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  • Essay / Gap Analysis: Harrison-Keyes Inc - 1866

    The objective of this article is to identify the steps that Harrison-Keye Inc. management must take to make culture changes. The gap analysis identifies three issues that require immediate attention and new leadership. The fact that Harrison-Keyes Inc. must stop and take stock of what it can and cannot do is critical to its success. This is due to their inherent lack of resources to implement their e-book initiative and its disconnect with their vision and mission statements. Situation Analysis Identifying Problems and Opportunities Management at Harrison-Keyes Inc. does not understand project management or project implementation techniques. Management has not fully defined the elements of the e-book initiative, as evidenced by Mack Evans, CIO, stating that its hardware and software were unable to deliver e-books as expected. The vendor selected by the implementation team had difficulty delivering on time due to inadequate estimates of the resources involved in delivering certain items on time. Management did not align the final project implementation goals with the organization's capabilities and resources, nor were these goals aligned with the vision and mission statements. Meg P. McGill's email of March 24, 2004 shows enthusiastic support for her vision for e-books. His follow-up email to Marsha Goldfarb, senior vice president of marketing, asks for estimates of e-book industry growth. Basically, management bought into Meg's e-book strategy without any evidence or prior research outlining all of the specific steps required to ensure success. Management had several projects underway simultaneously. They had a vendor digitizing the company's vast catalog of books, their in-house CIO running the software and hardware solution that was integral to delivering e-books, they had an author threatening lawsuits and defection over legal reasons while their staff was still active. evaluating how to protect these legal rights, they had PR issues with the authors and delivery issues that damaged shareholder confidence because no one was handling PR issues. Opportunities for all stakeholders are opposed to the strategy and implementation of the e-book initiative. Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas The stakeholders in this scenario are shareholders, management, and authors. Fundamentally, each stakeholder wants to maximize value and the ethical dilemma they share is how to achieve this at the expense of the other stakeholder. Can management satisfy authors' need to protect their copyrights to ensure adequate income? Can management maximize capabilities and reduce costs so shareholders see value and dividends?