Introduction

McLaughlin International is a popular multinational book publishing organisation, which is running successfully for the last 150 years. The company has a strong presence in different countries across the globe. Recently, the company is facing some financial challenges due to several internal environmental issues and industry competition.  Springer Nature is the parent company of McLaughlin International. Now, the company needs to bring some changes in the operation management activities to overcome the operational limitations. The company is planning to develop and apply a product development strategic approach in the business to overcome the operational limitations. The following consultancy analysis can help the management of the company to overcome the operational limitations.  

Section 1: Situation Analysis

Situation analysis can be considered in this part of the consultancy report to identify the important competencies as well as weaknesses of McLaughlin International. Moreover, some critical threats and potential opportunities also can be identified through this situation analysis.

SWOT Analysis

This is the vital framework to conduct a situation analysis on McLaughlin International to determine the publisher’s inner strengths as well as weaknesses. Moreover, some important external opportunities, as well as threats, also can be highlighted through this analysis.

Strengths A strong brand name is the major strength of the company. A strong global presence is also an important strength of the company. Long operational years of 150 years have strengthened the brand image of the company among the target audiences (McLaughin and Wowk, 2018).	Weaknesses Recent financial challenges and loss of revenue is a major weakness. Lack of digitalisation and lack of effective online presence also can be considered as the major weakness (Warren et al., 2016). Poor ethics and high internal corruption has affected the performance of the company in the Russian market, which has resulted in a closedown This is another major weakness.
Opportunities Digitalisation and technological integration is highly required to tap the international market. Integration of ethics, transparencyand sustainability is required. Effective resource forecasting and workflow adjusting are also important. Vertical market expansion will be important to improve brand image and brand recognition in the international market.	Threats Strong market competition and high industry saturation are the major threats. The ongoing global economic slowdown also may affect the profitability of the firms. Violations of the sustainability regulations have caused corruption, and it has caused legal challenges for McLaughlin International.

 

PESTLE Analysis

Now, macro-environmental analysis is also important to identify the macro-environmental opportunities as well as threats for McLaughlin International.

Macro Factors	Impacts
Political	The political environment is supportive as McLaughlin International is helping people to meet the social needs of people. Therefore, political support from the government can be received by McLaughlin International.
Economic	The economic environment is challenging for the company as the economic recession, affected disposable income, and affected purchasing power can hamper the profitability of the company.
Social	The social environment is supportive as the demand for different books on different topics is significantly increasing among the students, authors, and lecturers (Barton-Maclaren, 2017).
Technological	The technological environment is favourable as the country is emerging technologically and McLaughlin International will have the technological support to enter into the digital publishing industry.
Legal	The legal environment is challenging for McLaughlin International due to strict government rules, regulations, and policies. Violation of laws can create legal challenges for organisations (Mooring, 2016).
Environmental	The government has developed several strict carbon emission and environmental sustainability policies. Hence, the natural environment is challenging and the company needs to follow these to overcome the possibilities of legal challenges.

Five Forces Analysis

Porter’s Five Force Analysis is an important analytical tool, which can help the company to identify the impact of the competitive forces on McLaughlin International.

Competitive Factors	Impact
Buyer’s Power	The power of the buyers is high as the companies are entertaining all kinds of needs of customers to ensure business growth (Kennedy and McLaughlin, 2017).
Supplier’s Power	The power of suppliers is low as the industry is enriched with cost and time efficient supply chain options.
New Entrant’s Threat	The threat of the new market players is low as the new organisations have to face legal entry challenges and high market entry cost-related challenges.
Substitute’s Threat	The digital media and online versions of the book are becoming highly popular for the current generation. These are the substitutes.
Competition in Industry	The competition in this sector is high due to the presence of big players like Pearson and Hodder (Leiss and Krewski, 2019).

 

Section 2: Problem Definition

The management of McLaughlin International is facing a combination of both internal and external problems. The internal challenges of the company are forcing the management of McLaughlin International to face external problems and consequences. All of the possible challenges and problems of McLaughlin International are discussed below.

