Gap Analysis: Global Communications
Global Communications is a company that was losing value and competitiveness in the marketplace. In an attempt to save itself the management team has devised a plan to cut operating costs by 40% and to increase product offerings to its customers. This plan involved outsourcing some of the call center labor to India and Ireland. The employees whom were to be outsourced were members of the Technologies Workers Union. When confronted with the plan to outsource labor the union was vehemently opposed to the plan which instigated the conflict between the union and the Global Communications management team.
There were a number of things that could have been done to minimize the impact of the new strategy plan such as maintaining better communication, managing risk, planning for contingencies, and being more skilled at conflict negotiation. It is also noted that the difference in ideology between the two parties made it very difficult to find an amicable solution which benefited both parties equally.
Situation Analysis
Issue and Opportunity Identification
When putting together the new strategy plan the Global Communications management team did not analyze the complete situation and failed to account for major areas of concern. The first area of opportunity is risk analysis. "Risk is the degree of uncertainty about the outcome of a management decision. The risk of both positive and negative outcomes must be managed." (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2002) The management team never thought of how the union would react to the loss of jobs. Numerous examples of outsourcing and labor union conflicts have occurred ranging from the automotive industry to the information technology and computer industry and those examples show that care ...