Utah Symphony And Utah Opera A Merger Proposal Case Solution

1. What is the strategy of the Utah Symphony? For whose benefit is the Symphony run? How does this differ from a for-profit corporation?

Utah symphony has a long history of working for its employees and building upon its image. This attitude of Utah symphony was built on by maestro conductor, Abravanel, who spent 32 years of his life building the orchestra. Because of his efforts, it was made possible that this symphony moved from a part time community to a renowned world class symphony. In order to maintain its image, Abravanel worked hard, and it became first symphony to tour internationally. Addition to that, it secured contracts with labels such as vanguard, Vox, Angel and CBS. Later on, when Keith Lockhart was hired he followed the foot prints of Abravanel and made many breakthroughs.

Abravanel was a defender of his musicians vociferously. The musicians who were working under the umbrella of Utah symphony were given full time professional status. Moreover, the musicians employed by the Utah symphony were given a full year contract, and they were paid a full time salary. Their salary ranged from $50,000 to $85,000. This employment procedure was exactly opposite to that of the opera.

Utah Symphony was performing on a contractual basis throughout the year, because of that musician were pre occupied. As a result of that, this musician and Utah itself had no flexibility with structure and schedules. Addition to that, after the financial crisis Utah Symphony was in deep trouble, it was very close to being in deficit. The reason was because they had a full year contract with the employees and they have to pay the artists. Utah symphony was usually getting funds from ZAP contributions, but after these financial crises these funds from Zap were quite uncertain. The Utah symphony had an average endowment of $76 million for its group GI and for group GII the average endowment was $8.7 million.

Utah symphony had a strong desire to save the artists and musicians, because of this; it has taken many steps to guard the interests of the musicians, and this includes hiring them on a yearly basis and providing them salaries. It not only guarded interest of musicians, but also provided them with the opportunity to be recognized worldwide. One can say that the primary objective of this organization is to keep the orchestra alive and functional. Addition to its primary benefit, Utah Symphony has served the people by providing them entertainment and some time out of their daily routine.

Mostly, the primary objective of any organizations is to earn profit. It might be a nonprofit organization, but it certainly will have to earn something to pay its employees and maintain its stature, especially in case of recession. Utah Symphony is also a nonprofit organization as it served itself to save a certain community or interest i.e. art. Moreover, another thing that makes it different from a profit organization is that, profit organizations solely run for the purpose of making money while it takes in money in the form of debt, which they have to pay later. On the other hand, Utah symphony basically runs of the funds raised through different donators and organizations. In summary one can say that, the difference between a profit and nonprofit organization is the difference in their interests.