Cristina Nielson
6/18/2011
RJFT Task 2

Action Plan

When this merger was decided it was called into action because of the weakness within the Utah Symphony Orchestra and the Opera. Both are great companies but both could use the strengths of the others to improve. This paper will explore the leadership and financial strengths of both companies as well as a complete overhaul of the balanced scorecard of the businesses.
Below I have listed the strengths and weaknesses of the leaders and financial aspects of the Utah Symphony Orchestra.
Utah Symphony Orchestra
Financial Strengths Financial Weaknesses
Performing over 200 concerts generating income. Ranked in Group II for budget
Expected income supposed increase by 1% in future. Expense increases expected of 2.5%
High revenues from concerts Decline in public subsidies Increase in competition of public funding Low deficit at the end of the year. Carry burden of pledges not paid
Leadership Strengths Leadership Weaknesses
Experienced conductor in the Orchestra organization. Resistant to change
Has a great background in TV (helps in marketing) Would prefer to cling to existing model for organization.
Has the ability to lead Spends too much on fundraising efforts.
Helped the Orchestra obtain the top orchestra spot in the 8 rocky mountain states.
Protects his employees and ensures that opinions are heard

The hardest part for Anne will be addressing these weaknesses. There are steps that Anne can take in order to address these problems. The steps that need to be taken are shown below:
1. Sit down and analyze the increase in expenses.
2. Come up with ways to combat the increase in expenses. Look into more fundraising.
3. Increase public awareness of the problems facing the Symphony.
4. Apply for more public subsidies, regardless of the decline in them.
5.Increase awareness of concerts to increase profit.
6. Sit down board and all leadership officials and have a question period.
7. Meet concerns with strict answers so any fear of change is understood.
8. Present the new business model and scorecard to allow all leadership to understand the goals of the new organization.
9. After all the steps have been taken Anne will continue to monitor and change aspects as needed.
The next step is to analyze the Utah Opera. Below I have listed the strengths and weaknesses of the leaders and financial aspects of this organization.

Utah Opera
Financial Strengths Financial Weaknesses
Has financial support from local and national organizations. Revenues decreased from performances.
Have great low cost fundraising efforts. Having trouble breaking into other areas that can generate them more income.
Low cost to program expenses Has a lot of expenses related to props and costumes.
Increase in the endowment fund. Not making enough in fundraising efforts.
Contributions increased over the years. Does not get much in the way of grants to help the company.
Leadership Strengths Leadership Weaknesses
Anne has years of experience with the Opera Anne has a lot to expand through and focus on.
Helped reduce any debt associated with the Opera. Anne has to constantly be looking to create performances and generate more income.
Worked hard and got the budget increased for the company. Not all management is on board with the merger. Operations manager resigned.
Knows how to fundraise very successfully. Anne having trouble getting the community on board with merger. The key steps that Anne should focus on in this area are how to integrate the Opera into the culture of the Orchestra. Anne's action plan is shown below:
1. Address the financial weaknesses.
2. Create more fundraising for Opera.
3. Create community awareness of problems facing the Opera.
4. Create a new diverse performance list to increase profit.
5. Find places to cut expenses related to props and costumes.
6. Apply for various more grants to see if more help can be given to the Opera.
7. Anne has to create a meeting to allow all management to ask the questions they need to about the initial process for the merger.
8. Anne needs to decide if the existing operations manager can handle the merger of two companies.
9. Anne needs to remain focused on all staff affected by the merger.
10. Finally Anne needs to have one final meeting with the public to make sure that they fully understand the reasons behind the merger and the benefits that it will give the company. The action plans put in place will ensure that Anne can successfully address all weakness of both companies for financially and through the leadership of the organizations.
Scorecard Analysis Utah Symphony

Financial:

The financial goals for the symphony will make sure that symphony is able to sustain itself into the future. As long as their fundraising efforts are substantive they can keep their ticket prices low enough for the next year. In turn this will sustain their audience, allowing them to profit the next year. Without these goals in place more people could be discouraged to come to the symphony making it difficult for the symphony to sustain profit and its 83 members.

Customer:

The customer goals are essential to the symphony. Without the customers there is no audience or money for the symphony. Ensuring that they are delivering a world class performance each and every time will ensure that they are doing what they need in order to be successful. Ensuring that there is top talent that is hired increases the satisfaction that will come from the feedback from existing patrons. By establishing a relationship with existing and new clients the symphony ensures that they have the audience they need to be sustainable.

Internal Process:

The main focus here is increasing profitability. The best way to do that is by definitely renegotiating contracts. Musicians may not be extremely happy to renegotiate but it will be more beneficial to the organization to ensure that the contracts are in line with the profits that the symphony is actually generating and the expenses that are needed to be paid. Fundraising efforts are great for helping with this but those efforts to work they need to be able to cover some of the expenses.

Learning and Growth:

Growth is important for the symphony especially because of the hard times that they are facing in the arts community. Having the capability to adjust its symphonies to a variety of audience will give the symphony a better edge and a greater desire to be seen. Marketing the symphony is difficult but with the right marketing techniques and tactics put into place it will allow for a reach to more audience types. Doing this correctly will keep peoples interest and give them the desire to come and see the symphony.
Scorecard Analysis Utah Opera

Financial:

The main focus in the financial area is to increase their reserve fund. This is going to take some time as the amount of money they currently have is not that substantial at the end of the year. They can make sure that there are more efforts put into fundraising for the Opera in order to make a better financial outcome. Having steps in place will allow for a better reserve fund.

Customer: The Opera needs to start having sold out performances to be able to measure the quality of their own performances. By increasing the response to these performances they will be able earn the regionally and nationally acclaimed titles. The performances that they have at this moment are great but they need to make sure that those performances start excelling their original expectations. This is a long term goal but it can be achieved and met if they start placing a need on these performances as well as start expanding their audience focus.

