One.Tel was launched by Jodee Rich and Brad Keeling in 1995 (Cook, 2001). At first, it looked to get the advantages from deregulation of telecommunication industry by reselling other network’s capacity and making money through stock market speculation. Rich and Keeling tried to increase the company’s shares rather than to profit the company (Cook, 2001). Initially, One.Tel used to develop the culture of strong teamwork and togetherness. There was no hierarchy in the structure of the company. However, the dissonance of its culture and system is the main factor that led to One Tel decline.
One.Tel failure had been indicated since there was a sharp fall in its share price in 1999 (Cook, 2001). In 2001, OneTel had no cash left to pay the expenses and it had huge debt. The company expanses too fast so that the billing system cannot handle it and the customers did not receive their accounts. Jodee Rich, as the main founder of the company, did not pay attention to any problem reported. All these factors made One.Tel could not stand in the crisis time.
Major Issues
Major issues face by OneTel is that the company structure was not developed, in which lead to ineffective communication. In its operation, One.Tel run high centralization as the managers only do what Jody told them. He creates the leadership turnover since he liked promoting the yes man and humiliated managers who brought problems to his attention, therefore, there are high staff turnover. He also did not accept any opinions from others and used his authority to manage the company. Furthermore, he focused too much on advertisement in taking in the new customers. He was too autocratic which made the employees unable to exercise their ability in solving problem.
In addition, One.Tel had low complexity that is determined by having unclear job tasks and responsibilities. As there is no organizational chart, the relationship between the employees could not be determined and the job descriptions
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