Telecom Eireann Is a Great

Telecom Eireann is a great example of how technological advancement of processes is not enough in and of itself to bring a firm up to speed with or ahead of its competition. Eireann's employee participation philosophy would see the company progressing in a positive direction but would also present a number of practical challenges to the managerial, organizational and technological structure of the firm. To the latter in particular, the case history tells that "until 1994 the company did not possess an IT strategy as such." (Butler & Fitzgerald, p. 3) This would present a key challenge to achieving a successful model for employee participation.

Key Information Technology Issues:

Eireann's strategy for resolving this multi-layered obstacle to success would be to integrate its development of IT processes with a higher degree of employee engagement. To this end, the company would effectively coordinate the structure and process of user participation at the point of system design. The case historic describes an IT implementation strategy that is at once 'industrial democratic' and 'participative'. Here, 'participatory design' (PD) and 'joint application design' (JAD) would call for testing and input by employees at every level of the organization. This approach would be driven by the understanding that those who would be the primary end users of the information and knowledge-sharing system would be best suited to inform its design and functionality.

Another change to the organization, also structural in nature, would be to heighten the role, visibility and dynamism of the IT department. The change in focus would also improve the relationship between the IT department and its population of end-users. The case study describes the development of a quality-based culture in which 'customer-focused' strategies have improved the orientation of the firm's technology systems. By requiring the IT department to correspond directly with personnel on the development front, Eireann would create technology systems aimed at conforming to end-user needs and expectations.

The first results would be the Generic Appointment System (GAS) and the Geographic Information System (GIS), which would substantially improve the efficiency of its employees by reducing unnecessary phone repair house visits and create a more usable and comprehensive telephone network database respectively. There were, of course, issues of resistance to the new technology, most particularly by users who felt that this approach did not substantially address the political issues that often impeded productivity. According to the case study, some employees felt of GAS and GIS that "these mechanisms were inappropriate because many of the problems users had with the system were of a 'political' nature -- that is, they were related to the changes wrought by the new systems on user work-related roles, remuneration, responsibilities and conditions, the automation of certain tasks by these systems and so on." (p. 11)

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