Gap Analysis: Global Communications
Global Communications, a leader in the telecommunications industry wants to expand into global market due to competitive pressure and looking to maximize profits and reduce cost by layoffs. This paper identifies the issue that led to the problems and the opportunities, the dilemmas facing stakeholders, employees and the Union, and establishes the end goal and course of action. The paper will use the problem- based diagnostic approach, analyze alternative solutions, and understand a solution.
Situation Analysis
Issue and Opportunity Identification
Global Communications, who at one time was a major company in telecommunications was challenged with stockholders complaining of failing returns and depreciated stock values. An abundance of competition was aggressively growing with local, long distance and international markets vying for the same business, and the cable companies were offering complete solutions with cable television, high speed internet service and digital telephone service packages together. Global Communication is on a current mission to reposition it self to become a global leader in communication. The opportunities will come from outsourcing and forming new call centers to India and Ireland that reduce costs and will increase technical sophistication and improve profits along with increasing the company's growth. They have grouped with a wireless provider and now offer satellite broadband and video services. This allows the focus on the small business owner to have unlimited access.
Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas
The Board is concerned about the rebound of the company. In comparing the stock from three years ago to today, the stock depreciated more than 50 percent. They need to upright this and answer to the Board or they will be out of jobs. The ethical dilemma here is trying to have loyalty and compassion for their employees, yet they have to do what they have to do at all costs.
Americatel is positioned within the small to mid-sized market in the telecommunications sector. However, their primary competitors Movistar and Claro compete within the large-sized market. With only 10% overall market share, Americatel has the potential to capture additional growth as the industry growth rate is growing at 6%. To accomplish this we recommend that Americatel own their position in the small to mid-sized market by capitalizing on their competitive advantage of providing superior customer service as well as leveraging new solutions to further drive customer satisfaction.
Global Communications needed to go global to try increasing profits. A new study that Duke University is challenging the belief that the common reason companies go to China and India are because of the lower salaries. (Mary Hayes Weier). Studies that outsourcing creates U.S. job (MSN Money Staff). If that’s the case, then Global Communications could create more jobs here in the United States.
Effective competition is widely seen as a key to the development of telecommunications services. The ability of new telecommunications networks to interconnect fairly and efficiently with existing networks is critical to the development of competition. AT&T has undergone numerous changes since its inception in the late 19th century. The McKinsey 7 S framework as applied by Pascale is recommended to manage the changes they are facing to adopt a greater competitive presence in the global economy. In conjunction with this framework, numerous other models were applied to analyse the global competitive position of AT&T. Recommendations for a revised strategy and direction for AT&T have been made throughout this document including two scenarios of how the telecommunications industry might develop towards 2000, while outlining the impact on AT&T.
For this paper Washington Mutual has been selected to show how the ethical decision making process can be achieve. When it comes to business ethics in the workplace Washington Mutual has designed what can be considered a well balanced workplace with behaviors that are aligned with their moral values and business ethics. Business ethics are sometimes depicted as resolving conflicts where one option can appear to be the correct choice. There are many different ethical dilemmas that are faced by managers and leaders everyday that are highly complex and have no clear choice or guidelines to assist in making the choices for resolution. There are times when an employee has to decide whether or not to cheat, lie, steal, or break their contract. These ethical decisions are real-life situations where they are forced to make on a daily basis. This is why it is ultimately important that all employee know the six steps to ethical decision making that the company uses.
Global Communications is a company that needed a new strategy in order to compete with its competitors. The telecommunication industry was flooded with the addition of cable companies joining in their market. Global Communications was financially in a decline and had already asked union workers to give up a percent of their benefits in order to help. The union did so willingly in order to preserve the future of their jobs within the company. The company brought in new executives to try and come up with a plan to save the company from its decline. The senior leadership team came up with a strategic plan to compete with the telephone and cable companies. They obtained approval to implement the plan, but not without problems. The senior leadership team did not consult or divulge any of their plans to the union representative or the employees prior to their approval. Their plan included outsourcing some of the work overseas which would reduce cost but also cut jobs within the company. The senior leadership team needed the support of the union representative in order to explain to the worker's what the company's plans were and how it would affect them. The union representative was upset she was left out of the communications and had to hear it from her superiors. Global Communications needed the employees to grow and increase profitability; however they could not reach an agreement and Global Communications implemented layoffs. The union is discussing what action they will take to stop the outsourcing plan that will set precedent for the whole industry.
