Problem Solution: Harrison-Keyes Inc.
Rarely does one appreciate the answer to a question that was not asked. Yet companies often invest a great deal to solve the incorrect problem. Often, excitement, technology, promotion, and ignorance, solutions are driven without providing a material value to the customer and stakeholders involved. Thus, an incorrect issue is resolved. In addition, a lack of planning will further drive an organization down. As indicated by Corboy and O’Corrbul (1999) “Nothing ever goes exactly to plan. Organizations operate in an ever changing and dynamic environment. Unforeseen events or difficulties will arise during implementation. It is important that those brick walls, which inevitably will be encountered along the way, are acknowledged and addressed.” (p. 30) Harrison-Keyes encountered a situation in which things did not align to their plan. Rather, there may have been a lack of planning altogether. In order to address appropriately the proper issues Harrison-Keyes faces, one must assess the situations that exist.
Describe the Situation
Issue and Opportunity Identification
“Organizations encounter many different forces for change. These forces come from external sources outside the organization and from internal sources.” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 673). With Harrison-Keyes, both external and internal sources exist that have forced the need to change. From an external perspective, the Asia Digital, a company in India Harrison-Keyes has partnered with to drive the e-books implementation, is currently out of business due to severe floods in that region. In addition, the Board of directors as well as key authors are skeptical about the projections of the e-books implementation, which creates additional cause of concern. Internally, Meg McGill has resigned as CEO, which opens the door for William Guardo to take that position. In addition, anxiety abounds with the editorial staff as they fear the use of...