Management of Human Resources-Assignment 1 In order to critically assess and recommend alternatives, I would like firstly to give a brief description of the business crisis the company was facing and the subsequent need for change in the company’s overall business strategy. I would then like to focus on the key aspects of the firm’s human resources strategy and the changes that were made in order to supplement the overall changes in the business strategy.Business Crisis:International Computers Limited (ICL) was born in 1968 out of the merger between English Electric Computers (EEC) and International Computers and Tabulators. With 40 million of government support it developed over a period of 6 years, an independent series of computers that was incompatible with IBM computers. IBM had garnered a 50% share of the UK computer market and the government felt the only way to stem this growth was through the integration of British high tech firms. With the government as one of its major customers and through several strategic acquisitions and product diversifications during the 1970’s, the company managed to achieve growth rates of around 20%. But this growth did not continue for long as the recession struck in 1979 and growth rates spiralled. By late 1980 the company was facing a 100 million shortfall in orders, in spite of having taken some major redundancy procedures. The firm was on the verge of bankruptcy when the government agreed to act as a guarantor for a 270 million bank overdraft. The government subsequently exercised its power of guarantee by installing a new chairman and two new directors, one of who was Robb Wilmott, the new MD. Wilmott was a perceptive man who realised that the only way ICL was going to survive was by planning for the long-term and this was to be achieved by formulating a new product strategy and a complete change in the way it did business. Sparrow P 1995 International Computers Limited (ICL...
