Marconi Telecommunications Case Study
Marconi Telecommunication Corporation (Martel) was one of Canada’s most international telecommunications providers. It was planning a rapid expansion in Latin America due to opportunities and a need for growth. It had acquired Lerida Telecom of Mexico (Lerida) and sent 14 managers to the country to create an atmosphere of partnership. Martel had a process for selecting candidates for international placements that made language a priority and other technical skills major concerns. The Lerida deal had been completed unexpectedly and thus, there was a surge in demand for managers. At that time, though, Martel had only half the number of required managers prepared for the assignment.
The compensation packages for the expatriates were considered to the average of other Canadian telecommunications companies; however, they were inferior to that of American and European telecommunications companies. Although the benefits were pretty good, the base salary itself was comparatively low for Martel expatriates. Individual packages were not negotiated with the managers. There was very little formal preparation before going to Mexico both for the managers and for their spouses. There were three groups of expatriates: “traditional”, “international”, and “traditional and international”. Each group had different reactions to the relocation and Martel is trying to consolidate the learning from Mexico in order to apply the same in other Latin American countries.
I think that Martel is unable to take full advantage of its international management experience in Mexico due to its poor expatriate management policies. Thus, it is not able to rapidly grow into other Latin American countries successfully.
In this situation, Martel needs to first outline a selection process that would make the language either a requirement or a high priority skill since Spanish is a necessity for doing business in Latin America. The lack of knowledge could be excused only