Greg James
TSEDAL NEELEY THOMAS J. DELONG
Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A)
Greg James, a global manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun), slumped on the edge of his bed in the company’s corporate flat in Paris. He struggled to even move after only three hours of sleep.
James had embarked on this unexpected trip from Sun’s Santa Clara, California, headquarters six days earlier. With only a few hours’ notice, he had set out to meet with his entire 45-member customer implementation team spread across India, France, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States (US). He had already met with his team members in the US, India, and the UAE. France was his final stop before heading home. For the second time, the team had failed to respond promptly to a customer system outage as required by a service contract agreement. James had begun this trip assuming he would find a swift resolution to the rapidly escalating customer situation that had motivated it. Unfortunately, that had not been the case.
James knew that if he could just make it to the gym, exercise would invigorate him and clear his head: “Five more minutes and then I’ll go.” Twenty minutes later, still in his room, he grabbed his laptop and launched his e-mail.
Re: HS Holdings
James scanned his inbox, reliving the events that had plunged him into this predicament. Six days earlier, he had received a string of e-mails, forwarded to him by his team. Rahul Ashok, service manager for the Mumbai team, was in touch with Praveen Devilal (one of Ashok’s team members in Mumbai) and Nick Elliott and Robert Chan in Santa Clara to trace the source of the breakdown:
To: Greg James (Global Manager, Santa Clara) Fw: FYI in re: HS Holdings Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 06:58:40 PST From: Robert Chan (Sales Account Manager, Santa Clara Team): V. Urgent To: Rahul Ashok (Customer Service Manager, Mumbai Team)
Managing a Global Team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A)
Greg James, a global manager at Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun), slumped on the edge of his bed in the company’s corporate flat in Paris. He struggled to even move after only three hours of sleep.
James had embarked on this unexpected trip from Sun’s Santa Clara, California, headquarters six days earlier. With only a few hours’ notice, he had set out to meet with his entire 45-member customer implementation team spread across India, France, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States (US). He had already met with his team members in the US, India, and the UAE. France was his final stop before heading home. For the second time, the team had failed to respond promptly to a customer system outage as required by a service contract agreement. James had begun this trip assuming he would find a swift resolution to the rapidly escalating customer situation that had motivated it. Unfortunately, that had not been the case.
James knew that if he could just make it to the gym, exercise would invigorate him and clear his head: “Five more minutes and then I’ll go.” Twenty minutes later, still in his room, he grabbed his laptop and launched his e-mail.
Re: HS Holdings
James scanned his inbox, reliving the events that had plunged him into this predicament. Six days earlier, he had received a string of e-mails, forwarded to him by his team. Rahul Ashok, service manager for the Mumbai team, was in touch with Praveen Devilal (one of Ashok’s team members in Mumbai) and Nick Elliott and Robert Chan in Santa Clara to trace the source of the breakdown:
To: Greg James (Global Manager, Santa Clara) Fw: FYI in re: HS Holdings Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 06:58:40 PST From: Robert Chan (Sales Account Manager, Santa Clara Team): V. Urgent To: Rahul Ashok (Customer Service Manager, Mumbai Team)