Datacom – Cloud Consultancy Services In New Zealand

Background and Overview of Datacom

Datacom has achieved accolades and glory by providing quality cloud consultancy services in the threshold of New Zealand. Provision of software development services helps in smoothening the business activities. Along with this, the company is known for owning and managing the operations of the data centres (Datacomgroup.eu, 2018). Established in 1965, the company has expanded into the markets of Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines. Presence of 4880 skilled and qualified employees expands the scope and arena of the company business. The company aims to provide automatic IT services to the clients. The company provides solution to the company, who intends to avert market risks. Provision of cost effective services to the clients and the customers is the vision of Datacom Company (Curtis & Cachia, 2015)

As per the annual report of 2017, the annual revenue of the company was NZ 1.16 billion. The net income was NZ 43.7 million. Infrastructure of the company reflects the expansion in the service breadth and depth. Custom designs of the IT systems and processes enhance the brand image of the company, enriching the reputation. Talent management is one of the greatest strength of the company, working towards the professional development of the people. Typical evidence of this lies in the initiatives, which are undertaken for increasing the employee retention rates (Datacomgroup.eu, 2018). Here, logical reasoning is the common attribute, which helps the personnel in exposing the performance as per their capabilities.

            The services of Datacom revolve around the customers. Suggestions and feedbacks are taken for gaining knowledge about the areas where innovation is needed. Preservation of the core values is reflected in the customer satisfaction. The staffs believe in collaborative output for maintaining the pace with the competitive ambience of the market. Commitment, dedication and perseverance are crucial components in terms of achieving growth and development. Genuineness in the approach helps in maintaining the stability in the relationship with the clients. Promise of delivering value for money is assistance for the company towards achieving loyalty, trust and dependence from the customers (Theaker, 2017).

Part 1.2: Objectives/Aims/Hypothesis:

Reesearch aim

            The aim of this project is to assess the impact of communication, leadership and culture on the business activities of Datacom.

Research objectives

• To examine the means of communication adopted by the functional units of Datacom
• To assess the effectiveness of leadership styles on the performance of the staffs in Datacom
• To analysis the impact of workplace culture on the morale of Datacom staffs

Research hypothesis

• H0 Communication, leadership and culture does not have any impact on the business activities of Datacom
• H1 Communication, leadership and culture heavily influences the business activities of Datacom

 Part 1.3: Scope

Scope of the research

            Collecting relevant data on the subject matter would determine the scope and arena of the research. This research went to the extent of collecting information on the impact of communication, leadership style and culture of Datacom. This was done in stages starting from the topic selection to formation of a rough draft and final submission. At the initial stage, a list of goals, deliverables, functions and tasks was performed to gain awareness about the criterions to be fulfilled for carrying out this research. Literature review on the subject matter is an attempt towards enriching the preconceived knowledge. This activity enhances the scope and arena towards discussing and analysing the anticipated findings. Evaluation of the appropriate research techniques eases the process of analysis. Rough draft enhances the decision-making process, assisting in the discovering the drawbacks in the propositions and assumptions. Consistency in the evaluation reduces the chances of mistakes, upgrading the standards and quality of the research work.

Annual Report of 2017

Part 2: Literature review:

Part 2.1: Organisational communication:

            Curtis and Cachia (2015) define organisational communication is the process of exchange of information and messages with organisations and work places. Organisational communication result in exchange of important information between different levels in business organisations. The apex management bodies make strategies and communicate them to the middle level management. The middle level managers in turn communicate the messages to the executives which actually carry out the strategies formed by the apex management. Theaker (2017) points a salient role of organisational communication which strengthens the execution of strategies in the business organisations, training. The human resource departments in the business organisations use the laid out communication channels using formal methods to train employees.

The managers and human resource department train the employees using methods like mentoring, class room training, coaching, on job training and teleconference training. Tarhini, Hone and Liu (2015) makes a very important contribution to this discussion. They state that technology plays an increasingly important role in the organisational communication. The managers and HR department train the employees using videos and simulations which enable better understanding of concepts by the employees. This results in more effective execution of strategies by the junior level employees, which in turn contributes to organisational effectiveness. Kotabe and Kothari (2016) mention that this organisational communication supported by technology is of immense use in multinational companies. The multinational companies having branches in different countries communicate with their geographically dispersed branches while forming strategies.

