Gap Analysis: Global Communications
In today's telecommunication business, companies are increasingly outsourcing to improve profitability and productivity. From reading this scenario about Global Communication, several points of interest will be presented in this paper. The scenario involves a company called Global Communication and presents various business and ethical dilemmas that this company must face to continue being a competitive force in this field. This paper will discuss the initial problem that explains issues and opportunities. Also, the paper will discuss stakeholder's outlook and any ethical problems that might arise. Lastly, the end-state goal will be discuss which will include gap analysis.
Situation Analysis
Issue and Opportunity Identification
Global Communication is having an economic challenge. The problem that Global Communication is facing is too much competition from local long distance and international market. The cable companies have caused the issues. These cable companies are offering the complete services such as computers, television, and regular telephone services. Global Communication is planning on offering new services to small businesses and regular individual customers. Also, the company has connected with satellite provider to offer broadband services. Global Communication leadership team did not plan enough to achieve the goals. Global Communication wants to cut labor cost. Global Communication is discussing the moving the technical call service to India and Ireland. This plan will help globalization of the company and reduced unit costs for handling calls. Global Communication downsizing domestic call centers will cause many employees to leave or relocate with 10 percent salary cut. According to Some Lessons in Outsourcing the millions of jobs in the USA are being lost to outsourcing (Ajay K Aggarwal, 2006). Global Communication is concern about this plan might create morale problems and negative feelings to employees.
Another more important issue is the concern of the Technologies Workers Union. The Workers Union was not informed a heads up on this plan. The Workers Union also does not see the benefits to their union people when jobs are given to people in India and Ireland. The Workers Union considers being unethical and sneaky way to work around current contract condition. The Workers Union is very disappointed and will take actions to support union people.
Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas
Two areas of concerns in this scenario are actually connected to each other. The Workers Union has been created to protect the rights of the employees. As mentioned earlier, the Workers Union was not informed of the new strategy formulated by the Global Communication.
The development of the current worker has as well changed the functions of unions. The normal concentration of union officials has been working on the behalf of employees when discussing with bosses, however when urbanized economies move away from a dependence on manufacturing, the line separating manager and worker becomes unclear. In addition, mechanization, computers and improved worker efficiency results in lesser number of staffs being required to sort out a similar occupation. Union insists for least pay rises that the management finally approves, if it is impossible due to the current situation then it would be granted. Smallest amount salary increases the work expenses for companies using low-skilled workers. This reduces the breach connecting the earnings proportion of less experienced and more experienced staff; staffs that are more knowledgeable are expected to be epitomized by a union. ...
Regarding to Kidman (2010), nowadays 88 percent of customers prefer to use multiple channels through internet data, including call centre, search and social networking, to resolve the problems and Telstra announces that there are decreasing the number of clients who contact call centre and customer service via phone. Telstra’s customers are changing the way they source the information. They are more likely to use digital channel. Thus, 24-hour call centre, which operates remotely, will not only reduce cost to the organisation, but also respond to the new generation lifestyle and increase the customer’s satisfaction.
created, then the union will go to the workers tell them the situation, and they
Employers respond to unions in a negative way and discourage employees from joining unions as unions fight for extra pay, extra work hours and additional benefits for employees. Many employers ignore employee’s interest in joining a union as they believe that trade union have to play their role effectively as there are rising pressure on employers to deteriorate collective bargaining on wages, working conditions and job security. The tactics of employers has a significant impact on the choices made by unions. The relationship between the employers and unions is built on the power imbalance in the workplace. A union is formed for the purpose to negotiate with an employer or employees over working conditions, wages, and the term and condition
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.
Outstanding companies from mainstreamed companies. Some of the challenges has encountered in the market is that the market is “Too Competitive”. They are finding that many services that were once provide by telecommunication companies are now being provided by other company like Cable. The companies that are making stability so hard for Global Communication are cable companies. These companies are not only specializing in cable but are starting to provide other services that provided complete solutions dealing with computers, televisions, and telephone service which permits them to enter a larger market with these advancements in technology. In Global Communication wants to gain compatibility with these companies global communication has to make advancements in its technology.
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.
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).
