Key Issues Facing Change Initiatives At Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company

1. Identify and analyse key issues facing the change initiatives at GMCT.

Need to pay special attention to issues relating to psychology of change (sensemaking, interpretations and emotions), organisational culture, power and politics, organisational structure and various sources of resistance to change.

Background Information on Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company

The establishment of cellular mobile industry has taken place in the beginning of the 1980s (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). Several internet technological experts had introduced technologies that facilitate a geographic region to be segregated into a framework of ‘cells’. The growth of aptitude in order to “handoff” calls has been regarded as a distinctive innovation that made the domain of cellular services achievable (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). One such telecom company known as the Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company situated in varied areas of the towns of New Hampshire as well as Vermont has been experiencing certain issues with the significant transformations developed by it. The paper will focus on the analysis of the major areas of concern the general manager of the company has been experiencing.

The existence of GMCT has been predominant since over a year prior to the authority of Erik Peterson, the general manager of the company. The organization had been established by the CelluComm mobile industry that had possessed more than 80% of its market worth. It must be noted that the company had the accountability of around 21 cellular phones (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). Being well acquainted with the domain of radio communication as well as avionics equipment, the organization’s general manager lacked a relevant expertise in the domain of telecommunication services. It has been reported that the past few months had been a struggling phase for Peterson who contributed more than 80 hours per week. However, certain GMCT issues were regarded to be persistent which led the company recruit Jeff Hardy to supervise the pre-operating processes of the CelluComm organization (Simon and Fisher 2013). This major change in the structural process of the company resulted in the arousal of several major issues within the functioning of the organization. The company soon identified that the preliminary construction of cellular towers operated by the subcontractor was lagging behind the scheduled time. Several efforts in accomplishing the target goals proved to be unproductive because of its dawdling pace. Such a scenario gave rise to numerous grievances from its clients especially the way subcontractor were causing destructions by demolishing private assets as well as trees.

The significant role of chief engineers must also be taken into account during the remarkable alteration within the functioning of the company. This change in supervision resulted in severe misunderstanding among Peterson and the chief appointed engineer, Curt Andrews. The official was reportedly unable to strategize as well as organize tasks, which are essential in order to ascertain the reserve in times of requirement. A structured planning for the organization was vital as five of the major operations within the company needed to be effectively coordinated for well functioning of the company (Heimer et al. 2013). The five major activities integrated the acquirement of tower locations, building up cellular towers and association with the localized telephone organization in order to facilitate the accessibility of mobile connections. Certain understanding of Curt’s incompetence became prominent from in inability to exert the required administrative expertise or prior awareness required to establish a successful brand operation that gave rise to a certain degree of power and politics within the company. The company further sank into immense trouble due to the lack of knowledge and expertise Peterson had in the domain of cellular industry and in the learning process.

Issues Related to Construction of Cellular Towers and Association with the Local Community

One of the major areas of concern, which Peterson regarded as a vital problem, was the current scenario of the company’s association with four of the locations within its license region. The FCC has granted the authorization of GMCT, which held immense public utility recognition. This recognition however gave representation those other cellular firms who were excused from the zoning requirements and could therefore be able to construct large towers.  The entire cellular industry along with CelluComm applied ways to avoid the zoning procedures of the operations (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). However, such actions not only raised anguish in the minds of people who have immense contribution to the association the company had established so far with the local community. These actions further caused issues related to psychology of change within the people such as emotions of sense making. It was further assumed that the company might lose many of its potential consumers if the construction of GMCT tower was considered as hideous and an obstacle in the area. The company as a result, introduced policies of re-evaluating the zoning process until it was considered as an successful endeavour for public effectiveness. It was reported that the corporate legal officials of CelluComm obstructed the construction of towers in areas of Vermont towns. This prevention of tower construction led to the proceeding of tower building under the public benefit status of GMCT (Ayanoglu 2012). However, there were certain areas whereby Peterson considered investments irrelevant which the advantages to the public as well as the organization could derive. Peterson identified several issues to be major concerns because of the lack of involvement with the local attorneys as well as town boards and public enquiries that created a change in the cultural framework of the organization.