The multinational companies have involve in different types of operations like financing, staffing, marketing, innovation and developing new products. This requires communication and collaboration between departments of diverse functions. As far as multinational organisations are concerned, they often need to collaborate between same deportments situated in different locations (Cuervo-Cazurra et al. 2014). This means these departments need to communicate and exchange diverse information which ultimately lead ways to decision making. Hackley and Hackley (2017) mention that organisational communication is not only useful in the internal communication but also outside it. The multinational companies promote their products in the market to get access to customer base. Thus, promotion and advertisement are also forms of organisational communication.

The business organisations communicate the policies and plans to the government, suppliers and other stakeholders. Thus, organisational communication, by nature can be both external and internal. As the above discussion points out, organisational communication is dependent on technology and ios the very base of interdepartmental coordination. It is effective in coordination between departments and location dispersed geographically. One can also point out that organisational communication is instrumental in crucial business operations like revenue generation, HRM and NPD. The business organisations also form the base of revenue generation and leadership.

Datacom Services

Part 2.2: Organisational leadership:

            The organisational leadership Lin et al.(2015) can be defined as the leadership approach which ensures leading of individuals towards attainment of the organisational goals. Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube (2015) point out that organisational communication plays a very important in organisational leadership. The mangers lead their subordinates towards attainment of the target performances by using different types of leadership styles. They establish strong communication in order to obtain strong support of team members in attaining goals. Binder (2016) here emphasises on the opinion of Cuervo-Cazurra et al. (2014) and point that multinational companies use their strong organisational communication network to lead their immense human resources dispersed in different location, mostly in different countries. The headquarters of the multinational companies involve managers in all the locations while forming their global strategies. Thus, it can be inferred that organisational leadership is not possible without strong organisational communication network traversing diverse locations (Lin et al. 2015).

Part 2.3: Organisational culture:

            Mohelska and Sokolova (2015) mention that a strong organisational culture enforces leadership and strong communication with the organisations. The apex management bodies of the multinational companies build strong organisational culture which enforces smooth communication among employees which contributes to high organisational performances. Bolden (2016) points out that business organisations today depend largely on their internationally spread organisational communication channels to establish and maintain strong organisational culture. Thus, here it can be said that organisational culture is dependent on organisational communication. Strong communication in business organisation enable the apex management to lead all the employees from diverse locations towards achievement of organisational success (Hackley & Hackley, 2017).Thus one can infer in the light of the above discussion that strong communication within the organisation enforce strong organisational culture which binds employees and lead them towards attaining of high level performance. One can point that organisational communication, leadership and culture are dependent on each other and attainment of one leads to the next.

Part 3: Data Collection & Analysis Methods:

Part 3.1: Data Collection Method(s):

The data collection process is generally of two types and those are primary and secondary way of collecting data. It can be said that primary data can be collected over face to face interviews by starving for providing questionnaires to the respondents of the research work and in this process the research scholar personally meets the respondents who agrees to help him to complete the research work. On the other hand in the secondary research work the data relevant to the topic of the research all in most cases collected from numerous articles newspapers magazines journals and by government or any other websites. For this particular topic of the research the research scholar will be adopting secondary data collection method by consulting books, journals, newspaper articles and internet websites (Humphries, 2017).

Research Objectives

These sources would render the researcher sufficient amount of data to conduct the research. It can be said that the data would bring into light salient features related to the organisational culture leadership and organisational communication of the chosen business organisation (Lewis, 2015). Personal interview sessions with the managers of different stages of the business organisation can reveal the relevant information regarding the presence of leadership in the company and that can potentially help the research scholar to attain the objectives which has been discussed previously in the research paper.

Qualitative type of research actually refers to the exploratory type of research and the research scholar had utilised the process of qualitative research for analysing the collected data as it enabled him to provide insight into the particular problem for which the research work has been performed and apart from that qualitative analysis of the research would help the research scholar to develop the hypothesis of the research (Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault, 2015). On the other hand quantitative research can help in the aspect of quantification of the problem statement of the research by generating the numerical data which may be changed into a usable statistic. Quantitative research can be performed to quantify the opinion and attitudes of the collected data so that the research scholar can generalize the results obtained from a huge sample population (Smith, 2015).

