Global Communications

Running head: BENCHMARKING: GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

Benchmarking: Global Communications

Learning Team B

University of Phoenix Online

Dr. Gail Zwart

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AOL

America Online is in some aspect different than Global Communications Global Communication never advised the employees of their plans nor did the word of mouth get around the office building. AOL is quietly laying groundwork to find employees for their outsourcing. AOL already had engineers in Bangalore, AOL appeared to follow the same plan as Yahoo and Google (Hu, 2003). The issue that AOL was facing was the fact that there were jobs posted on the internet seeking a global program manager before anyone ever stated that AOL was outsourcing for that position. The issue that was facing Global Communications was that the Union was not going to help with the plan and the fact that the stakeholders had not shared the plan with the employees. The employees did not know that Global communications was going to lay off some employees as well as relocate the employees and give a pay reduction.

Unfortunately for AOL they did not have a response to the issue at hand because AOL unfortunately announced layoffs of one hundred of the software Engineers for Netscape at the same time the job was posted on the website. AOL statement was that the job related issues were unrelated (Hu, 2003). Global Communications fortunately were not able to make it that far with the Union and the employees. Luckily Global Communications was able to get stopped before they were able to make the same mistakes as AOL.

The outcome of AOL's issues was the fact they stated "We are considering opening a small (engineering) office in Bangalore," and That action is completely unrelated to the Netscape job actions that were taken" (Hu, 2003). As a business this was a horrible response to even say. Global Communications issues were rather complicated but not this complicated because luckily for Global Communications the issues did not go public nor was information placed on the World Wide Web for everyone to see.

AT&T and NTT DoCoMo

Revolution in Telecommunications

Global Communications is sinking fast with the declining stock market shares and out of date technology. GC has a wide small business customer base that requiring new technology. The technology in the telecommunications industry has advanced tremendously over the recent years. The wire line telephone industry in the US is the most complete and sophisticated in the world (Arden, 2004). Development in user-to-user software, wireless phones, Internet, wireless Internet, and cable modems have put most companies into a vast amount of competition. One of the latest in technology is called VoIP Voice over internet protocol. VoIP is a method of making a call to a traditional copper-wired phone form a computer through an Internet connection (Berg, 2004). The choice of network technology is more important than ever due to today's rapidly changing market and new services. Business opportunities compel the service provider's strategic decisions and impact the network architectures and how technology is deployed to provide services. For example, a service provider may choose to offer IP-only wholesale services, PTT by-pass services or a full suite of voice and data telecom services (Landi & Raisinghani, 2004). Global Communications efforts should allow the company to interact with all aspects of technology to give them a main stream of advantages to becoming a profitable global entity. Deregulation along with the progression of the various markets, has led to an unyielding international rivalry in the telecommunications community.

Theodore Vail, president of AT&T, embarked on a bold mission to buy up all existing telephone-related patents, and to then deny his competitors access to AT&T's long-distance network. As a result, AT&T lured many customers away from competing networks and bankrupted a large number of competitors (Arden, 2004). Though AT&T marketing plan was very successful, American society was becoming very distrustful of monopolistic corporations. AT&T flourished as a regulated monopoly, with its grasp on the telephone industry remaining practically unchecked until the mid-1950s. At that time AT&T had cornered the market on telephone technology, and through the process of cross-subsidization, had been able to keep the cost of local service artificially low by overcharging for long-distance service (Arden, 200). Soon technology stated to advance and this caused problems for AT &T. It was alleged that the company discriminated again other long-distance carriers and telecommunication equipment to keep control of competition and the market.

In 1984 AT&T succumbed to divestiture with the terms of maintaining service in the competitive long distance market, and the Bell Corporation was split into seven Regional Bell Operating Companies. By 1990 the increase in competition spurred immediate reduction of long-distance rates and AT&T dropped its rates by 40%. Even though AT&T market share slipped from 91% in 1983 to only 44% by 1997, its revenue increased in that time from over 36 billion to nearly 46 billion. Whether or not this growth would have happened if AT&T had retained its monopoly status is simple speculation (Arden, 2004). However, it is very telling that in the same period, local telephone service, still subject to monopoly control by the seven RBOCs, saw its prices remain steady or increasing slightly (Arden, 2004).

NTT DoCoMo is a Tokyo-based company, established after a spin-off from NTT in 1991. The company is composed of 40 consolidated subsidiaries and nine affiliates. NTT DoCoMo has established itself as the main leader in the wireless industry by introducing highly competitive and useful technologies for the Japanese market. NTT DoCoMo's I-mode is one of the fastest growing products in Japan. As of August 2001, NTT DoCoMo was the largest mobile phone operator in Japan and maintains over 40 million subscribers. What makes the I-mode extraordinary is that it is one of the few new technologies in the wireless industry that helps companies download data and other information. The company was ranked first in market capitalization (173.43 billion) in Japan and second among world telecommunication companies (Anwar, 2002). NTT DoCoMo's