Greg James at Sun Microsystems was managing a global team responsible for supporting HS Holding, a banking client, when HS Holding's banking system went down for 2 hours on a Sunday night, causing business disruptions. An investigation found root causes including incorrect procedures being followed, a mistake in the ticketing system design, and a lack of direct communication between teams from different cultures. To address issues, James' next actions include writing new clear procedures, increasing communication between teams by doing monthly business trips, rotating tasks between teams, and diversifying communication styles to account for cultural differences. Lessons learned focus on clearly defining roles and responsibilities, improving communication for remote teams, and holding management meetings in rotating locations.

1. MANAGING A GLOBAL TEAM
GREG JAMES AT SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC..
Emanuele Garzelli |Abdulmonam Buargoub |Xiaojing Tang(Myra)
Vishal Sah | Michele Di Francesco | Ruchika Aggarwal

2.  Case Overview
• Brief Introduction of Sun Microsystems
• Brief Contextualization of the problem
 Root Cause Analysis
 Next Action of James
 Conclusion and lessons learned
Content

3. Overview
• Provides companies
with complete IT
solutions, such as
hardware, software,
storages and
services
Sun Microsystems
• TIC acts as HS’s
Holding’s agent to
communicate
directly with
suppliers like Sun.
TIC
• An American
company active in
banking services.
HS Holding

4. Sun Microsystems Teams in charge for HS
Holding covering different time zones
USA: 11 FTE: HQ,
Technical Support Team,
Product Technical Support
Team
France: 7 FTE: Technical Support, Business
Development. India: 16 FTE: Technical
Support, Coding,
Engineering
UAE: 11 FTE: Engineering,
Project Management

5. On Sunday night 23.30 US time (12.00 Mumbai time), HS holding banking system went down
for 2 hours.
Sun Microsystems was not able to promptly respond to the incident and the following
business disruption was so intense that HS holding is threatening a lawsuit against Sun
Microsystems.
Consequences to Sun Microsystems
• Risk of being lawsuited and pay damages to HS Holding
• Request to reimburse $300K paid annually by HS Holding as premium to reiceve 24/7
assistance.
• Brand image deterioration
• Breach of contract (potential in case problem happens again)
The Incident

6. Ticket was put in
the wrong queing
system
India team failed
to reach on call
manager
India team didn’t escalate
the incident to US
supervisors
India team was not able to
contact HS Holding contact
because wrong number was
in the phone number register
Error in the
design of the
ticketing system
Use of the wrong
communication
procedure
India team doesn’t want to
call US supervisor because
they heard him considering
them not competent
Events
Root Causes
US team didn’t update phone
number of customer contact
Incident
Timeline of the incident
Mon.12.00, IST
Sun.23,30, PST
Mon,14,00, IST
Mon.01,30, PST

7. Root Cause Analysis
Didn’t escalate to Nick as India
team believes Nick insulted
Indian Competence
Nick
(App Support Engineer)
U.S.
Mumbai
Rahul
(Support Engineer)
Nick didn’t update contact detail
when HS Holding person in charge
was replaced by a new colleague.
Person in charge
HS Holding
India team tried to solve the incident
by itself but without the ticket it was
impossible to obtain HS Holding
details so they contacted HS Holding
person in charge but contact detail
was not updatedU.S. Team
U.S.
Paged 3 Times using weekday
procedure while still weekend in
U.S
Jamal
(Software Engineer)
Dubai
According to Praveen
Queue Wrongly Programmed
by Dubai
According to Jamal
Mumbai is Responsible for
Emergency

8. 40
91
62
46
26
6868 71
43
86
63
48
90
25
50
8077
48
56
40
51
26
Power Distance Individualism Masculiniy Uncertainity
Avoidance
Long Term
Orientation
Indulgence
Geert Hofstede ‘s Culture Dimensions
USA France UAE* India
USA team is not happy because
French team gets many holidays. All
teams do feel USA team gets many
privileges and its the hardest and
slowest to reach and respond.
Dubai manager doesn’t get along
with India team because he is
Pakistani, Dubai team is afraid about
becoming a subgroup of India office.
French Team does’t like USA team
because they earn 30% more even
though they have same skills and
duties of their US colleagues.
Indian team feels descriminated by
USA team, they believe they only get
boring and technical fires duties.
Role of cultural differencies
Source：https://geert-hofstede.com/united-states.html

9. Role of open work environment
Task Relationship
Cultures more relationship
oriented such as India and
UAE do suffer open work
environment because of the
lack of direct communication
Universalism Particularism

10. Collaboration Galaxy
Core Team
Greg James
Global Manager
US
Robert Chan
Sales Account Manager
US
Extended team
Nick Elliot
Application Support Engineer
US
Rahul Ashok
Customer Service Manager
India
Stakeholders
Stephen Spurlock
Global Vice President
US
Ahmed Nazar
Customer Service
Manager UAE
Jamal
Software Engineer
UAE
TICFrench team
HS Holding

11. Error in the design of
the ticketing system
Wrong use of the
procedure for the
emergency calls
No direct communication:
cultural misconception.
Open Work environment
adaptation is not the same
for each culture
Customer emergency
contact not updated
Write new procedures with clear rules and responsibilities involving all department heads.
Diversify communication style on the base of different cultural dimensions.
James`s Next Action
Increase communication with UAE and India teams doing biz trips on monthly base
Rotate tasks through teams
Change conference call agenda giving priority to India and UAE teams who could not stay
up too late because of the time gap.

12.  Always be clear when dividing jobs,
 Better to rotate teams and responsabilities,
 Teams very far in distance should be visited often,
 Diverisify communication style on the base of culture,
 On fixed period base there should be live management meeting in rotating
locations
Lessons learned
Q&A?