances, and musical content, the merger will be a failure. The lack of soliciting feedback from exiting patrons and promoting sold-out or performances is a weakness that requires addressing. Moreover, the symphony and opera lack the necessary feedback that is critical in learning more about how to attract returning audiences and having sold-out performances.
Internal Process The strengths of the merged organization are it will be lead by Anne Ewers with Keith Lockhart. Anne has a history of increasing the budget from $1.5 million to $5 million and successfully raising funds. The merged organizations revenue and contribution is projected to increase in the year 2001 – 2002. Moreover, Anne has previous success in retiring debt, the merged organizations would be benefit from her experience of running the internal process of company. Furthermore Keith Lockhart is in charge of guiding top talent in stage direction intimately. The economic scale of merged organization should increase and attract world class top talent. The newly merged organization will have combined objectives and strategies for business model, administration and sustainability.

The weakness of the merged organization is the potential that staff and management will not readily follow the new objectives and strategies set forth by the new vision and business model. The new organization may need to restructure its organizational chart, downsize departments, and or decrease staff to lower overhead costs. There may be a sacrifice of key staff members to lower costs. Another weakness is not having a proper marketing strategy to attract arts patrons and expand combined audience base. Furthermore, the public support is not very strong and could work against the strategy and objectives of the newly merged company. The company must win over the public to gain their support to increase revenue and be sustainable.

Learning and Growth
The strengths merger will be the organizations ability to attract new world class talent. They can increase their ability to attract world class talent and perform more quality performances that produces desirable growth financial stability. Merger will increase the new entity`s ability to attract world-class artists, maximize efficiency of administration and planning, give donors a greater return on their investment and create new educational opportunities. This merger will create learning and training opportunities for staff and artists.
Moreover, their strength is in the combining of their customer data bases to reach out to them for the feedback needed to learn how to attract returning patrons. With this data, they could find out what the audience wants and what will it take to bring them back. For instance, will more performances or affordable ticket prices or more local showings be desirable for patrons to return. Perhaps more performances will attract new and old patrons. It is critical to find out what will take the symphony and opera to the next level. Furthermore, they can improve on how well the organization is collecting patron information and sending mailings about new performances. The goal is to grow the merged organizations and sell out performance around the nation.

The new company weaknesses its lack of talent recruiting efforts and producing the desired quality performances that patrons want and attracting new artists and audiences to promote growth and profitability. The symphony and opera weakness may not be taking full advantage of utilizing social media to attract new talent. It’s a way to inform and attract talent through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, etc. The symphony and opera could increase awareness of the art to attract new talent via social media. Furthermore, it is a wonderful way to bring the art to younger audiences. This media tool has more far reaching effects than just marketing to bring in talent from all over the world. It is important to inform potential musicians and performers that the organization is always looking to discover talent performers and musicians. The newly merged company should be taking advantage of social media as it is widely used by younger generations and is great a way to attract top talent and inspire others to get involved to showcase their talents.

Merger Issues

There are three highly probable issues that could arise during the merger process in the following areas of finance, human resources, and customer satisfaction.

Financial
An issue that will arise is whether to combine organizations finances, endowments and debts or keep them separate. Merging the two organizations will create higher overhead costs. There is dispute whether the merger will save costs. There is concern about the financial strength of the both companies and how well will the mesh together with the way they are operated. The opera’s reserve fund was financially stable due to their business model as it is more flexible than the symphony, the opera could make adjustments to the size scale and size of the opera and/or eliminating projects that are not funded. Some projects were based on fundraising goals being met. On the other hand, the Symphony is a 52-week orchestra with not flexibility. How will fundraising and performances be handled collectively to cover the increase in overhead costs.
Human Resources
On a human resources level, it will be a challenge to combine all employees, performers and musicians alike on the same payroll system. Furthermore, processing all of the employees under one system can be very time consuming. The merger will require additional time and man power to complete the joining of the organization; they will have less time to focus on maintaining their current human resources duties and tasks. Some individuals may lose their position in the merging process.
Customer Satisfaction
Lastly, determining the best course of action on providing customer satisfaction may differ in approach. The organizations may have different ideas on how to satisfy their patrons. These opposing ideas may be a challenge for the newly merged company. As a result, customer satisfaction may suffer if the both organizations do not proactively work together. How will the organization be presented to the public, as one or as a two-head organization? How will the public perceive the newly merged company.

