- Telecommuting at IBM-Indiana
- IBM is an international company that deals with manufacturing and maintenance of computers. The company engaged in offering various computer revolution strategies and hence reflected an outstanding success in almost the half of the twentieth century. In order to sustain a company’s ability of achieving its main targets there is a need to enhance a competent management system in the company. The main role of the management system is to ensure that there is a competent mechanism of offering information to all the managers in the organization. All the managers have the right to receive the information in the way they would like it be in order to offer the recommended services and meet their daily obligations (Taft, 2011). Although, the company has always enjoyed the benefits of providing successful telecommuting services, it has the obligation of establishing a mechanism that should aid the managers in providing concise, relevant and timely strategies. Employees entitled in the information system of the organization have the obligation of offering well presented, cost effective and timely information to the managers.
- The ability of the company to offer the recommended customer services was based on the management structure that failed to offer the recommended communication skills. In order for the company to meet its target goals, it has to offer good communication skills within the management structure (Goldsmith, 2008). This enhances the ability of every manager to play entitled role in the best way. Good communication skills of managers enable an organization to meet all the requirements made clients. This process enhances an organization to create more customers and therefore make more sales. However, even after the company had made a target of making more than 250,000 every year, it failed due to poor communication in the management structure. This target was to be achieved by the end of 1994 (Goldsmith, 2008).
- The information system of an organization is entitled to make sure that there is competent customer relationship and the management of the organization through offering the required information to the managers. This means that the information system of IBM-Indiana had the obligation of making sure that the managers had the required information on how to offer best services to the customers. The information system of the organization failed to offer the strategy that would sustain the organization’s demand in meeting the entire clients’ requirements. The managers who were in office back in the period of 1992 to 1994 knew that they had to play a significant role in order to sustain the potential customers and add new ones but they did not manage to achieve the obligation (Goldsmith, 2008).
- The other main reasons that lead to the downsizing of IBM-Indiana were contributed to the fact that some of the managers were allocated duties that they could not be able to meet their required obligation. For example, some of the top officials in the management of the organization were employed in a team that had to solve the problem of telecommuting but they did not know anything related to the project. This contributed in making the team to come-up with decisions that failed to offer effective implementations within the targeted time (Taft, 2011). There is a need for every organization to come with decisions that ought to help the company achieve the targeted goals and obligations. Managers failing to have the recommended knowledge of performing the duties they are entitled to do demonstrates failure in some parts of the leadership. When there is failure of management in some of the departments of an organization, the organization may fail to meet all the require obligations.
- The general manager of the organization demonstrated his competent and quality leadership but some of the managers failed to meet their obligations. The quality roles of the general manager depicted in his management operation include the fact that he initiated the rule that no customer should go unattended. This indicated that the general manager realized that one of the factors that contributed to the failure of the organization to have more customers was because that was no good customer relationship within the management system. The main indication that demonstrates there was lack of proper communication strategy that could help the organization achieve its goals is the fact that the organization continued to lose more clients, which resulted to its downsizing (Taft, 2011). This also contributed to the organization in retrenching some of the workers.
- Providing efficient services to the customers is the main goal that an organization ought to accomplish in order to meet the target goals at the end of every financial year. This was the aim of the management of IBM but unfortunately, they were not able to meet this requirement. In order to make sure that the organization had to go back to the position that it was before and provide better services, it came-up with the decision of implementing the telecommuting project. The project entailed that to enhance strong organization relationship with the customers in order to make more sales. The other main reason that led to the enhancement of the telecommuting project was to provide a faster and efficient way of handling various services and operations.
- In the process of implementing the project, the general manager of the company demonstrated his reliable skills by trying all he can to make the project successful. Some of the employees were reluctant to the implementation of the new project but the manager successfully made them to realize the importance of employing the project. It took the general manager much time to convince some of the reluctant employees about the need to have the new system. This is another indication that there was a problem of communication in the management of the organization. This is because, by the time that the organization decided to start development of the project, every manager in all the departments could have the obligation of convincing the employees of the need to have the project. However, the task of convincing everyone about the importance of the organization to step forward in creating more technological structures was left to the general manager. This indicates that if it was not for the general manager who contributed much in making sure that the project was accomplished, other officials could not have managed the task.
- In order to have successful operations in the management of an organization, fully cooperation of the managers is all what is required. The managers should take the first position in leading other employees to make the changes required. This would help the organization to make the best move as fast as possible. When there is reliable communication between the all managers in the organization, all the activities tend to take place in a fast time and there is a possibility of have the required change within the set time. When the management of the organization decided to make the move of getting the telecommuting system, twenty managers were reluctant to undertake the move (HEMPEL, 2011). Even after the general manager convinced them about the importance of undertaking the program, only one of them managed to change his mind and comply with the view on the importance of telecommuting system. The main reason that contributed to the failure of the managers to comply with the new project is that they were lazy. This is depicted by the fact that these particular managers used to share most of their work with the secretaries but the telecommuting project required them to work individually and depend on their own thoughts to offer their best to the organization. This indicates another failure in of the communication system of the organization.
- Although the organization managed to make the implementation of the telecommuting successful, it encountered a couple of various challenges. One of the main challenges that the organization encountered was making the operations of the new project accessible to all the customers and they could be able to operate without having any problems. The management of the organization took much time to convince the potential customers on how to go about with the system.
- In order to avoid most of the problems that the organization encountered during the implementation of telecommuting system, the organization had the obligation of setting a strong communication system. A better communication system is created from the top management heading down to all other managers in various departments until to the final subordinate staff (HEMPEL, 2011). The following diagram illustrates how a competent management in an organization should be.
- President/Top executive
- Production Manager Marketing Manager Finance Manager
- Production supervisor Market Supervisor Chief Assistant
- Foreman Salesman Accounting
- The figure above illustrates that all the managers and top officials have the responsibility of playing crucial roles in order to help the organization achieve the target goals. There should be a strong relationship between the top officials and all the rest of the employees in order to provide the recommended services to all customers. IBM-Indiana had the obligation of identifying a strong communication mechanism at first to make sure that there are competent operations in all the activities of the organization. The other role of that the organization had to accomplish was to make sure that all the managers were eligible of performing their roles. This would have made it easier for the general manager to convince other managers the need to have the new system. Some of the managers could not have been so reluctant with the telecommuting project. The possible way that the organization could have used in order to avoid downsizing was to make sure that there was a strong relationship between the employees of the organization and all the potential customers. This could have helped the organization to make more sales. Apart from making more sales, the organization could have made it possible to have new customers after creating a strong relationship with the employees. This is because clients end-up coming with others when they receive better services from an organization.
- References
- Goldsmith, S. (2008). What's Left for Government to Do?. American (19328117), 2(1), 94.
- HEMPEL, J. (2011). IBM's Super Second Act. Fortune, 163(4), 114-124.
- Taft, D. K. (2011). IBM: 100 Years of Innovation. Eweek, 28(10), 28.
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