Global Communications Benchmarking

Global Communications Benchmarking

The global telecommunications industry is in a depression of unimaginable proportions. Everyone is consolidating and downsizing. Ericsson's tenure has been rocky from the beginning. The company set up shop in San Diego in 1999, when it took over the CDMA infrastructure division from Qualcomm . When Ericsson took over the infrastructure division, it planned to become one of the top three CDMA equipment manufacturers, but it faced fierce competition from industry leaders such as Lucent Technologies and Motorola, as well as Samsung, which recently got into the business. Ericsson moved its San Diego research and development operations to Montreal. The decision was purely a matter of economics, as Montreal is a cheaper place to do business. More than 500 jobs, many of them engineering positions, eliminated, cutting Ericsson's local work force by more than half. The layoffs are part of a companywide initiative aimed at reducing costs. Still, Ericsson plans to keep the division's strategic and business development operations in San Diego. The layoffs are a result of problems in the larger wireless market and Ericsson's inability to compete with Asian manufacturers.

Compared to Global Communication scenario, Ericsson was also facing fierce competition in telecom industry from its competitors who are in the business for a long time. Like Global Communication Ericsson also devise the strategy to outsource its business overseas as a measure to reduce costs. Ericsson relocated some of its employees to its operations in Montreal giving them opportunity to work on interesting assignments and international travel and some employees to be laid off as seen in Global Communication scenario also.

Ericsson provided the opportunity for some of the employees who want to move to other business locally and overseas. The company provided attractive packages to the laid off employees and provided the career counseling services helping them in their career development and getting new job. Ericsson strategy to move its research and development center to Montreal helped in cost saving for the company as the cost to continue business in Montreal was cheaper compared to San Diego. The company also achieved employee satisfaction in this difficult time by moving them to other businesses within the company with added incentives and providing career counseling and incentives to the laid off employees.

Another company that was in a similar situation is Office Depot.

Office Depot, Inc. was founded in 1986. It is one of the world's largest sellers of office products and an industry leader in every distribution channel, including stores, direct mail, contract delivery, online shopping and business-to-business electronic commerce.

In a fierce competition by Office Depot to dominate the market and capture more market shares, they opened many stores, oulets and call centers all over the country and employed more than 1000 new employees.

The Company acquired