Structural Separation Foreclosure Effects - Telstra Case Study

Discuss About The Structural Separation Foreclosure Effects?

Telstra, commonly known as Telstra Corporation Ltd. is a company situated in Australia. The Telstra is a tele-communication company and a media company that operates and builds the network of tele-communication and the market voice, television pay, internet access, and all other services and products of entertainment. Telstra is considered to be one of the most largest company of tele-communication. In this report, the details study of Telstra is elaborated with all the issues that come in their way. An elaborated background of Telstra is discussed in this report, with framework for analysis, assessment for ethical consequences (Kilroy and Schneider 2015). The marketing analysis consists of awareness of the ethical implications of digital disruption to businesses, the positive and the negative effects on for using the decision support system. There is also analysis of environmental responsibility, business efficiency, and out sourcing described in the report along with data analysis tools and competitive advantage. Awareness of IT governance and IT standards and frameworks are also discussed in this report. The assessment for ethical consequences describes what the situation is, what are the facts, who is actually affected, what are the ethical complications that arises in the company, what can be done to mitigate these issues, and last but not the least which is the best mitigation method and the reason why it is considered as the most important method. There are some recommendations to use COBIT in Telstra to avoid such ethical issues in the company.

The word Telstra comes from a word Telecom Australia in which TEL is derived from Telecom and STRA is derived from Australia. The company of Telstra was first started in the year 1995 and became a brand internationally very fast. Telstra first faced the market competition from Optus in the year 1990. Optus is known as Australia’s second largest company for communication and also faced competition from many small providers of communication company. Telstra retained the ownership of telephone network that has fixed line, but the world was upgraded with NBN (National Broadband Network). NBN is now considered as a legal ownership of the lines in Australia. Telstra has played a role to upgrade the resources to the Australian Government. For using the new network, Telstra has earned highest priority. In the year 2008, on 26^th November, a non-complying tender was submitted by Telstra that is issued by federal government so that they can build the NBS network. The tender was a 12 page letter which has a budget of 5 billion dollar to set up the broadband network that actually covers about 90 percent of the population of Australia covering the major cities. The goal of Telstra is to serve their customer to become fundamental of everything they do (Skelton 2015). In the year 2011, the company announced that they were expanding their customer service to social media by providing the network coverage for 24 x 7. By the month of November of 2012, there were almost 140,000 live chats and the network growth rate was about 600% per annum. By October 2013, the workforce of social media increased to 30 and the workforce of Live Chat for Telstra increased to 600.

Framework for Analysis

• Awareness of the ethical implications of digital disruption to businesses

The customer who uses the technology mainly faces ethical implications because of digital disruption in Telstra. The technology is changing fast and the organizations, policy, and people find it very difficult to adapt with the fast changing technology. The ethical implications that arise due to digital disruption in businesses is because of adoption, adjustment and adaptation. Adoption is considered as a gap in between the technology and the individual. The rate at which the technology is changing and people are adopting those technologies is the adoption rate (McDougal 2017). To minimize the problem of digital disruption, the adoption process must be done which mitigates the ethical issues in Telstra. In spite of having high a great variability, a finite number of people do not understand the changing process. Sometime, the price of the service or product is also considered as an issue. It might be difficult for some to buy a phone and a Telstra sim-cards to access their services and products. Adjustment is the gap in between the digital laws and tools that are used by the operations, and regulations and laws that are accepted by the society so that they can govern the use of the technology. There are multiple frameworks that regulates across various industries. To meet the requirement of the people, Telstra has to make some adjustment in their networks. The last is the adaptation that can rise as an ethical issue in Telstra. The gap between what the major people wants or how they excepts the technology with the company and the way the companies supports or adapts the digital interactions is known as adaptation. 

• Positive and negative effects of using Decision support systems and Business analytics

Positive Effects: There are many positive effects of having Decision Support System in a company. Telstra should have decision support system in order to have the following positive  effects.

Saving of time- There are many categories that are present in decision support system (Gardiner 2015). The categories has substantiated and demonstrated the cycle time of making the decision, have increased the productivity and decisions are taken more accurately.

Enhance Effectiveness- Decision making generally helps to increase the effectiveness of making the decision and helps to make better decisions. The effectiveness of decision making and decision quality are very difficult to measure and put on a document.

Increases the interpersonal communication- The decision support system can help to improve the collaboration and communication among the decision makers (Daly 2016). The communication driven and the group decision system also impacts the DSS.

Cost reduction- The decision support system also save the cost from labours. The DSS also makes decisions from low cost infrastructure or the cost of technology.

Competitive advantage- Competitive advantage can be seen in business intelligence system, decision support system that is web based, performance management system. Decision support can also be computerized but the result from computerized cannot have the accurate results.

Negative Effects: There are many disadvantages of decision support system also.