Mitigating Actions

First in order to use collaboration effectively, an understanding of how both organizations works to take on the huge task of merging organizations financial process, human resources, customer satisfaction philosophies and the cultures.
Financial

In order for Anne Ewers to manage the merged company’s finances; she should hire a financial consultant and accountant to help her to formulate strategy on to how manage both companies. It is not a good idea to merge the finances of the organizations right away. She must understand how both organizations finances work separately before attempting to understand how or if the two can be merged and managed together. She should rely on a thorough company analysis to help her decide whether to combine the organizations finances, endowments and debts or keep them separate. Anne Ewers must manage the financial resources of both organizations first separately in order merge them together. Anne must analyze the pros and cons of merging the finances and determine which option will save costs.

Furthermore, Anne needs to devise a plan to reduce the overall expenses and overhead costs. Merging the two organizations financially may create higher overhead costs in the beginning but may decrease over time. The merger is believed to strengthen both companies financial position. Anne has the experience and knowledge to increase the overall revenue through the merger. The merger will give the organizations more exposure to new audiences which in turn should increase its revenue and profitability. In order to offset the increase in costs, Anne could possibly bolster profits by increasing ticket prices to increase profitability. She may need to increase their number of performances without increasing musicians’ salaries. She needs to expand the scope of their performances to other states and communities. Furthermore, Anne needs to look at the overall structure of the symphony and to determine if each job is a necessity for the sustainability of the organization.

Human Resources
I recommend the following actions that the new merged company executive could take to mitigate each of these identified issues. Anne must assess whether management is doing an effective and efficient job managing the human resources, administrative and operations of the organization. In this instance, she needs to interview key human resources employees and management alike to determine how well the organization is being run. She needs to utilize her staff in human resources personnel in additional ways such as provide new ideas to combine the payroll and reduce administrative costs. It is imperative for the executives and management collaborate and put on united front to solve these issues with the newly merged company. The symphony and opera staff must be encouraged to do their part in making the merger goes as smoothly as possible through collaboration.

It is important for staff work together. Collaboration is common tactic is used for the partnership of two complementary organizations and to gain the staff’s commitment. Collaboration will help them work together to get things done more efficiently and effectively by allowing the right information, at the right time to flow to the right people so they can make better work decisions. Developing collaboration on this scale will require restructuring the organizational chart and redesigning key positions which may improve the flow of information, workflow and encourage collaborative behavior. Providing key employees with support, mentoring, and pushing them to collaborate effectively will be critical in this merger. Staff must receive training and mentoring to encourage collaborative work in the workplace
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Customer Satisfaction
In order for the merged company to satisfy their customers, Anne needs to solicit feedback from patrons that attend the opera as well as potential customers. She must rely on the directorship of Keith Lockhart for musical and creative direction. Keith Lochart will provide artistic vision while the symphony and opera can expand the music selection to include other cultures and communities that are appealing and invites new customers. She needs to find out what they would like, what would bring them back and invite friends and family. Anne needs to consider her audience carefully before deciding the best way to respond to their desires and determine the most appropriate strategy to proceed with the integration.
Anne must provide clear goals and expectations to empower Keith Lockhart to motivate both sets of musicians and performers. When staff has clear goals and expectations they tend to achieve them. With appropriate feedback about their performances, Mr. Lockhart can provide specific goals to achieve a higher level of performance. This will help them work harder, perform better, and essentially increase quality output. References:
Krigsman, M. (2011). Seven steps to successful organizational collaboration. Retrieved from website: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/seven-steps-to-successful-organizational-collaboration/14333
The Chad Rosen Group. (2014).Collaborative Influence. Engaging Others to have real impact. Retrieved from website: http://www.slideshare.net.chdro/collaborative-influence.11595386