The initial few months for the company general manager had been immensely crucial because of varied issues related to equipments. Even though it was theoretically effective to execute the operations, it was very inconvenient to identify and choose the system’s equipment prior to the construction as well as installation of various phases. The scenario was specifically to the scenario of GMCT as the headquarters of CelluComm had postponed in making several chief decisions and had implemented several alterations in the equipment, which has initially been specified (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). Jenkins had not executed the resolution of dual mode radios that was ascertained by Los Angeles. According to the officials, these dual mode services would have performed with the current analog edition of the subscriber cellular phones or with the recently launched electronic telephones, which were anticipated to have been introduced in the market. The company however has been regarded as the first method within the operations of CelluComm to utilize dual mode radio transmissions (Nahas and Simsim 2011). It has been desired by the CelluComm Company to suspend the decision until it was feasible to attain detailed information. This interruption had led to the major delay of the prime resources of radios of CelluComm (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). The company failed to deliver in scheduled time which resulted the company to opt for an alternative resource whose services were identified as flawed, thereby having the need to discuss and renegotiate with its first product suppliers (Galván, Vessal and Golley 2013).  The tools and services that GMCT had in account were ineffective in using along with the additional design alterations, which were supposed to be executed. The situation became even more complicated, when the headquarter proposed a successive decision in order to access the power resources that included products like backup batteries in place of the generator system which has been mentioned earlier (Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). The decision brought immense issues for the company with its providers whereby the new power providers failed to deliver during scheduled time.

Issues Related to Equipment

The rate of reuse pattern had been changed with the assessment made by CelluComm, that was exercised for establishing the system. The frequency reprocesses patterns were executed to establish which particular frequency was used at a particular cell location. The cause behind the change was intended to enhance the quality of reaction in definite areas of hilly topography (Judd 2014). However, there were some potential benefits, which would give rise to several issues in the adaptation of the existing strategies, and the change would facilitate to create coordination. It must be noted that the efforts executed by Peterson prove to ineffective in certain areas however, in creating impact on the decisions taken by Hardy in order to undo the decision as applied in the operations of GMCT (Gmcboard.vermont.gov 2018). The general manager had experienced several struggles due to his lack of experience and inability to obtain support and aid from Hardy (Farahani et la. 2015). A single suggestion, which was provided by Hardy, was the ways to invest in the market to the subscribers within the license areas. However, it was desired by Peterson to initiate promotion and selling a consideration quality priced services to its corporate consumers. The ‘cream skimming’ strategy would have facilitated GMCT to acquire increased level of customers in limited numbers (Heimerl et al. 2013). According to him, the company would have started to market a low level period of services and reach to middle consumers, in the process of controlling the revenue margin of the clients(Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Company 2018). These customers had signified an increased rate of willingness to compensate.

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that Peterson was under pressure in order to accomplish the expectations of the founder of the organization and experienced several struggles within the organization. The lack of expertise which led to the change of authority had further created several issues in GMCT. The paper concentrated on the areas Peterson faced challenges from the very beginning of his association  with the company. In addition to this, the paper focused on the ways the authoritative transition construction of towers in the local areas along with the issues which eventually raised within the organization. The paper also highlighted the issues related to the company’s relationship with the four locations within its license region.

References:

Ayanoglu, E., 2012. Green Cellular Wireless Networks: Where to Begin?. arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.8433.

Farahani, A., Marefatpour, E., Hamidi Madani, A., Faraji, R., Heidarzadeh, A. and Bahadori, M.H., 2015. The Effects of Cellular Phone Electromagnetic Exposure on Human Sperm Viability, Motility and DNA Integrity (in Vitro Study). Journal of Guilan University of Medical Sciences, 24(94), pp.29-35.

Galván, V.V., Vessal, R.S. and Golley, M.T., 2013. The effects of cell phone conversations on the attention and memory of bystanders. PloS one, 8(3), p.e58579.

Gmcboard.vermont.gov. (2018). Annual Report | Green Mountain Care Board. [online] Available at: https://gmcboard.vermont.gov/document-categories/annual-report [Accessed 30 Mar. 2018].

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Heimerl, K., Ali, K., Blumenstock, J.E., Gawalt, B. and Brewer, E.A., 2013, April. Expanding Rural Cellular Networks with Virtual Coverage. In NSDI (pp. 283-296).

Judd, A.W., 2014. What Once Was Old is New Again: Recent Developments in Judicial Review of Land Use Regulation of Cellular Telecommunications Facilities. Urb. Law., 46, p.865.

Nahas, M. and Simsim, M.T., 2011. Safety Measurements of Electromagnetic Fields Radiated from Mobile Base Stations in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia. Wireless Engineering and Technology, 2(4), pp.221-229.

Simon, T.M. and Fisher, M.T., Tim Simon Inc, 2013. Thermostat assembly with removable communication module and method. U.S. Patent 8,393,550.