According to the information of the case facts, it has been identified that the organisational management is following the same old-school traditional operation management activities. The majority of the competitors within the industry are adopting contemporary and new-school strategic approaches in the business to get competitive advantages. Moreover, the management of McLaughlin International is also failing in capitalising on the competitive advantages. The number of social media and digital media users across the globe is increasing rapidly. This is acceptable that the majority of the students, lecturers, and literature try to read books through online platforms. As per Wright et al., (2019), the emergence of Amazon Kindle and other online platforms is encouraging different publishers to publish their books through digital platforms. Hence, digital publications and the introduction of online versions have become highly important for the majority of organisations (Yang et al., 2018). Hence, it is rightly said that the online and digital versions of the publicationare necessary to compete in this contemporary environment.

Apart from the competitive advantages, the management of McLaughlin International is also facing some challenges in international business operation activities. In Russia, it has been identified that the company has to stop business operation activities due to the growing fraudulence and corruption-related challenges. The internal management could not control the corruption activities. According to Mclaughlin (2017), lack of ethics and lack of transparency in international business operation activities have created corruption-related challenges. Hence, the shutdown of the business operation activities in Russia due to corruption and lack of ethics can be considered as an important business operation aspect. 

This is also important here to state that the management of the company needs to ensure that McLaughlin International is following legal regulations and policies in the business operation activities (Guertler et al., 2016). This is identical in that the company has faced a huge economic challenge due to the violation of international laws. Doing corruption in Russia has become critical for the management. This is acceptable that the corruption in the business not only has forced Russia to pay the fine, but also it has affected the business growth of the company. In the view of Kreitzer et al., (2016), the company has to stop the business operation activities in the Russian market as the company has violated the legal sustainability. Apart from the legal challenges, the management of McLaughlin International also has faced economic challenges due to the violation of the business operation strategies. 

This is clarified in this section that lack of digitalisation, poor ethics and high corruption, and lack of legal sustainability in the business have affected the business growth of the company (Brnjas and Tripunoski, 2016). It is also important to state here that the organisation has failed to overcome the industry competition-related threats. This is identified from the case facts that Pearson and Hodder are the major competitors of McLaughlin International. Both of these competitors have adopted the online digital approach. Hence, digitalisation has provided an essential competitive edge to these two organisations. As opined by Briggs et al., (2018), it can be stated that the management of McLaughlin International is facing industry competition-related threats. The industry competition-related threats have increased for the management due to the lack of core competencies and competitive measures. The following solutions can help McLaughlin International to overcome the situations. 

Section 3: Potential Solutions

Different kinds of potential solutions can be taken by the management of McLaughlin International. First of all, the management needs to bring changes in the organisational culture. It has been identified that the company’s lack of ethical approach has resulted in corruption. On the other hand, it also can be stated that the organisations need to develop some important strategic approaches to improve the level of business operation ethics. As opined by McKibben et al., (2019), the ethics of a business can be ensured and established through the engagement of important stakeholders. Important stakeholders need to be involved in the strategy development activities. The stakeholders may include the lawmakers and public officials to minimise the threats of legal offences and transparency challenges. In addition, the forum of the students and lecturers also needs to be engaged in the strategy development activities. As a view of McLaughlin et al., (2019), the inclusion of these stakeholders can significantly help in guiding the management about the new innovative moves as the company is still following the old tactic. Moreover, the forum of the authors also needs to be included in the strategy development activities. This is acceptable that the inclusion of the forums of students, authors, and lecturers can help the management of McLaughlin International to make them understand that the demand for digitalisation is increasing along with the numbers of social media as well as digital media users (Yang et al., 2017). This particular aspect can help the management to introduce digitalisation and online subscriptions in the business to improve the strength of the customer base. Hence, changes in organisational culture to improve the engagement approaches are important. The organisational culture is seemed to be centralised as the company does not include the stakeholders in the strategy formulation and decision making activities. As per Link et al., (2018) it is important here to bring decentralisation in the organisational culture so that the majority of the important stakeholders can share their views. This can become possible only through the changes in organisational culture. 

