Lyric Dinner Theater (A)

Looking back at 5 years of losses, Rivka Belzer, a newly minted MBA, steps into her family owned business with their mandate to turn it around or close it. In her first 6 months, she has made a number of changes, with mixed results, but is beginning to show a profit. Many strategic, organizational, marketing, control and operational decisions lie ahead as she plans for the next year and tries to manage a difficult Board of Directors in the challenging entertainment industry. Rivka Belzer, after receiving her MBA and turning down other options, has agreed to a low salary and substantial bonus to join the dinner theater partially owned by her parents that has had 5 years of losses. She immediately found low morale, non-existent controls, very little customer information, vendors clamoring to be paid for overdue bills and board meetings that ended in screaming matches. Although not seeing any one solution to the problems, she took steps to settle with vendors, review and question individual invoices, survey customers, launch promotions and in-source food preparation. While the recent revenues from "Annie" were strong, she is faced with the expense of hiring an experienced General Manager, dealing with personnel issues, addressing ticket pricing and bar sales, making scheduling changes, installing a new accounting system, how much to pay the actors and selecting the shows for the following year. Had she made the right decision to take this job?