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The GLOBAL MOBILE CORPORATION CASE

COMPANY HISTORY

Global Mobile Corporation has traced its lineage through several generations of electronics technology. Its original founder, Bob Murray, launched the firm in 1960 as Global Electronics & Equipment Co. to manufacture several electronic testing devices he had invented as an engineering faculty member at a large university. The firm entered into manufacturing communications equipment in 1980. The company entered the mobile phone market in the mid-to-late 1980s and changed its name to Global Mobile Corporation. In this market, Global Mobile had developed a reputation as a source of high-quality, innovative designs. The firm’s sales- people fed a continual stream of challenging problems into the engineering department, where the creative genius of Bontsi Morwaagole and several dozen other engineers “converted problems to solutions” (as the sales brochure bragged). Product design, especially hardware and structural design, formed the spearhead of Global Mobile’s growth.

By 2010, Global Mobile offered a wide range of products in two major lines. Mobile phone sales had benefited from the phenomenal growth of cell phones. However, the emergence of smart phones meant there was an increasing demand for phones with unique features, ranging from specialized screen displays, functions, applications, and novel form factors.

The company had grown from 100 employees in 1980 to more than 2,000 in 2010. (Figure 1 shows the current organization chart.) Charlotte Makgesi, who had been a student of the company’s founder, had presided over most of that growth and took great pride in preserving the family spirit of the old organization. Informal relationships between Global Mobile’s veteran employees formed the backbone of the firm’s day-to-day operations; all managers relied on personal contact. Makgesi often insisted that the absence of bureaucratic red tape was a key factor in recruiting outstanding engineering talent. This personal approach to management extended throughout the organization. Global Mobile boasted an extremely loyal group of senior employees, and very low turnover in nearly all areas of the company, except one. The position with the highest turnover  in the firm was the Director of Engineering Services.

Thero Dikgang had joined Global Mobile in January 2010, replacing Jim Brady as the Director of Engineering Services, who had lasted only ten months. Brady, in turn, had replaced Tom Swanson, a talented engineer who had made a promising start but had taken to drinking after a year in the job. Most believe that the stress from his job and highly strained relationship he faced at Global Mobile with lack of sufficient leadership support led him to a burnout and his drinking problem. Swanson’s predecessor had been a genial old-timer, who retired at 70 after 25 years in charge of engineering. (Bontsi Morwaagole had refused the directorship in each of the recent changes, saying, “Hell, that’s no promotion for a bench man like me. I’m no administrator.”