Principles of Management – Motorola Inc

Principles of Management – Motorola Inc

Motorola Inc. was an American telecommunication multinational headquartered in Schaumburg in Illinois state. Motorola designed and manufactured wireless network tools such as; signal amplifiers and cellular transmission base stations. Motorola competed only with Nokia and in its initial years in the mobile phone industry, and it commanded over 21% of the market in 2011 (Carlson, 2011).   However, after a few years, the company lost its market share to less than 2% by 2014.

1. Management planning

Motorola’s failure can be attributed to many factors, but the most notable aspect was the inability of the management to take risks and try new things. The management’s fear and inability to steer the company to take further steps toward the unknown was the major undoing of this famous company. The management at Motorola failed to lead the company to adopt 3G. While other companies such as LG, Samsung, and Apple were embracing 3G, Motorola was reluctant, and it ended up lurking behind this technological innovation (Anderson, 2008). Secondly, Motorola management focused on designing and developing many devices. In other words, it spends most of its energy and resources developing different products at the expense of refining them to be better products that would compete effectively with those of the competitors. On the other hand, Apple focused on designing a few products to develop refined products that would appeal to consumers (Sapiennce, 2020). Thus, many products that Motorola focused on failed to embrace the consumers because those of the competitors were better.

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Samsung, LG, Nokia, and Apple have superior products making those of Motorola look inferior; hence, the company incurs huge losses. Thirdly, Motorola’s management failed to embrace and implement innovation (Fishman, 2014). The telecommunication industry thrives on innovation. Therefore, firms in this industry must adopt and invest heavily in innovation to remain competitive (Sapiennce, 2020). While many telecommunication companies such as Apple and Samsung invested heavily in smartphone design and manufacturing, Motorola was reluctant to try this new application. Thus, it remained behind since its mobile phone products were inferior to smartphones.

1. b) Employees’ perception and the organization’s culture

The management tends to significantly affect the employees’ perception and the organization’s culture; this fact was much more pronounced in Motorola management. As a telecommunication company. Motorola was supposed to behave in an innovative culture to remain competitive. However, the leadership that led this company from 2000 to 2015 was not keen on innovation. Hence, the company’s innovation culture waned (Carlson, 2011). This is why innovative companies like Apple overtook Motorola in designing and manufacturing telecommunication equipment (Anderson, 2008). While other companies were innovating products that matched 3G, Motorola was comfortable manufacturing the 2G products.

The company did not have any sense of urgency; it was slow in its innovation, and this sluggish innovation gave the competitors who innovated fast a competitive advantage. Employees’ perception at Motorola was also much influenced by the management. Apple is rated as the best place to work by employees with 4 out of 5. In contrast, Motorola employees rated it a 2.5 out of 5 (Carlson, 2011). There were rumours that employees were unfairly treated at Motorola, there were unfair promotions full of politics, and employees were paid low salaries. All these weaknesses were due to poor management, and they immensely affected employees’ perceptions.

1. c) Role of communication

Essentially, communication at Motorola played a significant role in the inability of the management to boost employees’ performance. Motorola started experiencing problems, especially when Iridium, its subsidiary, filed for bankruptcy. It created a massive layoff of workers (Fishman, 2014). In 2000, Motorola had more than 150,000 employees, but by the end of 2004, it had cut down the number of employees to about 68,000 employees. The company did not make official communication to employees for them to understand its drastic measures (Carlson, 2011).  Lack of proper communication with the employees greatly affected employees’ performance since employees were always anxious about what would happen at any time. Employees knew that they might be laid off at any time hence; they were not motivated to give it all to their duties at the company, affecting their overall performance (Sapiennce, 2020). Great innovators such as Apple, LG, and Samsung engaged and communicated well with their employees. Some of the ideas translated to great innovation by these companies came from employees.

Reference

Anderson, H. (2008). 10 reasons why Motorola failed. Retrieved from https://www.networkworld.com/article/2277903/10-reasons-why-motorola-failed.html

Carlson, N. (2011). Compared To Googlers, Motorola’s 19,000 Employees Hate Their Jobs. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/compared-to-googlers-motorolas-19000-employees-hate-their-jobs-2011-8?r=US&IR=T

Fishman, C. (2014). What Happened to Motorola? Retrieved from https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/September-2014/What-Happened-to-Motorola/

Lingel, N. (2016).  Motorola brought us the mobile phone but merged out of existence. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/motorola-brought-us-the-mobile-phone-but-ended-up-merged-out-of-existence-33967

Sapiennce, S. (2020). The Rise and Fall of Motorola. Retrieved from  https://startupsapience.medium.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-motorola-f4a20646b47f

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Principles of Management – Motorola Inc

For this assignment, you will submit a one- to two-page document that will provide a profile of your chosen struggling company. This milestone must cover the critical elements below. You are expected to provide a minimum of two to three paragraphs for each of the three critical elements, which include: management planning, employee perception and organizational culture, and communication. Be sure to focus on the company at the time of their struggle.

Motorola:

What Happened to Motorola

What Happened to Motorola

BY TED C. FISHMAN

AUGUST 25, 2014,

https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/September-2014

10 Reasons Why Motorola Failed

10 reasons why Motorola failed

By Howard Anderson

Network World | APR 9, 2008 12:00 AM PST

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2277903

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

1. Profile of a Struggling Company
2. Assess how the management planning practices interfere with or prohibit the organization’s ability to optimally function. You could consider using the fundamental principles of management in your explanation.
3. Describe how the employees’ perception and organizational culture have been impacted by management’s performance. You could consider the connections between management and its impact on culture.
4. Explain how communication has played a part in management’s inability to increase employee performance. You could consider the connections to specific communication barriers that exist within the organization.