Internal Process:

The top goal here is to maintain top talent and financial stability. The performers for the organization are key to the company. If there right negotiations are done to retain/obtain this talent it will help the company reach its goals to maintain its talent. By having great talent they will have a larger audience because people will continue to come to the opera just to see the talent that the Opera has to offer.
Learning and Growth: The goals set here are going to take more effort to ensure that the goals are being met. It can be measured through the endowment fund and increase in ticket sales but it is one of the goals that may take longer to achieve because of the decrease in the art community. Ensuring that performances are perfected though will help the company ensure that they are obtaining the same if not more customers throughout the year.

OVERALL:

Both of these organizations have great goals that will sustain them as an organization. With the symphony their scorecard reflects their culture and their vision. They want to continue to be profitable but sustain the people in the community that is there to support them. They are a well established company so they want to make sure that the talent that is obtained within the company is there to help them gain the support that they need in order to continue. Their vision to be a world class symphony orchestra can easily be met if they put the right steps into place and ensure that they maintain top talent as well as appeal to the audience that they have. I feel like this scorecard addressed the strengths and weaknesses that I mentioned earlier. They have a great leader that can help with marketing them but they could use better efforts when it came to fundraising for the symphony. In order to increase their sales and profits even more though they do need to appeal to a larger audience with a wider variety of symphonies. If they do this then they should be able to meet some of the goals that they set.
The Operas scorecard does go hand in hand with the vision and culture that they hold. Their vision to be a nationally recognized Opera can be achieved with the goals that they have in place. They want to work on increasing their fund and the leader that they have for the company can definitely help do that. Anne has done many things that will allow for the Opera to increase their endowment funds. The strengths and weaknesses are duly noted in the scorecard that I mentioned. They want to break into national recognition and that is a weakness that is noted. They also want to make sure that their concerts are sold out. In a financial sense that is important in keeping them at the top and increasing the fund that they really want to concentrate on. Although the Opera has a great foot to stand on they would benefit from the coming together of the two companies.
Now that an analysis has been given of the two companies below is listed a new balanced scorecard for the two companies to come together and work on in a integrated company.

Combined Scorecard for Opera and Symphony

Vision: The vision for the combined company to be a world-class nationally renowed company.

The business model is to provide high quality concerts and retain all contracted musicians.

Financial:

Strategic Goal: Being financially stable with an increasing reserve fund and increase annual profitability.
Critical Success Factor: Increase funding raising efforts and meet endowment funds needed.
Measure: Increasing companywide profitability and seeing an increase in the reserve fund.
Customer:

Strategic Goal: Stay in tune to the desires for regionally, nationally, and world class performances.
Critical Success: Hiring top quality performers who can realize the need for success.
Measure: Have sold out performances and allowing for feedback after performances.
Internal Process:

Strategic Goal: Maintain flexibility financially with decreasing expenses and attract top talent.
Critical Success: Have the right contracts in place and excelling performances.
Measure: Improvement in profitability and hold reviews for performances.

Learning and Growth:

Strategic Goal: Maintaining a wide variety of performances.
Critical Success: Measure increase in ticket sales and have a successful marketing campaign that emphasizes the variety offered.
Measure: Improved ticket sales and returning audience of all varieties.
There are going to be many strengths and weaknesses from the proposed company. Below is a chart addressing these different areas.

Strengths Weaknesses
Financial

There is a great leader to lead successful fundraising efforts. The Symphony didn’t have much of a reserve fund.
Companies together can support the effort to bring in a diverse audience for sales. As a whole company they will need to greatly increase their reserve fund. Contracts need renegotiation to retain top talent. Ticket prices need to remain the same.
Customer

Both companies have an established audience. There needs to be an expansion in the audience that comes to see the companies.
Performers retained after the merger will be the best in the industry. There needs to be a whole desire for world class performances.
Internal Process

Goals can be realized with the talent that already exists. There is a need to maintain financial stability.
Feedback can show the excellence of the companies. Negotiations of contracts could anger some of the performers.

Learning and Growth
There is a loyal audience for the Opera and Symphony. Pressure is there to make sure there are enough performances to continue on.
The companies cultures will benefit from retaining the different talents and experience. There needs to be a more diverse performance load. Capital needs to be covered by ticket sales. When combing two companies there are issues that are going to arise that will need to be combated. Listed below is one issue that could come up with the merger taking place.
Finance: The costs of the merger could be too much for the two combined companies to handle. Human Resources: New procedures and policies have to be evolved to benefit the entire new merged company.
Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction could suffer if there is not enough steps taken to ensure satisfaction won’t be affected by the merger. Or in other words make sure the merger is not done too rapidly.
In order to mitigate these challenges the new executive needs to make sure that there is communication within the company. When the merger is put into place, the financial aspects should already be though out and a budget put in place that both companies can successfully achieve. Goals need to be put in place so that there is no unexpected costs that could ruin the chances for success of the merger. In order to combat the human resources issue everyone within the new company need to understand where the company stands and be sat down and shown all the new policies and procedures as well as be given a handbook that they can keep in their eye sight in case there are any really lingering questions. As a new company there will be some customer dissatisfaction. This can be due to there being a resistance to change. Once the merger is explained and customers can see that it does not affect the performances but can actually make them better then there will be a better response to the two companies coming together as one. In conclusion, this merger can be successful. There are many strengths and weaknesses that both companies bring to the table. With the right analysis of both companies and having the companies realize that their goals are similar the resistance that might be held by the different companies can come to an end. Anne Ewers can make this a successful merger with all of her years of experience and her get organizational support system that comes from putting the two companies together.