Reference no: EM133297503

Case Study: Emerging Digital Media (EDM) is a provider of digital marketing solutions for a wide range of product  and service companies. EDM was founded in 2012. After a period of significant growth and great  public interest, the company completed a successful IPO in early 2020 prior to the onset of the  COVID-19 crisis. Several top managers for EDM stayed with the company through 2020 to aid in the transition of the company but by early 2021 most had left. In the fall of 2020, the EDM Board of  Directors selected a new CEO, Susan Brown, to head up the newly public company. It soon became  clear to CEO Brown that while EDM's operating metrics were still strong, there were clear indications  of slowing growth and emerging customer complaints, and that the company was becoming less  interested and concerned about the challenges faced by their companies.

In March of 2021, Susan contracted with a well-known consulting company (Apex) for them to complete an operational audit of EDM and to provide an outsider's view of the company and the legitimacy of customer concerns. Apex, in their review, saw a company with three primary but relatively separate internal groups: the data scientist, software engineers, and marketing specialists  that made up a "professional" group; the sales and marketing arm of the organization; and a large  administrative staff that managed all the support functions. It soon became clear to Apex that as the  company grew, these three groups became less and less clear on the focus of the company and that
many significant constraints had grown in the organization of the company, keeping each group from  being as effective as they could be in meeting customer expectations.

EDM was founded upon the vision of providing innovative digital marketing solutions to a wide range  of service and product companies. While providing a suite of off-the-self products for small-to- medium-sized firms, EDM viewed their real competitive advantage to be their ability to provide  customized innovative digital solutions to major industry players and to maintain close and responsive  relationships. Based on a thorough industry and competitive analysis, Apex felt that this focus was  still the most opportunistic for EDM to pursue and still allowed EDM to create a clear competitive  advantage. Apex's internal audit unfortunately revealed that as the company had grown, it had moved  farther and farther away from being able to create such a competitive advantage. Apex's  recommendation to CEO Brown strongly encouraged her to undertake a reorganization of the  company to align it with its original vision.

Susan, in response to the Apex recommendations, assembled a strategic planning group. The charge she gave to the group was to develop a plan to clearly enunciate the company's vision (main thing)  for all internal groups. Additionally, the planning group was to make specific recommendations regarding how the company should view and relate to customers, the nature of the employees the company needs to attract, and the processes that need to be put in place to support the success in consistently driving the company toward the main thing. The planning group was to report back in three months with their key recommendations.

Based on your analysis of EDM (historically and present day), provide a clear statement of EDM's main thing. What criteria should a successful main thing meet, according to Labovitz and Rosansky? Does EDM's main thing meet these criteria?

Question: What critical questions, drawing on the ideas of Labovitz and Rosansky, should the EDM leaders be asking of themselves in the future to determine whether the proposed recommendations by the planning group to strengthen their relationship with their customers have been appropriately aligned?