managing a global team: sun microsystems business case
TRANSCRIPT
MANAGING A GLOBAL TEAMGREG JAMES AT SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC..
Emanuele Garzelli |Abdulmonam Buargoub |Xiaojing Tang(Myra)Vishal Sah | Michele Di Francesco | Ruchika Aggarwal
Case Overview• Brief Introduction of Sun Microsystems • Brief Contextualization of the problem
Root Cause Analysis
Next Action of James
Conclusion and lessons learned
Content
Overview
• Provides companies with complete IT solutions, such as hardware, software, storages and servicesSun Microsystems
• TIC acts as HS’s Holding’s agent to communicate directly with suppliers like Sun.
TIC• An American
company active in banking services.
HS Holding
Sun Microsystems Teams in charge for HS Holding covering different time zones
USA: 11 FTE: HQ, Technical Support Team, Product Technical Support Team
France: 7 FTE: Technical Support, Business Development. India: 16 FTE: Technical
Support, Coding, Engineering
UAE: 11 FTE: Engineering, Project Management
On Sunday night 23.30 US time (12.00 Mumbai time), HS holding banking system went down for 2 hours. Sun Microsystems was not able to promptly respond to the incident and the following business disruption was so intense that HS holding is threatening a lawsuit against Sun Microsystems.
Consequences to Sun Microsystems• Risk of being lawsuited and pay damages to HS Holding• Request to reimburse $300K paid annually by HS Holding as premium to reiceve 24/7
assistance.• Brand image deterioration• Breach of contract (potential in case problem happens again)
The Incident
Ticket was put in the wrong
queing system
India team failed to reach
on call manager
India team didn’t escalate the incident to
US supervisors
India team was not able to contact HS Holding
contact because wrong number was in the phone
number register
Error in the design of the ticketing system
Use of the wrong communication procedure
India team doesn’t want to call US supervisor because they heard him considering them not competent
Events
Root Causes
US team didn’t update phone number of customer contact
Incident
Timeline of the incident
Mon.12.00, IST
Sun.23,30, PST
Mon,14,00, IST
Mon.01,30, PST
Root Cause Analysis
Didn’t escalate to Nick as India team believes Nick insulted Indian Competence
Nick(App Support Engineer)
U.S.
Mumbai
Rahul(Support Engineer)
Nick didn’t update contact detail when HS Holding person in charge was replaced by a new colleague.
Person in chargeHS
Holding
India team tried to solve the incident by itself but without the ticket it was impossible to obtain HS Holding details so they contacted HS Holding person in charge but contact detail was not updatedU.S. Team
U.S.
Paged 3 Times using weekday procedure while still weekend in U.S
Jamal(Software Engineer)
Dubai
According to Praveen Queue Wrongly Programmed by Dubai
According to JamalMumbai is Responsible for Emergency
Power Distance
Individualism Masculiniy Uncertainity Avoidance
Long Term Orientation
Indulgence
40
91
6246
26
6868 71
43
86
6348
90
25
50
8077
4856
4051
26
Geert Hofstede ‘s Culture DimensionsUSA France UAE* India
USA team is not happy because French team gets many holidays. All teams do feel USA team gets many privileges and its the hardest and slowest to reach and respond.
Dubai manager doesn’t get along with India team because he is Pakistani, Dubai team is afraid about becoming a subgroup of India office.
French Team does’t like USA team because they earn 30% more even though they have same skills and duties of their US colleagues.
Indian team feels descriminated by USA team, they believe they only get boring and technical fires duties.
Role of cultural differencies
Source: https://geert-hofstede.com/united-states.html
Role of open work environment
Task Relationship
Cultures more relationship oriented
such as India and UAE do suffer open work
environment because of the lack of direct communicationUniversalis
m Particularism
Collaboration Galaxy
Core TeamGreg James
Global Manager
US
Robert ChanSales Account Manager US
Extended team
Nick ElliotApplication Support
Engineer US
Rahul AshokCustomer Service
Manager India Stakeholders
Stephen SpurlockGlobal Vice President
US
Ahmed NazarCustomer Service
Manager UAE
JamalSoftware Engineer
UAE
TICFrench team
HS Holding
Error in the design of the ticketing
system
Wrong use of the procedure for the emergency calls
No direct communication: cultural misconception. Open Work environment
adaptation is not the same for each culture
Customer emergency contact not updated
Write new procedures with clear rules and responsibilities involving all department heads.
Diversify communication style on the base of different cultural dimensions.
James`s Next Action
Increase communication with UAE and India teams doing biz trips on monthly base
Rotate tasks through teams
Change conference call agenda giving priority to India and UAE teams who could not stay up too late because of the time gap.
Always be clear when dividing jobs, Better to rotate teams and responsabilities, Teams very far in distance should be visited often, Diverisify communication style on the base of culture, On fixed period base there should be live management meeting in
rotating locations
Lessons learned
Q&A?