Global Communications

Global Communications is a corporation that is in a transitional period in its life. The industry is changing and Global Communications needs to rise above the rest and become a leader as they have in the past. Many problems arise with becoming an industry leader, but with analysis and hard work Global Communications will become an industry leader not only in communications but an industry leader on how to run a major corporations.

Global Communications is facing a changing market. Three years ago Global Communication's stock traded at $28 per share. Today it trades at $11 per share. The problem is competition. Phone companies are competing for the same consumers for local, long distance and international services. Cable companies are offering package deals that include the consumers telephone, cable television, and Internet services. Global Communication will implement the following plan to insure its viability.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Global Communications is facing a changing market. Three years ago Global Communication's stock traded at $28 per share. Today it trades at $11 per share. The problem is competition. Phone companies are competing for the same consumers for local, long distance and international services. Cable companies are offering package deals that include the consumers telephone, cable television, and Internet services. Global Communication is also facing a crisis of the bottom line. If they do not decrease the overhead and increase the profit margin they will not be in business long.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

The stakeholders in this scenario all have interests, rights, and values. The main stakeholders in this scenario are the senior executives at Global Communications, the Technologies Workers Union employees who work for Global Communication and the union workers who work for the other competing corporations. The consumers are another set of stakeholders in this scenario. All three of these groups can be broken down into smaller groups, or even can include just on individual. All the stakeholders in this scenario have rights, values, and interests, and some other the rights, values, and interests compete with each other for the end goals.

Maria Antez is the Vice President and liaison to Global Communications. On a personal level she feels defeated due to the outcome of the last contract negotiations is which the union workers lost some of their educational and health benefits. Maria values her appearance in the professional world, and has an interest in making sure that she does not lose any further benefits or other concessions in future negotiations. Maria also knows that she needs to maintain a working relationship with Global Communications executives. Maria believes that she had the right to be a part of any strategic discussions involving the union workers. "Conflict is a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party" (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003, p. 486) Katrina Heinz is the CEO of Global Communications; her interests lay with the stockholders and the members of the board to which she reports. She values her appearance and needs to make sure that is getting financial results as quickly as possible to prove to the stockholders and the members of the board that they made the right decision in hiring her to run Global Communications. Katrina believes that the union workers will go with their idea because it will save the company and increase jobs. While this may be the case the union feels left out and that they are being not only taken advantage of but that their input to the situation is not valuable.

Problem Statement

Global Communications will improve communications and continue to grow to become an industry leader in telecommunications by increasing profitability and retaining it best employees.

End-State Vision

Global Communications is an industry leader because of their employees and superior products. They treat everyone with respect and open communication. They have decreased employee turnover by offering non-monetary incentives such as employee discounts of goods and services that Global Communications offers, and its industry partners offer. Its partnerships with other companies have increased its profitability by decreasing its overhead. For example, the alliance with a satellite company has allowed Global Communications not to launch and maintain its own satellite, which in turn saves millions. Its new calling centers in India and Ireland has become a huge success because of a benchmarking technique used. They have realized the communication problems between customer and call representative and Global Communications is now the industry leader in training of foreign cultures in western phone communications.

Alternative Solutions

Global Communications has many paths laid out in front of them to increase profitability. "ConAgra Foods Inc. one of North America's leading packaged food companies, announced plans to divest most of its refrigerated meats businesses, including the Armour, Butterball, and Eckrich brands" (Kircher, 2006). In addition, the company announced several changes designed to streamline its operating structure, including moving its Grocery Foods headquarters from Irvine, California to Naperville, Illinois and further centralizing its shared services (Kircher, 2006). This would be a useful plan for centralization. Global Communications could centralize the call centers instead of moving them oversea and outsourcing them. This could cut the overhead of brick and mortar building across the country and bring it to one location. Global Communications could pick the best location for this and close the other more expensive call centers.

Global Communications could also keep the jobs here in the United States but cut the union workers wages. This could be accomplished by making partnerships with other companies to offer significant discounts on products and services that the employee already uses, such as electricity and water. They could also offer discounts for Global Communications products and services. According to CNN, many companies provide their employees with deep discounts of products and services. "Though the policies do vary slightly from one airline to the next, most carriers allow employees, their spouses, children and parents unlimited stand-by privileges. That is, they can get on any of the airline's flights for free as long as a seat is open. For a small fee or percentage of the fare, they also can get a last-minute seat on