Secondly, the engagement of all the important stakeholders in the strategy creation and decision making processes also can be ensured through the changes in the organisational structure. This is identified that the structure of the company is functional in which a specific department of McLaughlin International is made of different functions and hierarchies. According to O’Connor et al., (2017), the number of functions and hierarchies need to be reduced by the management. It is identified that the higher number of functions are increasing the decision making time. Therefore, the company is failing to create sustainable policies and strategies for the long run. Therefore, it will be vital for the management of McLaughlin International to develop a less-hierarchical or less-functional structure to allow the stakeholders to share their views with the management in a time-effective way (Hollensen and Opresnik, 2019). This can help in maintaining an effective time-efficiency in the strategy development activities. 

Thirdly, integration of digitalisation is a must-do work for the management of McLaughlin International. The integration of digitalisation can allow the management of McLaughlin International to introduce newly developed products, such as political books through digital platforms and online platforms like Kindle. Most importantly, the growing number of digital readers needs to be capitalised on by McLaughlin International in the international market. As per martin et al., (2019), the majority of the potential competitors are offering online subscriptions at limited cost initially to the target customers to tap the competitive market. This is helping the management to penetrate the purchasing behaviour and perception level of the target customers. Hence, it would be vital if the management of McLaughlin International introduces digitalisation to minimise the threat of growing industry saturation. 

Section 4: Recommendations

Different types of rectifications and resolutions can be made to overcome the situation. Following are the significant recommendations for the management of McLaughlin International to overcome the ongoing challenges.

First of all, McLaughlin International needs to bring some changes to the organisation. In the solution part, it has been identified that the company needs to bring changes in the organisational culture and organisational decision making approaches. However, the organisational culture and organisational structure of the company can be changed through the integration of a potential change management model. An implication of the appropriate change management model can allow McLaughlin International to apply the changes as per the acknowledgement and acceptance level of the stakeholders. Moreover, the result of the applied changes also needs to be evaluated collaboratively in order to bring significant changes. Hence, consideration of an effective change management model can help in maintaining sustainability.

Secondly, the company needs to apply a charismatic leadership approach to motivate the employees to get ready for the changes. A charismatic leadership approach can be developed among organisational leaders through the consideration of a democratic leadership style. The consideration of a democratic leadership style will encourage the leaders to seek for the suggestions of employees and other important stakeholders to develop strategies. This can significantly help the organisation to get ready to bring changes. In the previous section, it has been identified that the solutions can be developed through the engagement of stakeholders. Now, the stakeholders can be engaged in the solution development activities only through the consideration of democratic leadership approaches. This approach only can help organisations to bring significant changes. 

Thirdly, this is vital here to source some advanced technological applications and install them in the operations to gain competitive advantages. In the solution section, it has been identified that the organisational management of McLaughlin International needs to integrate decentralisation and online aspects. The company only can integrate digitalisation and online service proving aspects through the resourcing of advanced technological applications like Cloud Computing, Advanced DBMS applications, Big Data, and Advanced ICT applications. The operation professionals of McLaughlin International need to source these applications from popular vendors so that they can receive differentiated advanced technological applications at a limited cost. This can help the management of McLaughlin International to become one of the successful companies within the industry.

Last but not the least; strong brand recognition, as well as effective brand redevelopment, is highly important. The management of McLaughlin International needs to follow a vertical market expansion approach. This particular market expansion approach can help the management to avoid the possibilities of corruption as global curriculum standards will be followed in this expansion approach. This can help the management of McLaughlin International to attract the readers of the new generation as per the ongoing market trends. 

Conclusion

McLaughlin International is a successful and popular brand name within the global book publishing industry. The company is operating successfully in the global environment for more than 150 glorious years. Recently, the company is facing different kinds of critical market saturation, high market competition, and legal sustainability challenges. Moreover, the company has failed to attract the new generation of readers towards the brand due to the lack of decentralisation in the business. Changes in business culture and leadership are highly required to counter these issues. Integration of business ethics is also important here. More importantly, integration of digitalisation is also important to get in line with the changing consumer behaviour of qualitative contemporary consumers. These approaches can help McLaughlin International to rebuild its brand image with successful product development approaches.

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