Part 3.2: Data Analysis Method(s):

For this particular topic of the research the research scholar will utilise qualitative method of research by consulting secondary sources like books, articles, newspapers and online websites of the chosen business organisation in order to get to know relevant information regarding communication leadership and the organisational culture of Data Com. The individual interviews taken by the research scholar would help him to validate the collected information relevant to the topic of the research

Part 4: Data Analysis:

The research will be taking the help of the interview process top complete the needful. The report has highlighted some of the main questions that have been asked to the managers and the supervisors of the mentioned organization on the three different organizational needs. The questions that were asked during the interview were as follows;

1. How the management of the organization does communicate with the different departments and the employees in the organization? How is it helpful?

The managers of the organization provided a prompt and specific reply to this particular question. The management of the organization had their prompt reply that the organization conducts re4gular meetings and coordinates with each other before any decision to make the most of the business. The managers also ensure to personally inspect the works and interact with the employees to get an idea of their demands and choices.

1. What kind of leadership challenges do managers face and how do they overcome this?

Organisational Communication

The managers and supervisors of the organization responded that a number of different challenges were generally faced by them on a regular note. The leadership challenges provide the most difficult problem for them as because it is a huge task for them to control each and every employees of the organization. However proper and regular communication in between them is one of the main tasks that help them to overcome such challenges and get close to the employees of the organization.

1. How does the management of the company promote organizational culture?

The organizational culture is one of the main things that determine the success of the business. A healthy organizational culture is necessary for the success of the business in the organization. It is important for the business to promote a proper culture in order to ensure coordination amongst the employees and a proper working environment. The managers of Datacom answered to this question by, “at Datacom we are proud of our culture – despite the geographic spread of the organization and each office still manages to retain a small business friendliness that is often diluted in the enterprise”.

Part 4.1: Organisational Communication:

As said by the management of the organization business communication is one of the most important parts of the organization as because absence of proper and efficient communication can result into disaster. The mentioned organization takes care of communication by organizing meetings and personally interacting with the employees. This helps the maintenance of coordination between the employees and the different departments of the organization. DataCom Group being a leading IT company uses its strong communication channel to connect its branches spread in North America and Europe (Yu & Ko, 2017). The communication channel of the company enables it to hold meetings between the branches and investors while making crucial business decisions.

Part 4.2: Leadership:

            Organisational communication leads to the second important requirement of a strong organisation, leadership. Appropriate communication channel encompasses both the internal and external environment. The lower level like the sales executives and customer care executives are in direct contact with the market. They communicate the market information to the managers who in turn communicate the same to the apex management. The apex management makes strategies and communicate them to the middle level managers and ultimately to lower level managers. Thus, by attribute organisational leadership is dependent on communication and gives way to decision making (Yu & Ko, 2017). Organisational leadership on the bottom-top view also forms the base of execution of strategies and ultimately to the high performance of the organisations. The strong communication network of Datacom helps it to establish a strong information network among departmental heads and subordinates. The communication enables the departmental heads gain participation of team members in the strategy execution, thus enabling them to lead their departments effectively (Bonaccio et al., 2016).

Organisational Leadership

Part 4.3: Organisational culture:

            Healthy organisational culture is the outcome of strong organisational communication and organisational leadership. The discussion clearly shows that the strong employee centric organisational culture paves ways for organisational development (Cheung & Yiu, 2014). The success of Datacom Group in the markets like the UK in spite of presence of strong resident IT company bear testimony to the strong organisational culture. It can be inferred that this strong organisational culture is the outcome of strong leadership and communication running through the entire length and breadth of the company (Yu & Ko, 2017).

Part 5: Discussion:

Part 5.1: Organisational communication:

Promptness of the managers indicates their awareness towards the workplace activities. Specific replies to the questions are praiseworthy in terms of efficient execution of the duties and responsibilities. Regularity in the meetings and conferences enhances the unity and coordination between the personnel. Involvement of the board panel in the meetings is fruitful in terms of achieving effective solutions for the workplace issues (Andriof et al., 2017). Discussions and open forums provide the staffs with the platform for voicing out the opinions regarding the issues, which they face while executing the allocated duties and responsibilities. Involving the statutory bodies of law in the meetings, results in the legal investigations. Counselling sessions with the staffs makes the managers aware of their specific needs and demands. Consistency in these sessions enhances the stability in the relationship between the managers and employees of Datacom. Providing the employees with the opportunities of presentations would enhance their communicative skills. This opportunity would determine their capabilities towards creating impression on the managers (Cheung & Yiu, 2014).

