Harrison- Keyes, Inc. Benchmark

Abstract

In the following paper, each team member will analyze two companies who have faced similar issues as Harrison-Keys Inc. The analysis will include the issues each company faced, decisions made to address those issues, and the outcome of those decisions. Next, a synopsis will be given tying key course concepts to the issues and actions of each company identified.

Strategic implementation and alignment: Harrison-Keyes

Harrison-Keyes faces many of the same issues relating to strategic implementation and alignment as most organizations. Today's organizations face challenges affected by changes such as increased competition and advances in technology. In an attempt to overcome these challenges, the leadership at Harrison-Keyes must make decisions regarding what changes must occur within the organization. Determining the best approach to these challenges requires leadership to evaluate the company's existing strategy and determine whether potential solutions (in the form of new projects) remain in harmony with strategic goals and objectives, or if the organization must update its strategy. This paper will identify several organizations that have faced similar issues to those faced by Harrison-Keyes, describe the situation and how it relates to these issues, and provide an evaluation of the outcome of each organization's approach.

Company Analysis

YouTube

YouTube is a very popular website that allows people to post, watch, and share video clips at no charge. In an article recently written by Daniel Wood of the Christian Science Monitor he reports that many users cannot get enough of the idea and love the service because it is entertaining, informative, and a community of sharing things; but some concepts are too good to be true (Wood, 2006). Downloading video clips that one does not have the copyright of is illegal so there are many upset companies who feel as though their copyrighted material has been stolen. Several companies such as Time Warner have been threatening YouTube with copyright infringement lawsuits (Wood, 2006). Some experts claim that soon people will start getting "cease and desist" letters from attorneys and face the threat of a lawsuit if copyrighted material is not taken down immediately (Wood, 2006). There are no legal contracts with companies who have their material on YouTube and it is seen as a large business mistake to not have projected an arrangement for this situation during the project implementation.

Although consumers enjoy having free access to share other people's copyrighted work, other stakeholders are not dealing with the risks as well. People are becoming skeptic and think that cost and copyright issues will eventually do them in since they are not making a large profit. Those involved with YouTube productions do not like being categorized with Napster, but if it were not for Google to come and recently take over and start researching legal issues, things may have gotten worse more rapidly. (Wood, 2006). The creators of YouTube did not have all people who are involved in this type of service in mind when it was created. The plan was to have people download personal home videos and such, but creators did not have a strategy to keep out clips of movies, sporting events, and T.V. shows from the site. Now the companies that do own the right to the materials are trying to claim a portion of the revenue.

Before the news of a powerful company like Google taking over YouTube was released, the majority of people had predictions about the collapse of YouTube because of two issues: the lack of a business model and persistent problems with copyright (Murray, 2006). With Google's purchase of YouTube it has raised questions on why the company would take on such large amounts of potential law suites, but due to Google's deep pockets they can afford to take that risk. What Google leaders wants to do is work with the companies that have their material posted by others on YouTube and give them a share of the profit from the add revenue (Taylor, 2006). In order to do this, Google representatives are projecting profit amounts and will have to negotiate with outside companies for share amount agreements in order to avoid future legal issues. The creation of project YouTube has excited consumers, but has caused issues for almost everyone else involved. Not enough legal and contractual consideration was involved and a strategy was not aligned with the project details.

Apex Publishers

Apex Publishers is a leading organization that provides electronic and print information services to businesses, government agencies, and educational institutions. They publish books, government documents, and more recently they have taken on the online market (apexpublishers.com, 2006). Business developers for Apex saw that the digital access of material is of increasing demand and knew that more clients and consumers could use the service if internal e-publishing is introduced. One of the biggest accomplishments of Apex is creating a digital archive of historical newspapers and other historic documents to conserve and have for public use (Nizami, 2006). Having knowledge and background in both print and web publishing gives Apex an advantage over traditional publishing companies.

Apex has countless authors, organizations, and institutes that they work with so having an agreement about distributing their work was a key business process that was established early. Apex Publishers creates an individual contract with each author before any production of the work is started. Each author with published material works with Apex to decide the amount of distribution desired, copyright concerns, and exactly when they will receive royalty compensations (apexpublishers.com, 2006). Copyright issues and legal contracts are very important to Apex and a very clear copyright statement is available for all users. Written consent for the use, printing, or distribution is needed from every user by Apex. Users are given an email address so they can produce their name and address, along with the URL of which written work they would like to print or distribute, the number of copies that will be printed, and for what purpose this will be done (apexpublisher.com, 2006). Another reason Apex is known as an author friendly company is because their clients are able to maintain critical control over the integrity of their data (Nizami, 2006).

Skandia

Skandia is a Swedish-based insurance company that has been in business for 150 years. The services provided by Skandia Insurance include, "...life, health, and property/casualty