Reference no: EM132856114
Grow Digital is an initiative by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Enterprise Singapore (ESG) under the SMEs Go Digital programme. The COVID-19 crisis, imminent recession, and external uncertainties have forced many businesses to go digital, thereby, increasing the demand for digital solutions. Additionally, the Grow Digital initiative further spurred this demand. Spancom Solutions (Spancom) has emerged as one of the leading digital solutions providers in Singapore. Wing Ng, the company's founder and managing director, believes that the sudden surge in demand for digital solutions is a great opportunity to acquire new clients. However, the idea of accepting new clients when the company is already overwhelmed with excessive workload seems far-fetched. But, Ms. Ng, being a risk-taker, is hoping to find a way. She wonders if there are any other ways to meet the growing demand. She understands that there are key decisions to be made: partnership or outsourcing or recruitment of new staff. She calls for a management meeting.
The Company Background
Spancom has been helping local SMEs execute their e-commerce strategies by providing integrated digital solutions. Founded in 2013, the company is led by director Wing Ng, an entrepreneur with brilliant insights into digitalisation of business. With a strong local base coupled with impressive networking skills, Ms. Ng is supported by a dedicated management team and highly skilled staff. Furthermore, the company leverages on cloud computing and big data analytics to reach its objective of offering innovative and highly integrated technology solutions that create value for its clients. At Spancom creativity is nurtured, new ideas are encouraged, and integrity and inclusiveness are valued. Having established good long-term relationships with over thirty local SMEs, the company started expanding its services to cater to more clients including some international ones.
Current Operations and Staff
At its 15,000 square feet office located in the western part of Singapore, Spancom's 120 employees are organised around the company's key services, Business Development, Digital Marketing, Design, Content Writing, supported by Administration. Most employees are designated as Business Development Executives and Digital Marketing Executives and report to their respective Managers. The Design Executives report to Senior Designers the Content Writers report to Senior Content writers. One of the senior employees, Marcus, heads the administration, and his team supports all aspects of Spancom's operations including budgets and talent recruitment. All managers work closely with the managing director for various approvals and report to her. Marcus notes that although all the managers are hardworking and are good at their jobs they tend to keep to their own departments and not show any interest in what the others are doing, thereby, losing sight of what is best for the organisation overall. Marcus is convinced that it is time for Spancom to reorganise its structure. He shares his views with Ms. Ng in a well written proposal.
On a separate matter, the head of digital marketing, Joel, is facing a serious issue with one of the international e-commerce clients. The client wants to create website feature that categorises all "Made in China" products under a separate list. Furthermore, the client wants content that calls for customers to refrain from buying any "Made in China" products. Although, Joel thinks it is not right to go ahead with the client's request, it is difficult to reject such a client. Refusing this request could mean losing a big and important international client that could be risky when the company is just beginning to establish itself internationally. He is pressed to make a decision soon.
The Meeting
It is a rainy Monday morning, the managing director and the management team sat around the round table. Ms. Ng announced that Spancom would go ahead to accept ten more new SME clients. She asked Marcus to speed up new recruitment in digital marketing and business development.
(a) Managers face different types of problems and decisions they have to make when they perform their jobs. Identify, define, and then explain the two (2) different types of problems that managers at Spancom have to face, and two (2) different types of decisions that they may have to make.
(b) Someone behaves ethically or unethically, when facing an ethical dilemma, depends on some key factors that are covered in this course. State any four (4) factors that may affect the behaviour of staff of Spancom when they face an ethical dilemma, and provide relevant examples. Discuss the issue intensity factor pertaining to the ethical dilemma faced by Joel at Spancom.