Gap Analysis: Global Communications

Gap Analysis: Global Communications

I plan to present an analysis of Global Communications. Global Communications has several problems facing them by trying to be a major global force; however they were behind in the technology they were providing to their consumers. In this Gap Analysis, I plan to address the major issues facing Global Communications, those stakeholders who will be affected by the decisions of Global Communications, the ethical dilemmas presented by the decision made by the company, and I will finally state the company’s end state goals.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Global Communications has several issues regarding their company. To begin with, the stock of the company went from $28.00 per share to $11.00 per share within three years. One reason for this is the mass competition Global Communications has with telephone and cable companies who offer bundled packages for phone, television, and internet services. In order to become a more profitable company, Global Communications has decided to cut costs by outsourcing the technical call centers to Ireland and India, which will cause a large layoff or relocation of some employees. Relocation causes a separate issue, these employees will have to take a 10% pay cut if moved to another facility. Another major issue that Global Communications faces is they did not communicate or work with the Union in order to find a better solution for the employees or the company, after the Union gave up many benefits in the last contract negotiations. Global Communications should have communicated with the Union as soon as they started thinking of outsourcing any positions. "By improving decision making, knowledge management, employee needs and coordination; company can progress and retain the name in the communications industry. Workplace communication has a significant effect on organizational performance” (McShane & Glinow, 2005). “By involving those people in the early stages of the decision process” (Bateman & Snell, 2004), Global Communications might have had more support in their decision to outsource these jobs had the decided to invite the Union in on the decision Global Communications was bringing to the board for cost cutting measures.

Some opportunities Global Communications has starts with the fact they want to grow into the global market. One way they are growing is that they are introducing new services of broadband by partnering with a satellite company and new video services. By offering new services internationally, Global Communications has opened up to a new pool of customers, which could in turn cause Global Communications to have a larger profit than they had before. Although, while the company is outsourcing, which means many people, will lose their jobs, the opportunity for Global Communications is that by outsourcing, they can reduce costs by 40%.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

With the stock of the company having fallen by $17.00 per share, the company must come up with innovative, cost cutting ways to save money. They have identified one way to cut costs is to outsource the technical call center to Ireland and India. This leads us to our first group of stakeholders, the employees. The employees will be losing jobs that many rely and depend upon. Although Global Communications is offering to some employee’s relocation packages, they also have to reduce those employees’ salaries by ten percent to relocate to a different call center. This was considered, and they are also offering a fifteen percent retention bonus. These decisions affect many people, although some will be able to keep their job, many will be on the receiving end of a lay off package. This had dire affect to the morale of the company. When the decision of cutting jobs was a possibility, Global Communications should have invited the union, Technologies Workers Union, into the discussions to help with a possibly better outcome that would be beneficial to both the employees and the company. In this decision, it is in the best interest of Global Communications, not the employees, therefore it is a distributive negotiation which “usually involves a single issue- a “fixed pie”- in which one person gains at the expense of the other” (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). Global Communications should have tried the integrative negotiation with the Union for the employees, in this negotiation. Here, “an agreement can be found that is better for both parties than what they would have reachedвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003).

The next group of stakeholders is the management team at Global Communications. They must come up with hard decisions that will benefit the company, cutting costs and providing new services, while still maintaining good morale in the workplace. There decision was very hard, with many of the managers questioning if it is the right decision, but when they look at the numbers, in order to increase the company’s profit, they must forge through with the difficult decision to eliminate jobs. By outsourcing the technical call center jobs, they are taking some risks, meaning they “can estimate the likelihood of various consequences, but still do not know with certainty what will happen” (Bateman & Snell, 2004). Also, they are looking into expanding their services into a field that is already saturated. They must decide how to make a profit, while still maintaining customer loyalty and retain good, reliable employees.

We also have to remember, the customers are also going to be affected by this decision, their bills will change, and therefore, they have some stake in the outcome of the decision. With the call center being sent to other countries, will the customers be able to continue having the same, high level of service they have been experiencing or will they have difficulty reaching people to help when a customer calls, due to time differences in the different countries? Also, with the economy not being as strong, how will the company look by shipping much needed jobs from this country to other countries, thus also sending revenue to these other countries? The customers will, however, gain the benefit of being able to choose from new services and products due to the alliance with the satellite company to offer video services and broadband.

End-State Vision

Global