Communication and the mode of conveying information from one individual to another and between organizations are paramount to the day to day lives of everybody. The advancement in technology has enhanced the rate at which information is disseminated and its quality. Many telecommunication organizations have emerged in different parts of the world. Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, well known by the brand name du, is among the organizations that are found in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Company provides communication services in the United Arab Emirates. In 2007, the company was branded officially to du. In fact, 39.5% of the enterprise is owned by the Emirates investment authority, 21.25% by public shareholders, 19.5% by ECT and the remaining 19.75% by the development company of Mubadala. In the same year, the organization launched the provision of mobile telecommunication services across the UAE. After 12 months, the company had 1.88 million mobile subscribers, and the revenue had increased to $1.08 billion. By the end of March 2011, the companys mobile subscribers had increased to 4.5 million.
Diversity in Du
Du provides fixed telephony, IPTV, mobile, and broadband connectivity services to businesses, homes as well as individuals. The company also provides TV broadcasters with satellite services as well as carrier services for various businesses. Du focusses on vast and small corporations as well as different government agencies. The company is also involved in commercial service and international data networks to the transnational operators. The call tariffs of mobile services of the company are almost similar to those of competing company, Etisalat, minimizing the possibility of competition escalation between the two mobile service providers. Du mobile service subscribers are identifiable by dialing 055 and 052. The company has more than 56 stores and more than 3,000 dealers of its products and services across the UAE. du has 4G LTE network that it started using to offer VoLTE in February 2015.
As an organization that is growing rapidly, du has almost 2,000 employees who work to expand and enhance the companys bouquet of offering services. The company embraces cultural diversity, because the staff work from different countries to facilitate serving customers using different languages. The total number of employees of the company comprise of 31% Emiratis, whereas senior executives of du who are UAE nationals comprises 42%. Du has a scheme of Emiratisation, Masar, and career fairs participation all over the UAE to draw the attention of young citizens in the region. In 2012, the company doubled the number of staff from Emirates in the national call center to 120, who were comprised of 90% females. Additionally, in the same year, the number of Emiratis who graduated successfully from Masar trainee program were 146.
Organizational Structure
The company is gearing up for the next phase of growth. In 2013, the company announced its revised structure of the organization (du Geared up for Next Growth Phase, 2013). The CEO of the company, Osman Sultan, is aided by five other chief managers to control operations of the company. The principal workers encompass Farid Faraidooni, who is a chief operation officer, Fahad Al Hassawi as a chief commercial manager, Ananda Bose, heading the corporate affairs, and Ibrahim Hassan Abdulla Nassir as a heading director of human capital as well as Amer Kazim as a chief financial officer.
Other substantial changes within the organization led to Walid Kamal appointed as Senior President. Saleem Albalooshi was selected as Executive Vice President, Consumer Operations, as well as Acting Deputy President, in Network Expansion and Processes. Hatem Bamatraf was appointed as Executive Vice President and Enterprise Vice, Information Technology as well as Marwan Bin Dalmook was chosen as Deputy President, Fraud Management, Risk, and Technology Security.
Organizational Culture
The company has the culture of committing to its staff. The management believes in helping its workers to reach their full potential. The company has development programs nationally, which facilitate focusing on hiring workers, developing them and retaining the best talent in the country, while incorporating the objective Emiratisation where UAE nationals are given opportunities. The companys management acknowledges that career development enhances the engagement of the employees and job satisfaction.
In every 18 months, the company seeks the services of Gallup International to carry out a survey on the workers engagement and their level of satisfaction. Additionally, the company offers training programs to the employees to ensure that the curve of their personal learning is always moving up. The programs are not limited to competencies related to the job, but they are aimed at building capabilities that enhance the employees leadership and soft interpersonal potential. Further, the company has leadership series such as great manager awards designed to recognize the efforts of its employees. Lastly, the organization acknowledges that the wellbeing of the staff is paramount to its overall growth and development. The company ensures that employees are taken care of by all possible means including their health, boosting of employee morale, etc.