There has been an increasing demand of telecommunication services in the last few decades which has led to an all time high demand of global operations in businesses , their capital investment as well as mobilization of the resources. This has further resulted in a lot of changes in the lifestyle of the people within specific geographies that includes an increasing demand for the latest of technology as well.
In the case of Mike and Angel, Mike is facing a moral problem in deciding if he should remove Angel as chairman of the board, due to Angel’s scandalous past, in order to appease discontented shareholders of the gun manufacturing company. Mike has the option to either ignore the detractors or take action to remove Angel from the board. When assessing the options, Mike should utilize Joseph Badaracco, Jr.’s (2002) ethical analysis framework to determine the best ethically and morally responsible course of action. After applying Badaracco’s framework, my recommendation is for Mike to renounce any further action against Angel and provide a final statement to shareholders and the community, whereby Mike will
The events that led to the changes Global Communications are making came about with the shift in technology and the competition within the telecommunications industry. With companies able to compete globally, there is too much competition within the industry from other telecommunications companies as well as cable companies who can offer all the same services. With increased companies offering a wide range of services, Global is forced to cut costs in order to compete effectively and increase profitability. To this end, Global Communications senior management has come up with an approach to outsource some of their call centers to India and Ireland and expand new services to small business and consumer customers. Global also joined with a satellite provider to offer video services and a satellite version of broadband. This will mean job cuts and a reduction in salary for employees who remain and are relocated. The plan was accepted quickly and now management is under the gun to communicate the changes effectively to the employees without risking a morale problem that could affect productivity. Also, since the employees belong to a trade union and the union was not involved in the process of negotiating these changes, Global has to consider the legal and public relation implications of not fulfilling their contractual obligation to the trade union.
The telecommunications industry is changing creating the need for a more competitive company. The changes that are happening are that there is greater competition in the market with foreign firms such as China Netcom and China Telecom are entering the UK market[1] increasing the number of firms. Also the European Union is looking to improve competition by breaking open the telecommunication markets further by giving national authorities stronger powers[2]. The type of competition is also changing in recent times as firms grow in size and capability as they merge. The recent trend being the buy out broadband and telephone companies so that firms are then able to offer bundled services[3].
Gap Analysis: Global Communications This paper aims to define a problem that currently exists at Global Communications, a telecommunications company, and to develop a solution, along with alternate solutions that could be used to solve the problem. When making business decisions for a major corporation, there are opportunities and challenges that must be evaluated to determine the final decision. Throughout this paper, the reader will be given some background information, along with the expected opportunities and hindering challenges that will affect Global Communications and the underlying goals that are being worked towards. Three years ago, Global Communications stock was being traded at $28 per share.
While our organization prides itself in a well-defined and thorough code of ethics, there are occasions where situations arise, but the solution is not clearly defined within our code. In such a case, it is critical to develop a decision making framework that allows our employees to make a decision while operating within the moral guidelines of our corporation. In the hope that we can eliminate discrepancies, Royal Dutch Shell has created an ethical decision strategy that will make clear the ethical standings of our corporation and ensure a consistent decision making process. Our decision making process is focused on our stakeholders, and how we can maximize their benefit.
Global Communications is a financially struggling telecommunications company. Its stock has depreciated fifty percent in three years. Currently, the organization is faced with too much competition within the telecommunications industry. Local, long-distance and international markets are all competing for the same business. In addition, the industry suffered a huge blow at the hands of the cable companies, who stepped in to provide complete solutions encompassing computers, televisions and plain old telephone service (POT).
Ethical wrongdoing is a problem in the real world wherein the rules can be bent to manipulate financial standing. In some organizations such as Lehman Brothers, we will take a look at how they were able to alter real information that was damaging to the company in such a way to make it look more secure. Before these things can happen the upper management must discontinue listening to their employees and even punish the ones that speak up about issues in the workplace. Slowly an organization can slip into a level of deception and manipulation that can only be alleviated by the eventual bankruptcy of the organization.
As Global Communications headed to the media announcing their new strategy, many doors were opened to see the facts, analysis and goals behind that strike. GC’s scenario illustrated the conflict between decision making elements in which a dilemma might occur as a result of ignoring some of the values and opportunities.
Global Communications' management infringed on the rights of their technology workers union by not involving the union in the decision making process, and the union is now threatening to take legal actions against Global Communications. Global Communications also faces another dilemma based on their decision to outsource. GC has always been known caring for her employees, and placing a great value on them also. However by carrying out their outsourcing strategy, employee's morale will at an all-time low because both the union workers and the company's employees now face either job losses or a salary cut.