Question

Draft a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) model based on ITUSA’s decision to enter the specialist software market previously occupied by Tecall.

You may use this analysis to help you develop an Organisation Impact Report as outlined below.

Produce an Organisation Impact Report in which you critically analyse the effect on ITUSA of bringing twenty-five specialist software IT ex-employees of Tecall into the ITSUA global working environment. In this global environment they will work in ‘virtual teams’ with IT staff across several countries, and be ‘virtually managed’ from the US.

Your report should include a discussion, based on three subject-headings:

- Organisational Culture.
- International Team-working.
- Values and Behaviours.

Provide THREE recommendations to inform the content of the induction programme. Justify your choice.

These recommendations should help ITUSA minimise any adverse impact from the newly recruited IT staff.

Solution/Answer

Question 1: SWOT Model based on ITUSA’s decision of entering specialist software market

Strengths

The organisation’s experience of more than 30 years is an indicator of its strength in dominating their market of operations. Also, the 25,000 customers with annual revenue of £500m indicate having a high-level strength over their competitors and market operators such as Tecall. The organisation global presence and ability to integrate a different range of services in their operations is also a significant strength of the organisation operations. Other strengths of the company include;

Highly skilled employees
Ability to embrace diversity and inclusion
Flexible working strategies

Weaknesses

The increased recruitment of Generation X and baby boomers provides the organisation with the challenge of ensuring that all their traits are applied. This leads to the organisation embracing a culture that is dynamic in its recruitment of new staff. This makes it a significant challenge for the other employees from other organisations such as Tecall to fit the organisation recruitment successfully.

Opportunities

There is increased growth of the IT and software market. This is informed by the increased technology and demand for modernised technology by different players in the sector. Also, the demand for using soft and hard skills in an organisation’s operations has substantially increased to the positive implication of the organisation. The market that requires high-level investment is appropriate for ITUSA due to its high-level cash portfolio to invest efficiently in the market.

Threats

Top of the threats is the increased competition in the industry. Apart from different organisations joining into mergers, there are also opportunities for growth and development of the employees’ needs. Also, the transition from the different generations (Y and X) who have varying trends and traits directly impacts the organisation’s sustainability in implementing its functions.

Question 2: Organisation Impact Report

Due to the changing world of work, successful transition of employees from one job positioning to the next remains a significant challenge in the modern business practice. Hawse and Wood (2019) noted this is since the employees must develop appropriate capabilities essential for the future workplace to include critical thinking, creativity, curiosity, and communication skills. In this regard, CIPD (2020) recommended on the need to adopt an induction strategy to ensure that the employees’ first impressions of an organisation are improved. This has a direct impact on their integration within the team and their level of job satisfaction. The induction process offers an appropriate opportunity for an organisation to appropriately welcome recruits, assisting them in settling down and ensuring they gain the essential knowledge and support required for performing their roles. Similarly, in the case study organisation ITUSA which intends to bring 25 specialist software IT ex-employees of Tecall into their global working environment, induction strategies are critical. Bearing in mind that the approach would be to operate in an international environment working as virtual teams with the IT staff across different countries and being virtually managed from the US.

Organisational Culture

As aforementioned, the Tecall employees’ successful transition to ITUSA would be a significant challenge due to its culture of a generational grouping of their employees and recruits. In particular, the majority of the employees in ITUSA belong to Generation Y while the Tecall ex-employees are majorly generation X majorly born from 1961 through 1981. According to Yahya et al. (2015) generation Y are identified as their operations being influenced by expectations, values, attitudes, and behaviours in their workplace. On the one hand, Generation Y individuals have been in existence in an environment of the emergence of the internet, economic liberalisation, social media popularity, growth, and environmental awareness, among others. This is as evidenced in the SWOT analysis. This is since most of them were born in an environment that is multicultural, technology-rich, and contextual.

On the other hand, HBR (2017) survey that had reviewed the fitness of Generation Y and X to the modern business environment noted that generation Y tends to best fit in the modern business environment. Hence, part of induction for the Tecall employees could adopt the Naim and Lenka (2018) recommendation to integrate a sustainable and competency guided induction. This is a strategy that ensures increased self-esteem and self-actualization in their modern workplace environment.

Additionally, working in virtual teams would impact the success of the induction process to the Tecall employees newly joining the ITUSA workplace. As noted in Ferrara (2016), millennials tend to be best suited in dealing with the cultural and language differences and changes and time-distributed team members as opposed to generation X. Hence, the induction process in ITUSA must be informed by the necessity of understanding the generational views in the context of the virtual teams with the aid of the virtually managed from the USA. This is clearly evidenced in the SWOT analysis. This would improve the capacity of designing the effectiveness of the virtual teams hence significantly enhancing the level of productivity.

International Team-working

Please click the paypal icon below to receive this assessment in full