Global Communications - Problem Solution

Global Communications is competing in highly aggressive telecommunications market. They need to develop a business plan that will allow them not only to survive but become leading force in their industry. This paper will explore several possible alternatives and based on benefits and shortcomings of each, identify optimum solution.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Global Communications like many others in telecommunications industry was facing increased competition which leads to diminishing stock values. Recovery plan was based mainly on cost cutting created by outsourcing to India and Ireland. Outsourcing is the main platform of their recovery plan and at the same time, the main source of issues and dissatisfaction within the company. Not only will it lead to significant job cuts and a decrease in salary, but the plan was not communicated properly to either employees or the union. In addition, negotiations that took place between Global’s executive management and union representatives afterwards were distributive in nature instead of integrative. “Distributive negotiation involves traditional win-lose thinking. Integrative negotiation calls for a progressive win-win strategy.” (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003) This lead to even greater employee dissatisfaction, and it also severely impacted relationship between Global Communication and Technologies Workers Union.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

There are two main stakeholders identified in Global Communications scenario, these are Global Communications executive management and Technologies Workers Union. Interests of the two groups are directly opposing each other.

Global Communications executive management has responsibility towards the stock holders as well as employees. They have to make sure that company stays productive and relevant in increasingly competitive market. At the same time, they have responsibility towards the employees to provide steady employment and employee satisfaction which is becoming increasing difficult due to the outsourcing plans.

Union’s main interest is to preserve their membership and protect member’s benefits. They have already made adjustments and decreased the benefits, now jobs are directly threatened by outsourcing to India and Ireland.

Problem Statement

Global Communications will increase company’s market share and stock value by implementing plans for international expansion and providing better services.

End-State Vision

Global Communications will become leading force in international telecommunications market. They will reach this goal by implementing globalization strategy and offering better bundled service package to their customers.

Alternative Solutions

In order to achieve their goals, Global Communications can explore several solutions. These include: outsourcing call centers to India and Ireland, investing capital and improving their internal technological capacities, requesting further wage and benefit reductions from the union and partnering with satellite company to offer complete business solutions to their customers.

Analysis of Alternative Solutions

Three main goals for Global Communications are reducing operating costs, offering bundled solutions to their customers and increasing their market share.

After analyzing four different alternative solutions and their potential impact to the main goals, two that ranked the highest are outsourcing to India and Ireland and partnership with satellite provider. Outsourcing to India and Ireland will directly support the goal of reducing operating costs by decreasing cost of handling calls by 40%. While this alternative solution has no impact on second goal of providing bundled solutions, it does have an impact on increasing market share. It is creating Global Communication’s presence in international markets and providing them with the access to new customer base. Partnership with satellite company does not have a high impact on cost reductions except for allowing Global to access their expertise without investing heavily in internal technological improvements. This alternative has highest impact on providing bundled solutions which will allow Global to differentiate themselves from the competition. By partnering with satellite provider Global will be able to offer telephone services, video services and broadband internet. Also, this will provide them with access to satellite company’s customer base as they might need telephone services as well.

Investing capital into internal technological structure does not support goal of