Strengths Weaknesses and Changes Required at Ucell - Assignment Example

Strengths, Weaknesses, And Changes Required At Ucell Strengths Ucell is showing a strong growth in revenue streams. The company is operating in a promising market where there is only seventy percent penetration. Ucell also has the workforce that is young and dynamic with the additional advantage of having competent workers from the local area. In addition, they also have the support and know-how of expatriates The parent company, TeliaSonera gives Ucell a global mindset as it holds its position as the fifth largest telecommunication company in Europe. TeliaSonera has a wide array of services in Baltic and Nordic countries, in addition to emerging markets in, the Eurasia region; Spain, Turkey, as well as Russia. Finally, the organization is always developing value-added services for its subscribers, which, in turn, creates a perception that the company values innovation Weaknesses The company’s corporate-business segment is weak, which affects the company negatively as this is a high revenue segment Ucell has a very complex structure of the organization and a lack of internal communications that is caused by poor management of their growth. During the period of this growth, the focus lay on network investments, expansion of capacity, and coverage of most of the country. While the company has seen a high growth in revenues, they are losing market share every month. This has been occasioned by intense competition. What would I change if I were CEO One of the things that need to be done is affecting of changes in Ucell's organizational structure in a manner that best serves the organization. Organization structure is the manner in which an organization arranges jobs and people in order for its work to be performed, as well as for its goals to be accomplished (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p34). In cases where the working group is small with frequent face-to-face communication that is frequent and where the formal structure is not necessary. However, in cases where the organization is larger, such as in Ucell's case, decisions in the organization will have to be made concerning the delegation of tasks. Therefore, procedures are established to assign responsibility for the organization’s functions (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p35). These decisions are the ones that will determine the changes in the organizations’ structure. One way to change the organizational structure would be through departmentalization. Functional departmentalization involves the grouping of services that use similar resources, skills, and knowledge. The organization is based in most parts of the country and geographical departmentalization would aid in the restructuring of the company (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p37). In this case, would reap advantages by organizing their operations along geographic lines such that all activities that are performed in one region can be managed together. It would also be advantageous to carry out service departmentalization where activities, which are necessary for the production and marketing of similar services or single services, are grouped together. This would allow for considerable autonomy over the company’s operations, as CEO. In this case, the employees in the group are able to focus on needs of their line of services and become experts in distribution, development, and production. Departmentalization would also be done according to clients and markets. For instance, the company could base the primary divisions on small and large businesses (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p38). Through departmentalization, Ucell can increase capacity and increase its coverage of the country, especially using geographical departmentalization. Establishment of a division with an aim of aligning the sales and marketing strategies in the organization would be another strategy aimed at restructuring the organization; it will increase the internal communication within the company. In addition, in order to ensure that costs are controlled during the current phase of fast growth. To begin with, it would be important to dismiss the Directorate of procurement and link technical procurement under the Directorate of information communication technology. It would be in order to regain the market share, which Ucell is losing to its competition. Currently, there are too many tariff plans that are confusing from the point of view of the subscribers at Ucell. Consequently, it would be prudent to merge these tariff plans and optimize them while striving towards simplicity using the help of commercial block. An increase of activations would be realized from the above. In addition, the country still has the relatively low penetration of approximately 70%. Thus, there is room for expansion, especially in the smaller regions and cities. The gradual erosion of sales because of increased competition often causes loss of market share from emerging competitors (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p54). Ucell is struggling against ever-changing market forces and loss of market share. However, regaining lost market share will take years since it took years to lose it. Before taking up any action, determining the why Ucell is losing market share through research will be important. This requires determining the primary competitors who are acquiring the market share at the expense of Ucell. This will require extensive research that the CEO will commission and that will give important answers that should aid in the formulation of plans (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p56). Through the analysis of warranties, attributes of customer service, and product mix. Unless market trends are carefully researched, it will be impossible to know how to position the services in the future markets or even the various trends that are essential to align with. Ascertaining whether Ucell is doing business with rising or primary competitors and whether other surrogates of TeliaSonera are doing business with Ucell is vital. Valuable information can be garnered through buying a service from a competitor, as well as from Ucell when it is appropriate and in making comparisons on price, quality of service, customer service, sales pitches, and how they handle other details (Stonehouse & Houston, 2012: p58). Finally, as CEO, it would be prudent to replace the corporate segment team. The head of this corporate segment team is not working towards the provision of results. She is not motivated, which could even affect the rest of her team. This segment shows great opportunity, although there is little reason to believe that the leader who currently heads it is privy to this fact. References Stonehouse, G. & Houston, B., 2012. Business Strategy. London: Routledge. Read More