The current transformation process and the future

Most of the informants recognised that currently Sri Lanka Telecom is undergoing a restructuring process. However, the objectives and the implementation process were known only to two senior managers, from the Transformation Programme and the Corporate Strategy divisions. Based on their perceptions, I found that, as a part of the transformation process continuing from 2007, Sri Lanka Telecom is making major changes to its business model and revising its business strategies.

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A senior manager claimed that, because the future of the telecommunications industry is moving towards broadband services, Sri Lanka Telecom’s leadership in the industry is being challenged. For example, there is an increasing trend of customers using Skype and other internet based voice applications. Therefore, according to the senior manager, Sri Lanka Telecom initiated a transformation process in 2007 under the Japanese Chief Executive Officer, focusing on broadband and wholesale services. Sri Lanka Telecom has also entered into business partnerships with companies in related industries. According to another senior manager, the transformation process was initiated by top management and lower level employees became involved at the implementation stage. People from Sri Lanka Telecom interviewed customers and employees at all levels before planning and designing the transformation process. Once the transformation was planned, brainstorming sessions and workshops were organised to design and implement the proposed changes.

A senior manager claimed that:

Company එක trade union pressure එක . ක ,

Company එක transformation process එක ක

ක ඒ ක . ක ක communication

channels . , supervisors /managers එ

subordinates ක ක , Company එ newsletter එක

transformation process එ . ,

Company එක ක feedback .

The Company had pressure from the trade unions at the initiation point. However, the Company communicated information about the transformation process and obtained employee consent. This was done through internal communication channels. For example, supervisors/managers educated their subordinates about the changes, and the monthly newsletter of the Company communicated the current status of the transformation process. Moreover, the Company obtained employee feedback via the intranet.

Commenting on the transformation processes of Sri Lanka Telecom, he noted that:

Japanese Management එක “transformation”

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Transformation එක එක process එක . ඒක

එක එක එ .

Even though the Japanese management did not use the term “transformation” specifically, they did make significant changes to the Company. Transformation is a gradual and continuing process. It comes as waves, one after another.

His claim indicates that the change in Sri Lanka Telecom is a continuous process, one change followed by another change. For example, the recent quality assurance certification by the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) required changes to be made in other aspects of the organisation. These included changes to such things as procurement processes, and maintenance of appropriate documentation and quality of the products and services. That is, a given change leads to changes in various other aspects. These can lead to more changes in their area and in other areas. Commenting on recent changes to the nature of products and services provided by Sri Lanka Telecom, some senior managers related that Sri Lanka Telecom was planning for a major change in their business plans and had employed a consultant from British Telecom. The theme of this new project is “network to customers”, in which Sri Lanka Telecom is focusing on specific customer requirements. Sri Lanka Telecom was planning to complete this new project in 2013, by changing from being a traditional telephone operator to being a network and Internet based global service provider, and providing data services rather than telephone connections. This change was perceived by a senior manager as a part of the current customer-centric product strategy and a customer-relationship marketing strategy. These strategies aim to retain customers and attract new customers as now the industry is highly competitive. Specifically, Sri Lanka Telecom is planning to implement a new customer information system to meet the market information requirements. Some senior managers claimed that no strategic importance was given to market information before privatisation and previously all products of Sri Lanka Telecom were technology-based.

However, not that all these changes are necessarily perceived by everyone as such. Section 5.4 shows how different informants perceive and explain impermanence of

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Sri Lanka Telecom and the telecommunications industry differently. Each informant had knowledge about different aspects of the organisation. Thus, the organisation that one individual perceives at a given point in time was not the same as that of another informant. Further, most of the informants lacked knowledge about the organisation before the mid-1990s. Thus, they tended to explain change by comparing the organisation “before privatisation” with the organisation “after privatisation”. However, the evidence that I collected from other documents shows that even before privatisation the organisation has been impermanent in terms of various aspects.

5.5. Summary

In this chapter I have presented the knowledge that I constructed about the organisation and its context based on the change I perceived. My construction shows that there have been many influences on the organisation and it and its context have been continually changing (i.e., exhibit impermanence).

