TC Company was, until about 20 years ago, a national telephone company that enjoyed monopoly status, but a decision to deregulate by the government means that it is now exposed to aggressive competition from new suppliers, in particular:

Telephone services being supplied by cable TV companies; and Mobile phone services.

TC Company did set up a mobile phone network, but it was late into the market with relatively poor marketing skills and never achieved a profitable market share. After a few years, the company sold its mobile phone undertaking to a larger mobile phone operator. More recently, the company sought additional income through the provision of broadband services. Although the company has been successful in attracting many subscribers to these services, it found that VOIP (voice over internet protocol) suppliers, such as Skype, had developed technology that would allow broadband customers to hold telephone conversations for no additional call costs. As customers increasingly choose mobiles, broadband and VOIP, TC Company's is finding it difficult to maintain its call revenues.

TC Company also, even after 20 years, still suffers from its history as a monopoly provider; its bureaucratic culture and structure means that it tends to be slower to respond to market changes than the new entrants. The high proportion of telephone engineers who belong to the telecoms trade union does not help this situation. When earlier this year, TC Company announced job cuts, the trade union members voted for industrial action that lasted for several weeks and cost the Company millions in lost revenue.

Additional, recent innovations being marketed by the company include:

The introduction of a service that allows people on the move to access the Internet at selected public venues using a wireless enabled laptop.

Related to the above service, technology which will allow mobile phone users to make cheap VOIP calls.

This installation of the required wireless access points does, however, require training in new skills and the engineers required to undertake this training have threatened strike action in support of a large pay increase to compensate them for using the new skills required for the job.

Required:

(a) Identify the internal and external triggers for change in the strategy and operations of TC Company. Discuss the difficulties that the Company is likely to experience in introducing the change programme.

(b) Evaluate the success of TC Company in managing the change process to date. By application of any model of change management, explain how TC Company might go about managing change in the future.

(c) Assuming that the need to transform TC Company was identified and championed by senior management, describe some of the political mechanisms that they might have used to deal with any reluctance of middle managers to resist change.