Global Benchmarking

In today's business industries, one of the largest obstacles that they are facing is a matter of trying to keep current with the drastic changes in technology. One of the most important aspects of a product is how it compares to others. If a company is not technologically advanced, they will find it harder to compete with those that offer better and faster products. In addition to the advancement in technology, organizations are also faced with the task of communicating company changes and expectations. In the following paragraphs, our found that although different is industry, they all face similar issues as it relates to technology communication and stakeholder interest.

For many companies, business is no longer as usual. Due to new technology companies that were dominant in their industry are now being threatened by competition. Being on top for many years with no real completion has made many companies slack and arrogant. The old technology is being challenged by companies finding new and better ways of doing what older companies has been doing for years, which was evident with OFS.

OFS is a fiber optical company that dominated its industry by offering the most highly sophisticated services. For many years, OFS determined the price for the quality product that they offered. However, due to being slack in its efforts to maintain its place in the industry and exceed its competition, new companies are now setting the bar to produce the same high quality items at cheaper prices. During the golden years OFS, they offered employees many "fringe" benefits that included tickets to free events and overtime even when there was not enough work to support it. They even outsourced the task of cleaning the facility and personal work areas. They were able to do this due to the fact as mentioned above; they were able to set their own prices because they were an industry leader. As they became comfortable with their place in the market, money was no object and the quality of work declined without mention. Which resulted in carelessness of its the employees.

After 911, OFS, like most, suffered in the aspect of losing business as well as dealing with employee layoff. Though it has been seven years, OFS still has not been able to regenerate the business that they once knew and has operated in the red for the past six years. The company was at a lost as to how to get the company to turn a profit and went through many management teams in hopes of turning a profit. Due to the lack of communication, employees including management and worked in fear not knowing whether the company would stay open or not.

By 2005 the parent company of OFS wanted to close the doors. At this point OFS management decided to create a board to effectively to the parent company that OFS could once again be profitable if given a chance. However, they faced the challenge of how they would make this idea a reality. Despite their apprehension, the parent company accepted the idea. OFS now had the difficult task of communicating to their employees the additional cuts that were going to take place in order to keep the company open. Although they were in fear of losing their jobs, employees were willing to do whatever it took to keep the company open.

During this time, employee's moral was low and it was expected that OFS would ultimately close its doors. Management struggled to motivate their employees when they were also uncertain of what was going to be next. In addition to this, they found it extremely difficult to find ways to resolve their financial problems of how to make the company profitable without the input of their employees. At this point, it seemed that management was oblivious to the issues that had been presented. Employees began to think that management was unprepared for how to handle this situation due to the lack in communication. Many of the employees began to lose hope simply because they were not kept informed and wanted to try to take matters into their hands by asking for the help of a union. By doing this, employees hoped to get the attention of management in an attempt for them to open the lines of communication for suggestions. The employees attempts were successful in the respect that they were able to communicate what they thought would be the benefits of a labor union. Management took their ideas into consideration; however, they convinced the employees who once the company became profitable again the golden years would return. Therefore, the union was not voted in.

Once that issue of a union was out of the way, they were still facing the task of effectively communicating as a team. Both management and employees formed an alliance on improving the problems in the plant. This resulted in the formation of and "employee's board", which gave management the opportunity to update employees on their expectations and the goals of the company. This also resulted in employees having more say in company policies by having a suggestion box in the break room. They also returned vacation and sick day.

Unlike Global Communications, OFS employees were not as disposable. OFS success was tied to keeping their current employees as opposed to hiring new personnel. This gave the employees more leverage, management was more willing to bend an ear to their employees, not because they wanted too, but more so because that the employees knew their skills were specialty skills that took several years to acquire. Now with some common respect between management and employee strategies for improved communication continues.

With OFS, communication seemed to be their largest obstacle as it related to their employees in addition to issues of employees wanting to create a union. Just as OFS, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft also had to face the challenge avoiding the creation of a worker's union as well as how to keep the lines of communication open with the employees at both Hewlett Packard and Microsoft.

Technology innovation and development is at an all time high. Most people today have evolved from watching television on a floor model T.V. set, to watching re-runs on our cellular devices. Additional technological advancements include computers with built in cameras and touch screen telecommunication devices. Everyday, technology driven companies are striving to achieve excellence when catering to the needs and productivity of their consumers. These companies are looking to build high performing, user-friendly products and expand the market. By creating a union between a successful software company and a dynamic IT company the industry is sure to see a transformation in business production and performance. "HP and Microsoft's alliance continues to drive productivity in high-performance computing."

As mentioned in our reading, when advancing