Monetary cost- The information system that is involved in decision needs to accumulates data to be collected from different sources and then analyze them so that they can support decision making.

Positive Effects

Overemphasize the decision making- The support system can reinforce the perspective pf decision rationally and also overemphasize the processes of decision and also enhances decision making (Chen and Zhao 2016). All the managers should be educated regarding the widening the concept of decision making. The emotional factors, social factors, and political factors impacts the success of Telstra.

Transferring the power- Telstra has the advantage of building the decision support system which is perceived by transferring the decision authority of software program. Decision automation system is concerned with the DSS. 

Unanticipated effects- By implementing the technologies of decision support there arise unanticipated consequences. The skill that is needed for the performance of a decision task is reduced by DSS.

Status reduction- The DSS will decrease the status and DSS forces the managers to do the clerical work. This can be considered as a disadvantage of using the DSS in Telstra.

Environmental Responsibility- Green Computing mainly refers to use the computing resource of the Telstra efficiently. To maintain the environmental responsibility, Telstra should involve laptops, desktops, printers, and monitors that save energy. The power consumption of Telstra can be minimized by using the energy saving devices (Turban 2015). Global computing also helps to increase environmental responsibility by putting the system to sleep mode when not in use. This can reduce the power consumption up to 70 percent. It is more better to shut down the machine while not using. Telstra should also start using e-cycle process which involves accepting any brand of machine with a minimum cost.

Business Efficiency- Green computing helps to increase the efficiency of the business that is held in Telstra. Green computing involves the process of virtualization. Virtualization involves running two systems with a single hardware. This can reduce the power consumption and increase the efficiency of the company. Managing the power properly, reduces the carbon emissions and helps in energy efficiency of the company. A process known as green washing is involved in the Telstra which helps to make the business more efficient. The green washing system makes a practice of hyping a eco-friendly environment or provides the service features, which are dubious.

Outsourcing- The outsource of Telstra that is involved in outsourcing are supplier, that is commonly known as vendor and also there are buyers that are known as clients. Both the clients with the vendors creates a substantial value. The clients have benefit by reducing in cost and the vendors have benefit by making a new stream of revenue. There are many green computing machines that helps to resolve the issues that are involved in Telstra. The process of vendor selection for outsourcing IT in Telstra is mainly resolved by green computing.

Awareness of using data analysis tools and their related competitive advantage

Data analytical tools are the tools that capture products automatically and then analyse the data, deliver information, makes prediction. The tools for data analysis also improves accuracy and also refines models. Some of the example of data analytics tools are +ableau public which is a tool that enables and enhances visualization, open refine is another tool or software that helps to clean the software helping to get all the things ready for the purpose of analysing. There is another tool known as KNIME which is used to integrate different components for data mining pupose and machine learning through data pipelining. Another data  mining software is rapidminer. The procedures that are involved in rapidminer all have procedures for learning, predictive analytic and data mining. Data analytics tools helps to reduce the risk of being attacked  by other companies as they helps to dtect and mitigate the risk list that are arriving.

Negative Effects

The framework of IT governance ensures the organization of Telstra with infrastructure support and also enables achievement of its objective and strategies. The IT governance defines a clear framework for information of the board and also for the communication technology and provides a key resource for the professionals of IT governance everywhere. There are mainly three types of governance frameworks that can be recognized in a company like Telstra. The frameworks are ITIL, COBIT, and ISO 27002.

ITIL is known as the IT Infrastructure Library that was developed by the Cabinet Office of UK. This ITIL is known as the best process in the service management. ITIL is mainly supported by a law ISO/IEC 20000:2011, that is very independent of the certification that is achieved. COBIT is known as Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (Bellin 2015). COBIT is a framework of IT governance, which helps Telstra to meet the business challenges to compete the regulatory compliance, align the IT strategy, and also helps in risk management. The management guidelines of COBIT has the framework for measurability and control the tools that are to be measured and accessed by IT of Telstra. The last framework of IT is the ISO 27002 is the best practice that Telstra van implement for managing the information security of the organization.

• What’s going on?

Telstra mostly offers landline communication and mobile communication service to all businesses and publics, which generally includes mobile internet, mobile phones or the broadband internet. In the year 2011, Telstra announced itself, as a Telstra Digital the initial purpose of the company was to improve the digital channels for all their customer services. By the end of July 2017, Telstra introduced CrowdSupport, which is commonly used for customer service of crowd source. By July 2011, the CrowdSupport was a successful one with 463,000 posts. Another new account service was launched by Telstra for managing the 35% if the transaction. In 2015, the Telstra CrowdSupport service has 200,000 pieces of the generated content. In the year 2016, it was reported that about 60% of customers finds their answers on CrowdSupport.

• What are the facts?

