Global Communication Generic Benchmarking

Task A: Problem/Opportunity Statement

Instructions for Task A: In the Response row, write out the problem/opportunity statements for the scenario for each of the team members.

Response to Task A:

Global Communication can increase profitability by concentrating on employee satisfaction, expanding customer base and providing new product and services to existing and new customers.

Generic Benchmarking--The purpose of generic benchmarking is to identify potential solutions to the problem statements defined in Task A. You will do this by looking at how companies in other industries have dealt with similar issues.

Task B1: Generic Benchmarking: Topics

Instructions for Task B1: In the Response row, identify the topics for which you need information in order to identify potential solutions to the problems identified in Task A.

* In the Response row, list three to five topics that you will research in peer-reviewed journals, on Web sites, and in popular publications such as magazines and newspapers.

* In the Response row, provide a justification for each topic.

Response to Task B1:

* Employee Satisfaction

Research demonstrates that companies with enlightened talent-management policies have higher returns on sales, investments, assets, and equity (Caudron, 2001).

Many of these companies also find that allocating talent effectively can make an enormous difference to important outcomes, such as profit per employee (Bryan and Zanini, 2005).

Savvy companies understand the competitive value of talented people and spend considerable time identifying and recruiting high-caliber individuals wherever they can be found. The trouble is that too many companies pay too little attention to allocating their internal talent resources effectively. Few companies use talented people in a competitively advantageous way -- by maximizing their visibility and mobility and creating work experiences that help them feed and develop their expertise. Many a frustrated manager has searched in vain for the right person for a particular job, knowing that he or she works somewhere in the company. And many talented people have had the experience of getting stuck in a dead-end corner of a company, never finding the right experiences and challenges to grow, and, finally, bailing out (Bryan, Joyce, and Weiss, 2006).

* Expanding customer base

Global communication can grow domestically within the U.S. market. Telecommunication is a heavily regulated industry and going global will bring in lots of legal challenges. This may become overwhelming for Global which is already having a hard time surviving in highly competitive domestic market. Global can very well expand in the domestic market, of which they have very good knowledge of the legal system and customer needs. Global can grow in all five fields of the information technology: broadcast, cable, wire, wireless, and satellite either by starting new business or partnership. After marketing research is complete, Global can decide on which is more lucrative to start their own business and for others they can partner with other companies to complete a solution package that may be geared towards either business or consumer. Schools and academic institutions are also big market today as 77% of them are wired today compared to only 3% in 1994 (Koselka, 2001).

SBC Communications is a U.S. based company whose focus was only on the domestic market.. Only with domestic products this company is so successful that it was able to buy its mother company, AT&T.

* Providing new product and services to existing and new customers

Partnership is a common phenomenon in the current telecom market. SBC has partnership with Dish Networks to offer their customers a complete package of direct-broadcast satellite, telephone and high-speed data service. Verizon has partnership with MCI to provide solutions for their business customers. These are win-win situations for these companies as they get access to a broader customer base and the product and services compliment each other. Global Communications create complete package solutions for their customers by partnering with products and services companies that complements their product and services. These companies can be computer hardware and software manufacturers, consumer electronics, and different types of services providers.

Task B2: Generic Benchmarking: Companies

Instructions for Task B2: In the Response row, identify companies that have faced and addressed similar situations (successfully and unsuccessfully).

* In the Response row, list two to three companies for each topic identified in Task B1.

* In the Response row, identify those that have been successful and those that have been unsuccessful.

* In the Response row, summarize your key findings for each company as they relate to the scenario.

Response to Task B2:

* Employee Satisfaction

Herb Kelleher, the legendary founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, was strongly committed to putting employees first. His rationale for doing so? "If they're happy, satisfied, dedicated, and energetic, they'll take good care of customers. When the customers are happy, they come back, and that makes shareholders happy." Thomas Watson Jr., former CEO of IBM, noted that his sales force was the key to IBM's success. He stated that "the relationship between [the salesperson] and the customer (their mutual trust, the importance of reputation, the idea of putting the customer first) ... if carried out with real conviction by a company, can make a great deal of difference in its destiny." (Johnson and Chiagouris, 2006).

Both, IBM and Southwest Airlines, are very successful companies. Their driving force; Employees. Employees make a huge difference on the quality of overall business and that is what customer cares about. Customer satisfaction is the bottom line of any