Part 5.2: Leadership:

The managers of Datacom are of the view that challenges are an inevitable part of the business activities. Challenge stains the workplace culture. Controlling every employee is difficult for the managers, as it indicates compromise with the other business activities. This incapability contradicts the aspect of leadership. Leaders need to maintain the balance between all the activities. Here, one of an important aspect is communication, which possesses flexibility to solve half of the workplace issues. If the managers indulge in communication with the employees, they would be able to assess the effectiveness, appropriateness and feasibility of their leadership skills (Shu, Chiang & Lu, 2018).

Regularity in the counselling sessions is beneficial in terms of mitigating the conflicts and misunderstandings. However, ethical approach needs to be maintained by the leaders for gaining trust, loyalty and dependence from the clients. Consideration of Data Protection Act (1998) is effective in terms of protecting the private belongings of the employees. Respecting the privacy of the employees would enhance the personality of the managers, driving them towards the path of leadership. Herein lays the appropriateness of the Transformation Theory in terms of the transformations, which comes in the behaviour of the managers after gaining the confidence regarding the capability towards managing the employees (Andriof et al., 2017). Evaluation generates self-organizational skills making the manager great before the staffs. Utilizing this achievement for bringing further improvements is a planned action in terms of enhancing the professional development (Iqbal, Anwar & Haider, 2015).

Organisational Culture

            Countering this, self-introspection is both personal and professional development. This is because the managers are altering their personality for creating a positive image in the minds of the employees (Cheung & Yiu, 2014).

Part 5.3: Organisational culture:

Organizational culture is an integral part of the workplace. This aspect determines the approach of the employees towards the customs and traditions. Maintenance of the workplace culture is crucial for achieving success. The managers are of the view that maintaining a healthy working environment is beneficial for enhancing the professionalism of the employees. The managers of Datacom are proud of their culture. However, in spite of being proud, the manager should preserve the culture. Friendliness between the staffs is an epitome of workplace culture in companies like Datacom. Following ethical code of conduct can be considered as a wise example of preserving the organizational culture (Shu, Chiang & Lu, 2018).

Part 6: Conclusion:

            The following report has been able to meet the objectives of the research. The report has been successful to highlight the different aspects of the management of Datacom and has also been able to make sure to address the different aspects and concepts upon which the following organization works. The thorough analysis of the following study will help the readers to get knowledge of communication, leadership and culture of a business organization in the modern market.

Part 7: Recommendations:

            Organizational communication being an important aspect for the growth and development of any organization, it becomes necessary to improve it at all expense. There are many recommendations that can be implied for the improvement of organizational communication which are as follows:

• Wholehearted interaction: One of the major ways to improve workplace communication is to maintain a level of interaction among the different sets of employees belonging to the different ranks and orders. One way communication should be discouraged and shy employees should be reached out at all levels to improve their confidence level.
• Local Intranet Software: Investment of the company in local intranet software can also be done at a regular basis so that chatting, communicating among the different employees becomes easier, and it makes a place for the official communication too without any hassle.
• Common goal: Setting up of a common goal is another way to improve organizational communication system as the employees when advocated towards a common goal is prone to make better communication among them, which again is the desirable element.
• Improvement of culture: Lack of organizational culture is another reason of low organizational communication, which can be altered by improving the culture of a particular place. The improvement of the culture can be done by a number of factors like taking the note of the problem that the employees are facing and sorting out problems according to the needs in consultation with the workers. The improvement of workplace culture is heavily related to the improvement of workplace communication which is again depends heavily on good HR policies.
• Conferences: Conferences and team outings are another way to maintain the workplace communication at the organizational level. The conferences and team outings make sure to maintain the healthy communication among the people and make the organization a more cordial place to work for.
• Mobile technology: The technological advancement for mobiles is another way to improve workplace communication at the organizational level. The company can develop a mobile app that can be used to maintain the grievances and suggestions of the employees which can again make the whole organizational communication process healthy.
• Social Media: Social media is one of the most important aspects of the modern world where the people from different arena get to know and communicate with each other. Using this medium for the effective organizational communication is one of the easiest ways by forming a company page where the employees can communicate effectively.

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