Acme Productions Human Dynamics Analysis :: essays research papers fc

Acme Productions is one of the largest independent, full service television and video production companies in the country. Acme Productions was founded in 1981 and originally headquartered in Northern Virginia until 1991 when it expanded to a custom designed building for television production located in Washington D.C. With a full time professional staff of over 70 employees, Acme Productions has grown over 220% since the recruitment of a new President & COO in 1998, but in recent years their growth become unstable and profitability figures have started to decline (See Exhibit 1). Acme Productions has been a pillar in the Washington DC production community for over 23 years, offering remote production, studio production, program playback services, production management, editing, graphics production and design, film-to-tape transfer and color correction, audio editing/mixing, original music, video duplication, distribution via satellite, fiber and the Internet. Over the years, the company has invested over 40 million dollars in state-of-the-art technology and facilities. The company’s client base is both vast and diverse, and Acme Productions is known for its creative talent as well as the state-of-the-art technological resources. Acme Productions currently produces several highly rated broadcast television series for several of the top cable networks such as HBO, Showtime, MTV, Comedy Central, The Discover Channel, Animal Planet and ESPN. The company’s mission is to offer exceptional broadcast production management services, experienced technical staffing, creative production development and an unsurpassed broadcast production infrastructure. Their goal is to meet the needs of their clients and facilitate their vision from concept to completion. Their clients include major networks, government agencies, corporations, and independent producers. Acme Productions clients leverage their talent, experience, and infrastructure, to create full-scale live events, broadcast specials, and series. Today Acme Productions is known for its extreme f lexibility, efficiency, high quality standards and customer service. IDENTIFYING THE ISSUE Acme Production was a struggling company with low profitability and limited success up until 1998. That is the year that the Board of Directors decided it was time for a change and recruited a new President & COO, Mr. Bill Smith, to turn the company around and take the company to the next level. Mr. Smith quickly developed an aggressive 5-year business plan to turn the company around. This involved sweeping changes throughout the company to introduce and incorporate a new philosophy, technical infrastructure and managerial structure. Mr. Smith was seen as a visionary with a keen sight on the future and an aggressive pacesetting and coercive leadership style (Goleman).