Before a proper analysis can be completed on the current issue of whether unions are more productive, it is necessary to develop an understanding on what effects they have on the workplace and how it impacts management decisions and in particular the policies that will be created as well as enforced by human resource management so that the organization is compliant will all aspects of the collective agreement, should one be in force at the time. This agreement is at the core of the employer-union relationship since it expressly outlines all benefits of workers as well as the necessary behaviour of management, anything outside of this legal arrangement falling onto the authority of the employer under the context of “management’s rights”. (Verma, 2005, p. 418) Taking this newfound relationship into consideration, the realistic effect that unions now have on the workplace is their “strong use of their monopoly power to force employers to pay significantly better wages and benefits.” (Verma, 2005, p. 416) These are the aspects of labour relations that are the most prevalent and visible to the general public; however, there are other areas where unions have a major impact, referred to as “industrial jurisprudence where the union, both their leadership and members gain a significant voice in almost all aspects of managerial decision-making that can have major consequences, not only for the workers, but the organization as a whole.” (Verma, 2005, p. 416) According to this same author, the primary motivation for unions to behave in this manner rests on the pursuit of fairness and to achieve more favourable working conditions as well as maintaining a strong voice in workplace matters. (Verma, 2005, pp. 416-418)
The industry of communications is changing and intensifying more everyday. Two-way communications begin as early as the 1800s with first telegraph. Now, we have multimedia and mobile telecommunications. People are communicating today with one another by cellular phones, computers, fax machines, palm pilots, and other personal and portable devices. Since these means of communication have penetrated the industry and marketplace, companies and corporations are having a difficult time to remain competitive. These corporations have to come up with new product lines and innovative ways to remain profitable. For example, BellSouth has had to make changes to compete with likes of Sprint and MCI. They had to start offering more than just local and long distance service. Such is the case with Global Communications. In order for them to remain in business, they had to come up strategy to increase profits and compete with other companies in the industry. First, let us take a look at the background of Global Communicaitons.
Global Communications (GC) is a telecommunication company under tremendous economic pressure just like other telecommunication companies. Its stock value has diminished drastically at over 50% which creats doubt in the stockholdersand thefuture of the company is being questioned. GC decided to take an aggressive approach to solve this problem by outsourcing some of their technical call centers department to Ireland and India, without communicating it first to the union This will cause a lay-off of employees and cut salaries by 10% for those relocating. Of course this plan will not go well with the employees and the union who just gave up major benefits in the recent negotiation, are threatening to take legal action against GCs' new strategy. This paper will discuss the alternative solutions to GCs' problems, risk assessments for suggested alternative solutions, and the implementation plans to deal with the problems.
This shows that the importance of trade unions have become a greater concern for the employers and employees in the nation. More trade unions are formed to maintain the beneficial employer-employee relationships and protect the rights and welfare of the employees. Meanwhile, the total number of unionized employees also increased from 764,881 to 918,673 since 2001 until September of 2014. The awareness of the need of unionization has improved throughout the years. More employees join unions and embrace the rights they
Now, think to the present. You are a union member. You have worked as a rank and file member a few years. You have just been elected business manager of your union. Congratulations! Next week starts the beginning of contract negotiations, and globalization is here. Guess What? You have just been set up for failure. You have no idea how to negotiate a contract or even deal with the ramifications of globalization. The only training you have ever had was the necessary training to do your job. Your fellow leaders have only experience from the past, no new ideas, and have stagnated. What is going to happen with your union?
The idea of having an organization going global and adapting worldwide information techniques may be very challenging, yet it may be accomplished. A firm should go global since our society is creating customers who are working towards demanding combined worldwide services. Going internationally allows other nations to help each other in creating a higher standard quality product since each homeland has its own special well-known resource other countries may not have. With the global information system, nations across the world are able to communicate with each other and incorporate all technologies and applications discovered from one specific area and transmit the data across cultural and geographic boundaries.
Adverse working conditions, Limited employment options and options for vertical mobility have resulted in unification of workers so as to get their demands met. Employees have their unions and employers their bargaining association and there is a constant tussle to establish the relations between these two sides. Rapid changes in methods and techniques of production and government legislation have also helped improve worker welfare. Thus government, employees and employers constitute the key stakeholders in industrial relations. Ancillary stakeholders include employers’ associations, trade unions and tribunals. Industrial relations if they function well will help reduce industrial disputes, generate High morale, Mental revolution 4) New programs. & 5) Reduce wastage. The drawbacks of industrial relations include Commutative class struggle, Misleading of workers by TU Leaders, Physical fight between management and workers, by-passing legal methods by trade unions among