Gap Analysis: Intersect Investments

Gap Analysis: Intersect Investments

After September 11, 2001, the environment in which the financial services industry was operating began to change. "The volatile climate has left many financial firms struggling to keep both client's trust and Wall Street's credibility." (Intersect Investment, 2007, p.1). Financial service companies operate in a global industry with increasing competition. In order to succeed Intersect must adjust quickly to customer demands and at the same time achieve differentiation to stay ahead of their competitors.

This paper reviews the "Global Communication Scenario." The topics on this paper are: Issue and Opportunity Identification, Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas, End-State vision, Gap Analysis and Conclusion.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

According to the Intersect Investment Scenario (2007), "The volatile climate has left many financial firms struggling to keep both client's trust and Wall Street's credibility. To succeed, investment companies need to offer an ever-expanding array up to minute products coupled with expert advice." (p.1). In addition to the socio-political and market pressures, Intersect was not able to provide services advertised to their customers. Therefore, the customer satisfaction rating was declining and its image was deteriorating.

Intersect's CEO recognized these external forces of change were the perfect opportunity to identify a new vision for the company and implement a drastic organizational change. Frank's new vision was: "Provide a broad set of products and services to customer and small business customers using a model of customer intimacy that will build long-term relationships based on trust and value to the customer." (Intersect Investment, 2007, p.1). The first step Frank took was to replace the previous Executive Vice President of Marketing with Janet Angelo.

Frank's expectations after the implementation of the new vision are: (1) Increase profitability, (2) Become at least the third in the industry, (3) Gain Wall Street's trust, (4) Growth of business in terms of adding new customers, retaining current clientele, and increasing the amount current customers spend and invest, (5) Bring the sales department in line with the new "customer intimacy" model. (Intersect Investment, 2007, p. 2-3)

Some of the internal problems at Intersect were: (1) Employee turnover above the industry rates, (2) Workforce dissatisfaction and resistance to change, (3) Climate of mistrust, (4) Low commitment of employees, and (5) Lack of leadership among others. The origin of these issues were due to leaders "mixed messages" and miscommunication "employees do not understand the new direction; they do not believe upper management has the ability to pull off the new strategy, and they are not getting the information/tools they need to do their jobs.