The weather company is an organization that mainly focuses on weather forecasting. It is the company that operates weather underground, weather.com and intellicast.com. The company provides the most accurate weather information to millions of people and businesses. It delivers over 26 billion forecasts daily. Its products include a weather app on all the main mobile platforms. It is important in many aspects as it offers platforms and services to enhance decision-making process and to also respond to weather's effects on business.
David Kenny, the chief executive officer of the weather company, transformed the organization in less than two years. The company was identified for a long time as a cable television channel to a digital business innovating in the use of weather information. The transformation was due to his consideration to the challenges faced by the organization and strategically coming up with the ideas on how to solve them. This essay will, therefore, focus on the business problems, the objectives of the managers, critical issues that affect the alternatives and the possible solutions to the problems.
Some of the challenges faced by the weather company are the acquisition of weather central and weather underground brought challenges such as organizational misfit because of the change in corporate culture that comes with the acquisition. The second problem is that it faced competition from the mainstream broadcasts and other cable channels. There was also the issue of accountability among the employees and their leaders. Lastly, there was also a problem with the international group. This is because there was separate development with the company that was in the United States yet it was the same company. The weather products were global, and they should not be different in every country.
Some of the outcomes I would hope to see in the organization is leadership that is concerned with the welfare of the employees. Lack of accountability often leads to poor performance by employees who are not motivated. The leaders in the organization should strive to be more concerned with the issues that the employees have. For instance, if the employee is not motivated at work, the manager or the leader should be accountable and take the time to determine the cause of the problem. If the employee needs counseling, then the manager should take the step to help the employee in the best way he/she can.
Acquisition or joint ventures have their advantages. However, this process causes a lot of confusion due to the restructuring of the organization. Also, many employees may lose their responsibilities during this process. It is necessary for the managers to prepare their employees by conducting exit interviews in cases of layoffs. The employees should also be informed before the whole process of acquisition or joint ventures. This is important because the entire process is perceived positively and the employees can embrace and cope with the change. This process may be challenging at first, but it has its positive outcomes. For instance, the overall productivity of the organization is likely to improve because acquisition comes with new ideas, policies and a new corporate culture. In this case study, the acquisition of weather central and weather background leads to the improved performance and increase in revenues of the Weather Company.
Competition is a major challenge to the Weather Company since its primary focus is only on forecasting the weather. The objective of the managers, in this case, would be to come up with innovative ideas on how to gain a competitive advantage over the other broadcasting channels. They can conduct an analysis to identify their opportunities in the external environment and explore them to gain competitive advantage.
The objective for the managers on the problem with the international group is to ensure that the goals set are the same to enhance productivity. I would hope to see the similar drive or passion from the employees in achieving the set goals. This would ensure that the international group is working as hard as the other group in improving the performance of the organization.
The possible solutions to the competition problem include brainstorming on innovative ideas that will enable the company to deal with the competition issue. This solution is beneficial as a lot of ideas can be obtained from the process. It also engages the employees and also promotes intrapreneurship in the organization. The only disadvantage of brainstorming is that it might be time-consuming.
Also, maximization on opportunities and strengths enables the company to cope with competition. The analysis enables the organization to work on the weaknesses and identify their active areas. The advantage of the analysis is that it helps the organization come up with a long-term strategy that is helpful in goal attainment. This solution is more effective than the previous because it fulfills both the long term and short term goals. However, the change in the external environmental factors may render this solution ineffective afterward. Problems associated with acquisition can be dealt with counseling and guiding the employees through the process. This is important because employees are the most valuable asset in any organization.
Various factors or conditions may affect these alternatives. The conditions may be from within the organization or from the external environmental factors. Some of the organizational conditions include policies which may be either written or unwritten. The policies especially the written policies may be rigid hindering the managers to incorporate some of the alternatives.
The organizational structure is another critical issue that may impact on the options. Just like the policies, some structures are rigid and hierarchical and may prevent the solutions from being applied in the organization. Also, such structures do not allow the employees to air their views or opinions.
The external environmental conditions include the social factors, economic factors, and technological factors. These factors affect the state of the alternatives differently. For instance, the technological factors can influence the innovation ideas that the employees may come up with. The economic factors affect the financial aspect of the organization. Thus, the management is likely to select the alternative that is within the budget of the company.
From the alternatives, brainstorming of ideas by the employees is the best solution for the Weather Company in dealing with broadcasting competition. As mentioned earlier, employees are a resourceful asset to the company. Therefore, considering their ideas might be a game changer for the enterprise. Also, some of the best ideas come from the employees. This alternative is also cost effective as there is no need of consultants in the company.
It is necessary for a company to carry out a SWOT analysis because it assists them in knowing their performance in comparison to other organizations in the external environment. It also helps the company anticipate any possible challenges in the future. The anticipation of difficulties assists the organization in formulating the strategies that will enable them to achieve their goals. Therefore, I would recommend this analysis for any organization because it focuses both on the short-term and long-term goals of the organization. It also helps an organization have a competitive advantage over other organizations.