Type of Leadership in the Organization
Du telecommunication adopts a participative type of leadership. The organization values team members inputs and even that of subordinates. However, the participative managers offer the final decisions. This kind of leadership boosts the morale of the workers, because they feel that their opinion matters a lot to the development of the organization. In this case, it is easier for the workers to embrace changes initiated in the company since they play an important role in the process.
Nature of Power and Politics in the du Company
The organization adopts the power of reward in running its business. The management motivates its employees at all levels by offering an increase in their salaries, promoting them as well as giving the awards such as top managers awards. Additionally, the company offers training programs to the employees to enhance their productivity. All these factors make the employees supportive of the management.
Nature of Teams and Groups in the Organization
The company has different types of teams and groups that facilitate its business operations. These include a problem-solving team that is usually comprised of managers in different departments in the enterprise, a cross-functional team, which is made of staff who are at the same level but performing various duties to achieve common goals. Another one is the virtual teams, which are comprised of computer experts that facilitate technological operations of the company. Additionally, the company has both the formal and informal groups. The organization created the formal groups to direct its staff towards achieving important goals of the enterprise. The informal groups in the company developed naturally among staff who have shared interests.
Value and Ethical Practices
The company believes in the system governance of corporate that goes beyond compliance with legal requirements. The system is based on the companys brand values, which are honesty, friendliness and confidence. Du aims for a corporate governance system that natures using responsible practices of business and business integrity of highest standards as well as accountability to facilitate the building of a sustainable business. The board of directors of the Du sets and enforces a strict code of ethics norms of business practice and standards of compliance. Additionally, the board in collaboration with the team of executive management define the objectives of the company to ensure that they aligned to the strategy of the nations growth and the needs of the citizens.
The policies of governance in Du ensures greater accountability and transparency across the business. In its operations, the company complies with the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and Security and Commodity Authority (SCA) rules, procedures as well as principles (Zenaide & Castro, 2015). Additionally, Du adheres to the best international practice guidelines. The shareholders in the company are kept informed about all improvements and are invited to participate in making major decisions and to provide their feedback.
Motivational Strategy
The company offers both financial and non-financial rewards to the employees to motivate them. It recognizes that to inspire the employees to put more efforts to achieve the organizational goals as well as theirs, they must be motivated (Manzoor, 2012). Du motivates its employees by giving them high salaries, offering bonuses related to annual performance, providing financial incentives to meet personal needs, changing the nature of the job, training the staff for free as well as offering non-financial rewards such as free medical covers to the workers.
Employee Engagement
Employees engagement in the company is relatively higher compared to other workers in the same industry. Their engagement is facilitated by the type of leadership in the organization, which values the opinion of its staff. Additionally, their engagement is enhanced by the better remunerations the company offers and other non-financial rewards such as free medical covers.
Nature of Communication in the Organization
The use of appropriate strategies of communication is a very important aspect of any business, because it ensures staff, consumers, as well as management satisfaction. Proper communication between the management and the employees adds value to the products and services the company offers. Management and subordinate communication in Du is less restricted by the hierarchy, making it easier for any information to flow up and down enhancing the quality of services.
Level of Job Satisfaction
The standard of job satisfaction in Du telecommunication is relatively higher compared to other companies in the UAE. This is facilitated by several factors that include the working employees engagement. The company has a program of training the staff to ensure that they are well equipped with essential skills needed in the line of their duty. The training enhances their productivity and job satisfaction. Also, all the workers are paid well what truly motivates them. Also, rewarding programs such as the best manager rewards as well as provision of free medical cover by the company enhances the level of job satisfaction. Further, managers in Du interact well with the subordinates and involve them in making decisions that have impacts on employees environment, training, remuneration as well as better management. The working environment in the company is very conducive such that environmental stressors are very minimal increasing the level of job satisfaction.
