Franklin Covey Planners is a company with its headquarters in west Valley City, Utah. It provides time management and assessment services to organisations and individuals. It was formed on May 30, 1997 when Franklin Quest acquired Stephen R. Covey’s leadership centre called Covey Leadership Centre. It was expected by the company’s CEO Hyrum Smith that the company’s market value would shoot up with the acquisition as a result of the combination of the “Seven Habits” with the Franklin Planner. But this did not happen, what actually happened was quiet contrary to popular expectations and the stock price of the company dropped from $20 per share to almost under $1 per share in the early months of 2003 just some years after the merger. The trade rate of the company’s share on the first of June 2006 was somewhere around $7 for each of its shares.
There are many products that the company markets, like the Franklin Covey Planning system. This system is based on the works of Benjamin Franklin. It also markets a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that is written on the basis of Covey’s research. It has more than eighty retail stores across the United States and sales relations and channels in more than fifty countries around the globe.
The Franklin covey planners still market the planning system called Franklin planner, but not just through their own stores, it is marketed through other retailers as well like Office max, Office depot and staples. It has even expanded into licensing non-Franklin retailers like the “365” [Target] and the “day one line” [Wal Mart]. The seven habits data is used as a base in many of the company’s products including audio CDs and books. There are many titles as well, written by other Franklin Covey consultants. There are two main training courses that the company has to offer, one of them is based on ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ and the other which is called Focus is on the basis of the FranklinQuest time management Program. Apart from the numerous books and audio CDs on these two subject matters, there are also many additional launches that the Franklin Covey company has introduced; they focus on organisational alignment and leadership skills. The company even has a software version of the planning program, they have named it “PlanPlus for Windows” and the online downloadable version is called “PlanPlus Online”.
Currently the Franklin Covey planners is under the leadership of Robert William, who even has an investment position in the firm. This happened on the time of the acquisition, when both Covey and Smith expressed their opinions in favour of Robert Whitman and left the Co- Chairman or Co-CEO position of the company voluntarily. A company co-founded by Stephen R. Covey and Hyrum Smith, in today’s date it is one of the strongest powers in the Education and Training services industry with revenue of approximately $282.6 million (2005). Stephen Young holds the positions of CFO/CAO/VP of Finance/Controller.