Progress Report #1

Presented to: Stephen Hudon

Contemporary Business Thinking-COMM 210 section EE
Concordia University-John Molson School of Business
Submitted on: October 6, 2015

Group # 17:
Rares Cosmin Bica (ID: 26629075)

Manpreet Parmar (ID: 27860617)

Abeer Aqdas (ID: 77770829)
Mohanad Hassanain ( ID: 26243800)

Topic

The topic chosen is the analysis of a successful Canadian industry, more particularly: the
transportation industry. Since this sector of the economy is dependent on the economic
cycles, clever thinking is required to maintain a competitive edge. Our claim will be; in
the Canadian transportation industry, the integration of technology allows better
coordination and communication in the workplace, which leads to companies success.
We want to find out, if investing in software and hardware facilitates the staff's work and
thus leads the corporation to thrive.

Since this sector includes air, ground and waterways of movement, major Canadian
corporations that are still currently active, shall be explored for every one of these
pathways so as to get a more representative sample.

Interviews

The candidates that will be interviewed will include employees of the companies in
question, other successful business owners and some of the immediate circle contacts of
our team:

1. Marc Boucher: Head of group management and quality at Bombardier

(Transportation)
2. Claude Mongeau: Chief Executive Officer at CN

3. Derek Eskildsen: Founder of Blue Monster Landscaping

4. Franois Hudon: Vice President and Co-founder at PNH
5. Denis Jacques: President and CEO Keysight Technologies Canada
6. Mutaz Hassanain, CEO commercial Director, SNC ltd.
7. Mujahid Qureshi , CEO Adsells pvt.Ltd.
8. Mohsin Sabir, Group Account manager, Adsells pvt.Ltd.
9. Asif Awan, CEO Direct Consumer Contact (DCC).
10. Umar Hayat, Operations Manager, Direct Consumer Contacts (DCC).
11. Cristian Bica, CN operator
12. Muhammad Aslam, CEO, Warraich Construction Company.

They will be contacted via telephone or in-person interviews with their convenience of
time kept in consideration. Some of the questions are the following:

1. Does the technology you currently use at work facilitate your work?
2. Do you consider the technology you work with a major determinant in the way
you conduct your workday?
3. Does the time that is saved by the use of technology allow you to be less stressed
at work?
4. Do you think an improvement in the software used at the workplace would permit
you to take on extra tasks?

The secondary sources used will be of electronic and written nature. They will help
confirm the results from the surveys and broaden our analysis.
Applicable Theory

The two fundamental business theories that we will be using to analyze our evidence are
Alfred D. Chandlers theory of management and investment, as well as Larry E.
Greiners of organizational growth.

Chandlers theory emphasizes the significance of investing in strong management

structure, scope & scale, taking advantage of being the first mover and paying attention to
diversification to have industrial success. His theory states that recruiting teams of
managers (lower & middle level) to coordinate and monitor, plan and allocate resources
for future activities creates competitive advantage. Furthermore, Chandler mentions
diversification, As I have already pointed out, growth came primarily by moving abroad
or into new markets in related industries (Chandler, 1990). In the global transportation
market we intend to show the advantage of technology to ease communication abroad.
We plan to use Chandlers theories about the importance of strong management structure
and diversification to support our research during this report.

We shall also use Greiner's theory of evolution and revolution of organizational growth to
relate how the use of technology helps a company grow by allowing better
communication and coordination through internal servers. In the transportation industry
and mainly the companies we will be looking at, autonomy crisis, delegation, control
crisis and coordination will be our major points of comparison. These two crises of
Greiners theory put great importance on the relationship between managers and their
employees for future growth. Also the two phases that follow these crises are solutions
that enable this growth to happen. We will analyze how greater internal technology can
overcome autonomy and control crises by, facilitating the communication pathway for
managers, making easier to understand directions for employees and creating flatter
hierarchies for companies.

Letter of introduction to interview

Subject: Seeking permission to conduct an interview for research purposes
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is Cosmin Rares Bica and I am a student enrolled in the Bachelor of Finance at
Concordia University. I am currently enrolled in a business course entitled
"Contemporary business thinking" in which we have to form a group and write a report
underlying the importance of the use of technology at the workplace. The intent of this

project is to make new business students aware of the importance of knowing the
software used by modern workplaces in order to be more productive at their tasks.
Your participation in this study consists of answering a few questions about your
knowledge and your experiences related to this topic. The choice of accepting or refusing
is completely up to you as this is voluntary based. Should you choose to proceed with our
request, the interview will not take more than 10 minutes of your time and the answers
provided are solely for our educational purposes. Therefore, we will keep your personal
information completely confidential and as such you can express yourself as freely as you
wish to do.
We greatly appreciate your help with our research project. If you would require any
specifications as to the project guidelines or as to your rights as a participant, you can
contact our Course Instructor, Stephen Hudon, at stephen.hudon@concordia.ca.
We thank you for your time.
Yours Sincerely,
Cosmin Rares Bica, Mohanad Hassanain, Manpreet Palmar, Abeer Iqdas
Bibliography
Bombardier. (2015). Automated People Movers. Retrieved September 29, 2015, from

http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products-services/railvehicles/automated-people-movers.html

Chandler, A. (1990, March 1). The Enduring Logic of Industrial Success. Retrieved October 6, 2015,
from

https://hbr.org/1990/03/the-enduring-logic-of-industrial-success

Greiner, L.E. (2015).Evolution & revolution as organizations grow. In J. Nagy (Comp.),

Contemporary Business Thinking (pp.21-30). Montreal, QC: John Molson School of
Business

Canadian National Railway, (2015). CN. Retrieved October 4, 2015, from

(https://www.cn.ca/en/ ).
Seaway Marine Group. 2015. Our services. Retrieved September 27, 2015, from

(http://seawaymarinegroup.com/our-services/ ).
.
Powell, T.C., Dent-Micallef, A. (1997). Information technology as competitive
advantage. Strategic management journal, 18(5), 375-405. Retrieved from
http://www.thomaspowell.co.uk/article_pdfs/IT_as_CA.pdf
Ingram, D. (n.d) Information Technology for Business Success. Chron. Retrieved from

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/information-technology-business-success4019.html

Ward, J. M. (1988) Information planning for strategic advantage. Retrieved September

28, 2015, from
http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/137569.pdf

Work Plan

*Team members are assigned roles to have someone accountable for each step of the
project, but all team member must review each others work to create a cohesive report