Global Communication Gap Analysis

Gap Analysis: Global Communications

Global Communication has reached a critical point; stock value has dropped fifty percent over the last three years. The communication business has changed and if Global wants to succeed they must follow. The senior management team has created ideas both to cut costs and increase profits. We will examine the implications of these ideas. There will be expansions on the domestic front and a globalization of call centers. Many details will need to be determined and corporate, stock holders, the union, employees, and customers must all be considered.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Global Communications, like many other telecommunications companies are in a difficult period. There are more companies than ever fighting for the same market and there are more products than ever to choose from. With cable companies offering internet, cable, and phone packages, not to mention upcoming satellite options; rapid change is requiring companies to modify their current business to fit with the times. Global, being aware of these changes, recruited Katrina Heinz as CEO to initiate changes that will increase revenue and focus on aggressive globalization. Katrina is working with a senior leadership team consisting of Nancy, another new addition, along with Joel and Sy, both with the company for over twenty years. The situation is serious, in the past three years Global's stock has depreciated over fifty percent.

The team has determined the plan and it has been approved by the board, but details have

not been worked out. To increase profits they have decided to introduce new services to their customers and align themselves to offer satellite services. To cut costs they are moving some of their technical call centers to India and Ireland, but they have not told the union or employees that they will be laid off or transferred with reduced pay. Workers recently took a 20% cut in benefits and will not be pleased with the news. Their many decisions to be made and they must be made quickly "Managing conflict well does not insulate us from change, nor does it mean that we will always come out on top or get all we want. However, effective conflict management, helps us keep in tough with new developments and create solutions appropriate fore new threats and opportunities" (Kinicki and Kreitner, 2003 p. 486).

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

Global Communications has many stakeholders to consider when making current changes. Their interests are aligned with those of the stock holders; there needs to be a dramatic improvement of the company's financial standing, but this must be done with the interests of the union, employee's, and customer's in mind. If there is not a drastic fiscal improvement, Global will lose stock holder support and will be near its end.

The new two tier plan should fit the need of the customer's well. Our customers want reliable, affordable communication with a variety of choices and support to meet their needs. These services may also help in developing new customers. Customers will also be happy with the quality of technical support they will receive from the new overseas teams. Global does have an obligation to their customers to make sure there aren't any cultural problems with the move. Sometimes there are barriers that make cross cultural communication difficult "One communication process barrier is an encoding barrier-for example an employee for whom English is a second language has a hard time explaining why a delivery is late. Process barriers can distort the transfer of meaning" (Kinicki, p524)

The senior management team does have an ethical dilemma to handle with the Technologies Workers Union. Maria Antez, Vice President of the Union, has been working between Global and the Union for ten years. She has always had a good relationship with both sides until recently when employee's benefits were cut by twenty percent which left the union displeased. Maria was not told of the changes until after they were approved, making it nearly impossible to try to work with the union. Maria and the union's interest is the well being of their employee's. The union already feels they have compromised with the last round of cuts and they are appalled at our globalization plan. Global has tried to emphasize that many employee's can be moved, although a pay cut would be taken, but there will still many left without jobs. The union feels global has taken an unethical step to get out of their contracts and are prepared to fight the company on it.

Employee's have the right to know about the changes in their employment as soon as we can tell them. Ethically Global should find ways to help the employee's in question through the transition process. Some employee's will be moved to other call centers with a decrease in pay, Global should find some way to compensate these employee's for their sacrifice. For employee's that will not be re-placed within the company, Global has the social responsibility to provide, career counseling, severance packages, re-training or other forms of assistance. Although it will be expensive to help these employee's, not doing so may drastically reduce moral across the company.

End-State Vision

Gap Analysis

There are many gaps that must be solved before our end-vision can be met. Plans must be put into action to get our new call centers set up quickly without excessive costs. There will be many issues to consider; are we contracting with another firm or are we setting up our own offices? Who will oversea those offices? Are employees in place? How will we handle any cultural differences? We will also need to address technical issues of having centers in other countries for example will it take calls longer to get there and can their computers connect to our domestic servers. Also we must address cultural issues such as encoding barriers.

A team must be put in place to decide what new technologies are to be put in place and when. There are many companies now facing these The vision for Global Communication is that of a dynamic, profitable, and global company. With new technical support offices successfully operating in both India and Ireland costs have been dramatically reduced. Although it took some time, most displaced employee's were moved or given a severance package. With most leaving satisfied we were able to maintain employee moral across the company. Although there was conflict with the union at first, they are now