The online application of Telstra works for 24 x 7 and helps their customers with high rating. Telstra offers a internet connection that has high performance. The quality of the internet connectivity that is provided by Telstra is high quality and the internet connection is stable (Fitzgerald and Dwyer 2017). Telstra uses CrowdSupport as internet, which keeps their customers to be connected with the internet of Telstra. The internet that is provided by Telstra is cost-effective and is scalable. The internet that is provided by Telstra is extensively reach, the solutions that are provided by them are scalable that streamline the operations carried out in Telstra. But there are some disadvantages or some difficulties that are faced by the customers.

• Who is affected ?

The customers are mainly affected by all the issues that arise in the network of Telstra. The customer may face a difficulty of using faulty products that are given by the company (Congedo 2015). The customers may not know the proper way to install the internet service or the instructions that are given by the company might have some mistake in them. So, it is the duty of  Telstra to satisfy the customer to its level best so that the reputation of the company remains.

• What are the ethical issues and implications?

Ethical analysis Framework for Green Computing

The products and services that are provided by Telstra should not have faulty products. The products should be genuine enough so that the customers get satisfied with the product they receive. Investigation should be done before supplying the product. Another issue that may arise in Telstra is with the incorrect or incomplete instruction that is to be given to the customer (Kilroy and Schneider 2016). Telstra is to give proper training to their staffs about how to instruct their customers at the time of installing the device. Issues also comes when there is poor client service and slow delivery of the product or service provided by Telstra. The network that is provided by Telstra should be fast enough so that the customer does not feel difficulty to access the internet. Sometime, there are also lack of communication that exist between the company and their customers.

• What can be done about it?

There are many ways to mitigate the issues that are arising in Telstra. The staffs who are involved with Telstra should be properly trained so that they are able to solve the issues from the customer. The delivery of services and the products should be fast enough to satisfy the customer. The response to the customer questions should be answered promptly. To improve the speed of the network, COBIT framework, ISO 27002, and ITIL framework can be used so that the customer can access high speed of internet. The information that are to be given to the customer for installation or accessing the network should be delivered properly.

• Which option is best and why?

The best option that Telstra can follow is COBIT framework. COBIT is a toolset and a framework of IT governance which helps the managers to build a bridge between the requirements, business risks, and technical risks. COBIT involves a clear policy which develops a good practice and development for the IT control all through the organization. By implanting COBIT, Telstra can emphasize the regulatory compliance and also helps the organization so that they can increase all value that are attained  from IT.

To improve the network quality of Telstra, it is recommended to use COBIT framework. COBIT framework is one of the most professional networks and it is considered to be a good practicing framework. There are implementable control set that is provided by COBIT and also controls the information technology and can organize the logical framework that are related to enablers and  processes that are related to IT related. A generic set of processes for managing the IT is fulfilled by COBIT with the processes for outputs and inputs, process objectives, key process activities, and performance measures. COBIT acts as a single framework.

Conclusion

The network system of Telstra is one of the largest tele-communication networks in Australia. Telstra is a company that provide tele-communication network to all the cities in Australia. The purpose of Telstra digital is to improve the digital channels for all the customers who takes service from them. Telstra Digital launched an online forum known as CrowdSupport which helps in better customer service. But there are some issues that are faced by the customers of Telstra. The customer faces difficulty with high-speed network and sometimes they are unable to install the network. All the process to mitigate the problems are discussed in this report.  The Telstra Digital again re-launched the design if its homepage in the month of April, 2011. In July, Telstra launched CrowdSupport which is an online forum so that the customer service can be crowd sourced. The CrowdSupport of Telstra has almost 463,000 posts. A new portal service was opened by Telstra in September 2011, to that they can achieve their goals and also manage 35 % of the transaction that occurs in Telstra. Telstra introduced a new technology of using the smart phones that optimized the version of their website. Telstra even introduced an application for the iPhone users in November 2011. A mobile phone shop application was also launched by Telstra that was very useful for their customers. Also, Facebook and Smartphone application for customers was launched by 2012 so that the accounts of Telstra can be managed. By July, almost about 700,000 customers have already started using the application by downloading it. By the end of august, the download number has reached almost about 2.5 million.

References

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Daly, A., 2016. Net neutrality in Australia: The debate continues, but no policy in sight. In Net Neutrality Compendium (pp. 141-155). Springer, Cham.

Fitzgerald, A.M. and Dwyer, N., 2017. Copyright in databases in Australia.

Gardiner, B., 2015. Telstra CEO: Don't be afraid of machine learning. CIO, (Spring 2015), p.8.

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McDougal, M., 2017. Insights from the company monitor: Telstra. Equity, 31(11), p.15.

Skelton, P., 2015. Telstra tackles digital home health. Connected Home Australia, (Dec 2015), p.48.

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