Blog #3 - Company to Customer Communication

During the fourth week of my internship, while in a meeting with the contract control division, much conversation was brought up around the communication process between Ericsson-LG and customers (SKT, KT, and LGu+).  These three customers are the three main companies within Korea, possessing the highest subscription rates to Ericsson-LG electronic hardware/software.

Even though Ericsson likes to admit that a large majority of their sales is from hardware products like hard-drives, conferences-phone technology, and enterprise solutions, the vast majority of products that yield the most amount of sales development comes from telecommunication software.  For example, when an individual who has SKT, KT, or LGu+ carrier service, and he/she makes a connection via their terminal (cellphone), an electronically wireless signal is sent out which is caught by a biotical transverse system, which in turn connects to a mass Ericsson connection center, ultimately connection the terminal owner to it’s desired connection.

The reason for that elaborate explanation is that all three customers have maintenance and service contracts with Ericsson, almost like product warranties if you will.  It is because of this service contract that the communication process between Ericsson-LG and the customers goes far beyond the general buying and selling of software.  It is within this service contract process that the company reaches the vast majority of contract complexities.

The service agreement contract (warranties with products) have an 18-month lifespan.  What this means is that if there is any problem/fault with the product within that 18-month window, Ericsson-LG will send out a service and maintenance team (GNTEL) to fix the problem.  If the customer is outside of this 18-month window, they must extend their service/maintenance agreement for a large fee.

What this entire process creates is a company to customer relationship.  Within the contract control team, certain team members are delegated to working closely with the communication department to initiate and carry out request, complaints, and proposals by the three major customers.  These team members develop a “face” for the company, ultimately forming the existing relationship with the customer.  Maintaining this relationship is key, in that the end result is that the customers will continue to purchase contracts from the company, continuing relational ties with each other.

An example of a somewhat simple communication process between Ericsson-LG and a customer is the contract renewal process.  This process requires a team from both Ericsson-LG and the customer to meet, modify the respective contract, finalize it, and obtain a signature from both parties.  Maybe somewhat simple is an understatement, but this is a very common communication process that occurs on a monthly basis between the companies.  Various contracts are controlled by different people.  Each contract is normally controlled by a specific person in attempt to maintain a personal relationship with the customer.

Blog #2 - Operation Development and Support

This past week, I have spent the majority of my time working very closely with the operation development and support teams.  Within these teams, there are external affairs, theme audit, and ethic management.  It has been very interesting to form a perspective on the dynamics that exist within an organization when the auditing process is occurring.

Normally, (at least in Korea) the company being audited from the external auditing company will inform the company that they will be audited.  This gives the company ample time to run an internal audit (as long as it’s not tax) to try and find any misstatement, discrepancies and such.  This is an extremely important process because if they do find something that is unfixable, they are able to form an explanation for the external auditors.  This avoids being blindsided and having the external auditors present this to local government.

The most common audit misstatement or discrepancy findings are found within expense reports.  For example, when Yangwoo Kim, head of internal auditing group was teaching me how they conduct the fieldwork (longest process of auditing), he came across something that looked somewhat suspicious.  What he had found was an extensive list of expense claims from the sales department.  He explained that they had been on an entertainment business trip to promote customer relations.  However, the expenses he was seeing were from after the trip, indicating some company credit card misuse.  He explained to me that he would now have to develop a plan to audit the department, request voucher information along with credit card information, conduct the fieldwork, and give an internal review to produce a report which he would present to either the deputy CFO or even CEO.  That same week, Yangwoo came back to me to show me that after he had completed the entire auditing process, he found that customers were brought back to Seoul to continue further business.  Upon their arrival into Seoul, they had taken them to lunch, dinner, and for a small workshop.  He explained that if he had neglected to find this information, the external auditors would have found it and he would have been blindsided and left to explain what the deal was.  However, because he had done this, the claims were processes and noted legitimate 

This may seem like a long and tedious process that a company went through to finding “nothing”, but what it represents is the following up that exists within a company to ensure the financial ethnics of expense claims and so on.  Ericsson-LG does extensive work to ensure that all employees are behaving in a manner that represents all the core values they stand for; professionalism, respect, and perseverance.  It is incredibly important for companies to consistently follow what they believe in and have a standardized system of management to ensure that all levels of the company are held to a unified level of standards.

Blog #1 - Internal Communication Dynamics

During the first couple weeks of my internship, I have noticed a reoccurring theme that leaders bring up throughout meetings and presentations; the breakdown of management.  I have come to realize that each and every company, whether it exists as a tangible document or not, has a Christmas tree (top leaders, down to the lowest subordinates) of leaders/managers that will ultimately be the key components to the running of the company.  This “Christmas tree” not only represents the chain of command within a company, but the dynamics of how employees are expected to communicate important information in order to meet the higher commands approval and awareness.

During a human resource management presentation by SeungMyun Lee, the head of the HR delivery team, a heavy concentration was given to the awareness of the communication processes that exist within different management teams.  For example, when the director of treasury receives a proposal from a subordinate for collection of payment from a customer, he/she must receive approval from the deputy CEO.  If the deputy CEO deems the request simple enough to approve himself, there is no need to follow up with the CEO of the company.  This small example of the existing communication processes between employee’s displays the importance of effectively and appropriately sharing information in order to meet an end result.

Ericsson-LG Korea is an international company.  Their Korean operations employs over 1,200 employees, the majority whom are Korean.  That being said, the vast majority of top management heads are Swedish.  Even though all Ericsson employees speak fluent English, I have witnesses a fair amount of existing communication conflicts within the company.  For example, some departments are all Koreans, and others have one, two, or maybe even three western workers.  Being that none of the western workers speak Korean, this imbalanced ratio of western to Korean department members creates for inconsistent processes throughout the company.  For example, there are departments that operate entirely in Korean and find themselves managing themselves in very Korean habits, that for the most part work just fine.  And then the mix of Korean and Western departments find themselves adjusting (speaking in English, writing memos in English, etc.) to make the department run as efficiently as possible.  What this creates is an inefficient communication dynamic between departments.  Because each department operates in their own certain way, the standardized system of communication has more of less been abandoned, hindering the ability of superiors to monitor the effectiveness of each department.

This conflict has in no way disallowed Ericsson-LG to be successful, but it is very interesting to monitor how a multiracial company adjusts their operation and communication techniques in order to compensate for racial and linguistic difference.  Even though I am an employee of the company, and am very much so involved in everyday activities, I have a privileged perspective on these type of relational dynamics within the company.