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SOLARIS AND SUPERNOVA CALL CENTRE1

Communication Meaning centred theory: How does communication shape organizing and decision making? Self managed team organises work and assignments. They organise larger groups that deal with a particular project. Project Managers would give the group an assignment (desired action), the larger groups would then break down into smaller teams to attempt the assignment(response), each team leader would then report back to the Project Manager to evaluate the assignment(feedback). As they are self-managed teams, they would make decisions themselves. This would be an attempt to merge these individual premise into more general ones that most members of the group can accept. How does communication shape power and influence? Communication between supervisors and employees will lessen our dependency on the power abuser and will seek other alternatives. Each leader in self-managed teams has authority to monitor and discipline their fellow team members. Team members are expected to contribute in discussions and decision making and they will have vital firsthand information about progress of work. Both are dependent on each other. How does communication shape culture and socialization? Organizations culture describes how organizations do things and how they talk about how they do things. Communication rules are general prescription about appropriate communication behaviours in particular settings. Management uses communication to shape a fun working environment, a relaxed working culture. Words like “creative”, “dynamic”, “motivated” and “attitude” are heard among team members. The ‘Solaris Way’ is captured by a slogan: “Excitement, Attitude, Achievement”. Sing Song “I’m Walking On Sunshine”. It is to create a sense of childish fun among employees. The word “family” is frequently used because it conveys a message of security, belongingness and warmth. Socialization is an active organizational attempt to help members learn appropriate behavior, norms, and values in everyday working environment.! Eg: Anticipatory socialization: Agents are hired for both their formal skills and more importantly, their personal attitude and outlook of life. Encounter Socialization: This involves new employee training and supervisor coaching. Training is given for new agents which consists of prominent cultural rituals that seek to socialize and inform them about the “way things are done around here”.

Strategy & Structure Competitive strategies

1. Solaris call centre faces a broad market since they dealing with many kinds of call services with vary customers. ! 2. They are implementing a differentiation strategy--- Solaris differentiate themselves by offering excellent quality of service. As per the case, they increase employees’ motivation, job satisfaction and sense of belonging by creating a fun and exciting culture. Meanwhile, rather than offer service to big cities like Telstra, they offer service to smaller towns. Thus they can charge a higher price for to get a higher margin since their service is different. ! 3. They also chasing to be cost leader--- 1. Australia industry compare to rest of the world, has a lower cost of wage and long distance calls. 2. Also, Solaris offer service to small towns which requires less labor and rent cost could reduce the cost. 3. Meanwhile, they spend effort forming a warm friendly atmosphere to reduce employee turnover, thus it could reduce training and interview fees, and increase efficiency, which could finally drive down the cost. Meanwhile, employees’ salaries are norm above average. 4. The flat structure reduces the management fees and salaries to middle managers. 5. The functional structure it formed is a cheap and efficiency structure, which also could reduce the unnecessary management fees. !

1.Firstly, as has mentioned in the case service and innovation are vital for its survival, they care about innovation a lot; Secondly, they accept latest technology and apply Information and communication technologies positively to reduce cost. Thirdly, they form a positive and creative culture and employees are encouraged to wear what they like. Fourthly, they are seeking for new opportunities and then established Super-Nova later.! 2.It also could be an analyzer--- although they have formed a creative culture, the face is that call centre job is always mundane and monotonous, and they could not change this. The employees’ main job is still just answering the phones everyday without any creative factors. Also, they still focus on maintain their current market, focus on small towns and customer services, and didn’t do much for expand.! 3.Although with some Analyzer’s characteristics, I still think Solaris is a Protestor as they are more likely to be seen as creative and seeking for new opportunities and expand (Super-Nova) but also care about lower the cost.

Structure Structure—Solaris: 1.Solaris is flat---self management team and few level of authorities---could empower workers and “cut bureaucratic red tape”, but when the company grow bigger, it could cause a less efficiency and conflict.!

2.Functional--- it is divided into department like Marketing, Finance, IT and HR, and they all report to CEO------it is efficiency and enhance the communication between department, however, coordination between departments is difficult and might cause conflict between departments, meanwhile, it is hard for personnel to flow between departments 3.It has a wide span of control since all self management team leader report to higher level managers. It has a highly formalized process ---as the processes are just answer phones and all the process are written on the computer screen, new members do not need much training to do the work--- it could cause smaller gap when a new person take up other people’s task, but should be a boring and less creative work. Structure---Super-Nova 1.Highly formalized process---“computer could tell employees exactly what to say” can be boring, but anyone can do it.! 2.Vertical---Super-Nova has a more hierarchical structure---manage could be more strict and tough, and could manage the process more strictly (using explicit data, such as percentage of phone called answered in 15 minutes)---its tense and strict but could divide responsibility and task more explicitly.

3.Still functional structure 3.Using your understanding of structure from these theories, recommend how the two firms should be integrated together. In considering the two different strategies of the two firms, Solaris was a differentiator whereas SuperNova, focussing on quantitative analysis, seemed to tend more towards a cost focus as 'SuperNova agents specialised in more routine operations associated with a single customer.' The two firms therefore have quite largely different strategies, not to mention skills, culture and structure. In considering the two different strategies of the two firms, the best option would be to engage in a very slow merging of firms. To begin with, the two firms should stay separate, in that Solaris and SuperNova should operate separately under the same banner of Solaris. The 'Solaris Way' should not be immediately imposed upon SuperNova staff as that would be highly intrusive and create conflicts between the two entities. Instead of forcing staff to move across the two entities, or to impose 'unorthodox' and likely undesired rituals such as Sing Song (notably 'humiliating'), Solaris should be open to receiving staff from SuperNova at the employee's own willingness to make the employees of Supernova feel more accepted. In order to protect the status of Solaris in terms of customer service, what can happen is the removal of oppressive processes in SuperNova - while it would be insensitive and naïve to directly remove the powers of management at SuperNova, the structure of the firms non-operational teams - Finance, IT and HR, could merge with that in Solaris. Ultimately, the two firms will ultimately have to combine together and become one, it is imperative that SuperNova staff will become capable of dealing with the flexible calls that Solaris handles. A strategy to facilitate learning on the job for SuperNova staff would be to pair them up with a Solaris member who is ready to coach and help assist SuperNova staff with the advanced queries they would have eventually deal with. This would also help in developing the 'family' like feel and strong culture management at Solaris....