This chapter covered background knowledge that is important in order to understand the matters covered in Chapter Six. Sections 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 showed how I perceived the context of Sri Lanka Telecom. According to the knowledge that I constructed in each section, I perceived that Sri Lanka Telecom has not been operating in isolation and conditions in the context of Sri Lanka Telecom had influence on it and vice versa. Therefore, it was important to study as many aspects of the context as possible in order to perceive the impermanence in Sri Lanka Telecom and to construct a relatively comprehensive knowledge. As can be seen from Table 3, even if I do not perceive a change in a particular aspect, changes perceived in other aspects could be used to interpret and construct my knowledge on the change I perceived in Sri Lanka Telecom.

Evidence collected from documents written by various authors, in different periods, for different purposes, and information provided by various informants showed that knowledge about Sri Lanka Telecom is not independent of those authors, informants or myself. As mentioned in sections 4.3 and 4.4, the knowledge constructed in Section 5.4 shows that, depending on the ability to perceive impermanence (for example, limited availability of information to, interests of and experiences of informants), observers constructed various static entities of Sri Lanka Telecom. For instance,

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informants constructed entities of Sri Lanka Telecom as “before privatisation” and “after privatisation”; or “the Department period”, “the Corporation period” and “the Company period”. As discussed in Section 4.3, the evidence presented in this chapter shows that observers infer that the static entities they construct remain unchanged in between those intervals or do not articulate otherwise when speaking of these entities. However, I was able to construct more entities of the organisation as I possessed more information compared to the informants.

As the entities constructed at different point instances by various informants and by myself were different, the attributes of each entity constructed were also different. Moreover, from the evidence presented in this chapter, we can see that the attributes of Sri Lanka Telecom were subject to the knowledge that the observers constructed about the context of Sri Lanka Telecom. As I was aware of relatively more evidence about Sri Lanka Telecom and its context, the attributes of the entities that I constructed at various point instances were different from those the informants constructed. For instance, as informants possessed very limited knowledge about Sri Lanka Telecom until up to the 1980s, the entity they constructed as the “Department” differed from the entity that I constructed.

As explained in Section 4.4, each section of this chapter shows that the change perceived by the authors, informants or myself was relative to what they constructed as an entity at different point instances. For example, evidence presented in Section 5.4 showed that most of the informants perceived change of an entity, “after privatisation” relative to another entity “before to privatisation”. However, subsections in Section 5.4 show that as I constructed more entities of Sri Lanka Telecom, the change I perceived in Sri Lanka Telecom was relative to the entities that I constructed at different point instances as shown in Table 7. As the attributes of those entities constructed by observers were different, the perceived change in those entities was also different.

Construction of different static entities can be used to illustrate that the concept of time is a construction of individuals. As discussed in Section 4.5, the evidence presented in this chapter shows that observers construct time intervals subject to how they perceive change in the entities that they constructed in different aspects of the context of the organisation. The time intervals that I perceived in each aspect of the

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context of the organisation differed based on the perceived change of the entities that I constructed, and the level of significance that I, the authors of documentary sources, or the informants placed upon events perceived in Sri Lanka Telecom and its context. Accordingly, the time periods I identified for each aspect were different from those of the other authors or informants identified. For instance, as mentioned in Section 5.4.3, informants constructed periods as pre- and post-privatisation based on their knowledge of Sri Lanka Telecom and the level of significance they assigned to the event, that is privatisation. However, according to the evidence I obtained and presented in this chapter, Sri Lanka Telecom has been impermanent and I could identify more periods with relatively shorter intervals as shown in Section 5.4.

Further, as shown in Table 3, as I perceived changes in different aspects at varying point instances, the time intervals that I constructed for change in Sri Lanka Telecom did not coincide with the intervals constructed for other aspects. This is because construction of time periods depends on observers’ knowledge about what is being studied, the ability to perceive impermanence and the level of significance paid to what they perceived. Table 3 illustrated that as the intervals of change I perceived in Sri Lanka Telecom do not coincide with other aspects of the context, studying one or a few selected aspects of the context will be insufficient to provide interpretations of the change in Sri Lanka Telecom.

As explained in Section 4.8, consideration of the whole context will result in a more comprehensive interpretation of change of the organisation. Section 5.4 demonstrated how I was able to interpret the change I perceived in Sri Lanka Telecom drawing on knowledge from other aspects of its context. Claims by informants illustrated that they constructed different opinions, perceptions and knowledge about the change in Sri Lanka Telecom, and that they try to interpret change in terms of the few changes that they perceived in the context of the organisation.

The next chapter presents the knowledge that I constructed about the impermanence of accounting practices through association with the knowledge that I constructed and presented in this chapter.

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