What Problems Do You Notice Regarding Formal Organization in Gmct and Cellular Communication Services?

1. What problems do you notice regarding formal organization in GMCT and Cellular Communication Services?

• Uncertain Reporting System: Peterson was expecting to report Jenkins but instead of reporting Jenkins, Peterson was reporting to Hardy who is Director Budgets and Plans and recently was also put in charge of Operations. Because of uncertain reporting system, the relationship between Peterson and Hardy are quite awkward. By the way, since Hardy didn’t have an experience in the operations, he was not capable for guiding Peterson in the orientation period.  It will lead to increasing issues in the administrative part of the company in future.

• Problems with Chief Engineer and Inventory control Issue: Curt Andrews was a technician who was promoted to the Chief Engineer position and Peterson‘s one of the most difficult employees’ in the company to work. He is not good at planning and a proper inventory control of equipment and supplies. Curt has no experience in the administrative side of the business and starting up a new operation posed difficulties in handling the planning aspects of his job. In addition to this, Curt also didn’t seem to have good relations with other employees in the company especially his subordinate Todd Jones with whom he often had conflicts over selection and specification of antenna equipment and Peterson’s secretary Melissa, with whom he often had arguments over errors in applications prepared by Curt but typed by Melissa. Peterson raised the issue of Curt’s behavior several times in front of the Head Quarters and suggested to reassign him a job that related to his experience and replace him with an appropriate and experienced one. But, He got no positive feedback from the Head Quarters.

Due to lack of inventory control which was Curt’s responsibility, it was resulted with shortage of radios in construction project and lot of money and time had been wasted.

• Lack of Confidence between employees: The employees often had disputes over equipments, purchases and other operational, un-operational issues. The relationship between senior staff and their subordinates was also tense due to the bureaucratic environment of the senior administration and the reasonably higher qualification of the subordinates. For example when, Curt and Trevor had an argument over the trucks that required to be ordered for the repair system and the onsite installation of technicians, Peterson dealt with the conflict by ordering both the trucks in a different ratio. Peterson had seen that there was still work to be done to make the employee relationship letter.          
• Delays by Subcontractors: Peterson found out that the subcontractors which were responsible for construction of cellular towers delayed the entire process with their below average rate of work. By the way, local citizens of the subcontractors filed complaints and remarked breaches to privately owned areas to cut down trees. When efforts failed to resolve the issue, Peterson decided to stop working with them

• Salary Problem:  Peterson’s salary request for two of the employees had been disapproved twice. The Headquarter which has a bureaucratic structure and old state of mind recognized the human resources with little importance. The higher salary may generate more effective and quality service rate but the Headquarters preferred the cost minimization approach and hence suffered from the lower productivity of its employees in return. When these employees get a better opportunity, they would probably leave the company.
• Head Quarters’ Delayed and Contradicting Decisions: Delayed and constantly changing decisions of the Headquarter were one of the most serious problems It resulted with increasing delays in supplies. When there is such a delay, the supplier delayed the delivery and the company had to move to the alternative source whose equipment was found to be flawed and the company again had to move to the previous supplier. There was lack of knowledge that these small issues can cause high costs and loss of potential customers as well.
• Zoning Problems: The license which the company gets from FCC had a public utility status and was excused from zoning requirements. Peterson developed a strategy and proposed free of charge services to fire, police and emergency operations in these regions and made a contract to make use of fire department’s communications tower as GMCT Cell site. However, Hardy was unwilling to sign on the agreements.

1. Analyze the organizational design of GMCT and Cellular Communication Services based on differentiation-integration, centralization-decentralization and standardization-mutual adjustment dyads. Based on the uncertainty level in external environment, make suggestions for change.

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Cellular Communication Services and GMCT had tall-vertical structure which causes coordination and communication problems.

Organization should be restructured as horizontally and unnecessary positions which are unproductive should be eliminated.  For instance Peterson is reporting to Hardy instead of Jenkins. Curtis was not being able to make good planning and ordering of equipment and lots of shortage problem had been occurred.

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