Visible Attitudes and Their Effect on the du Business
Both positive and negative attitudes are evident in du telecommunication. Negative attitudes among the workers arise when managers, supervisors, as well as auditors conspire to make them work more for less or the same remuneration. This affects the productivity of the organization since the employees reduce their engagement to the work. On the other hand, better interactions and effective communication between the subordinates and the management induces positive attitude among the employees in the company. This enhances the level of job satisfaction among the workers, and this improves their engagement to the work, increasing the productivity of the company.
How Conflict Is Managed In the Organization
In the place of work, the conflict between individuals is unavoidable. The main types of conflicts that are likely to occur in the working premises encompass leadership disputes, employee to employee disputes, performance review disputes, gender discrimination among the employees as well as conflict with the customers. The way conflicts are managed in an organization is imperative, because it determines the possibility of a positive solution or adverse effects to the organization and the staff. In most organizations, human resource managers are in charge of managing conflicts.
In du telecommunication, the chances of conflicts to occur and escalate are very minimal. The smooth flow of information from the lowest staff to the senior managers and vice versa, as well as horizontal flow of information, facilitates conflict management by the directors. Managers are well trained to detect signs of conflict and improvise strategies to counteract them before they erupt. They ensure that no discrimination occurs in either assigning duties or in the remunerations. Further, the managers ensure that the staff offer superior customer services to consumers to minimize the chance of conflict occurrence.
Emotional Intelligence
The managers use skills in emotional intelligence to observe the moods of the employees and detects problems. Moreover, managers are sensitive to the interactions of the workers, how they handle any organizational changes and increases in the employees workloads.
The OB Issues That Need Adjustment in the Organization
Du telecommunication is a new company that is developing. Currently, the company is stabilizing on its service provision and is in the process of expanding its operations to other regions. Its operations are restricted to the United Arabs Emirates since the company is monopolistic regarding competition. It has a monopoly on free zones. There are no other major companies in the region to challenge its operations, making it not customer oriented regarding services like VOIP and call prices, which are relatively high. The market of telecommunication in the UAE is highly restricted, and the government owns the primary players. Despite the fact that the UAE aspires to be the principle IT global hub, the Internet provision broadband in that region are among the most expensive and slowest globally (Nassar & Abdulaziz, 2016). In 2008, the company started executing selective VOIP traffic blocking by preventing consumers from using the VOIP systems that were facilitating computer-to-phone functionality.
Possible Solutions to the Issues
The company should conduct research for new markets in other regions that are viable in the expansion of its operations. In addition, barriers to entry in the industry should be reduced to facilitate competition in the telecommunication industry in the UAE. In the case of VOIP calls, it is important for the company to formulate regulations and systems that facilitate smooth computer to phone functionality. Further, the quality of the Internet broadband services can be enhanced to improve its speed and reduce cost.
Evaluation of the Possible Solutions
Researching for new markets in other regions is very expensive for the company. However, this will facilitate the expansion of its customer base and production expansion. Reducing the restrictions to entry in the telecommunication industry will initially hurt the company by reducing its revenues. However, the action can facilitate improving the quality of products and services the company offers to consumers, which will eventually attract more customers.
Recommendations
The company should put an effort to expand its products and services to other regions in the world. This will not only expand its revenue base, but also the company can employ the economy of scales and manage to offer services at a competitive price.
The company should use more sophisticated broadband to provide the Internet connections that are faster. Additionally, it should reduce the cost of the Internet connection to manage to penetrate the global market where the cost is relatively low.
Further, the company should lower the cost of making calls and by doing that the number of subscribers will increase and, in turn, increase the revenues.
Lastly, they should stop making selective blocking of systems that facilitate VOIP traffic between computers and cell phones and decrease the cost of VOIP calls. This will not only increase its credibility in service provision but also will increase the customer base and hence the companys revenues.
Action Plan
The company plans to extend its operations in other regions in the world in phases starting with the adjacent regions such as North Africa. Additionally, the company started reducing call rates and offering free SMS bundles as well as affordable internet data bundles. Further, the company embarked on the process of installing sophisticated broadband that will enhance the speed of the web services provided by the company.
