Stephenson, Chad
4/15/2010
Info 640: Managing Information Organizations
Instructors: Toni Carbo and Patty Wong
Assignment One: Management Analysis
Table of Contents
ORGANIZATIONAL INFORMATION .................................................................................... 1
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ......................................................................................... 2
MANAGERS (WITHIN INTERNAL IT DEPT) ....................................................................... 5
APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................... 9
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 12
Organizational information
I chose to analysis Purple Communications based in Rocklin, CA. Purple also has 26 call centers
located throughout the United States (including Puerto Rico and Hawaii) as well as another
corporate office in Weaton, MA. Purple Communication is a leading provider of text, video relay
services (VRS), on-site interpreting services and video remote interpreting (VRI) for the Deaf
and Hard of Hearing. One of the main visions of purple is to enable free flowing communication
between people, inclusive of differences in abilities, languages or locations
(http://www.purple.us). Purple incorporated in 1999 and has spent the last three years acquiring
other relay service companies such as Go America, IP Relay, i711 and Hands on VRS. These
companies as well as several others all now operate under the name of Purple Communications.
Purple Communication is a for profit company with a major source of its income coming from
reimbursements from the FCC. The FCC (Federal Communication Commission) is the federal
regulatory body that oversees TRS (Telecommunication Relay Services). This is part of the
federal mandate of the ADA (American with Disabilities Act). Currently Purple receives
reimbursement rates ranging from $6.27-$6.74 per minute from the FCC (Purple Annual Report
March 2009). Today Purple is the second largest provider of VRS in the United States with a
major gab between them and their competitor Sorenson Communication. With the use of VRS
the user are experiencing the closest to real time communication as possible. VRS uses
broadband internet connections between the disable customer and the receiver. The hearing or
speech impaired individual is connect and communicating via sign language to the interpreter via
a video camera either via a computer or a video device. The interpreter is on the phone with the
receiving individual relaying what is being singed as well as signing back to the impaired
individual. This technology allows for conversation to flow in near to real time. This service
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offers a more personal touch that individual do not receive from text communication( Jerry
Nelson 2009) The American with Disability Act has had a strong influence on the push of VSR
to make those whom have a disability less challenged. As a result the FCC has allowed for
additional funding for this new popular service.
Organizational structure:
According to Dr. Carter Mc Namara the basic definition of an organization is a person or group
of people intentionally organized to accomplish an overall, common goal or set of goals.
Business organizations can range in size from one person to tens of thousands.
(http://managementhelp.org). In the case of Purple they have an estimate of about 1100
employees and 200 outreach reps. In the case of Purple they exist to one make money and two
provide a service to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. When Purple markets themselves,
they are marketing to that community for them to use their service. When a deaf user makes a
call they can choose to use one of any one of 17 VRS companies in the United States. Currently
Purple has about 13% of the market share.(fiancé.yahoo.com). Purples vision is to enable free
flowing communication between people, inclusive of differences in abilities, languages or
locations. Along with their vision Purple’s mission is “to enable communication that positively
impacts our deaf, deaf blind, hard of hearing and hearing customers every day. We enable these
communications through intimate customer knowledge, high quality professional services,
advanced technology and the passion and commitment of our employees” (www.purple.us). I
worked at Purple for about 15 months; Due to major cuts I was let go back in March. I am
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currently back there for two weeks as a contract employee. One thing that attracted me to Purple
as a place to work was their values. But as I would later learn it is one thing to have values and it
is another thing to live by them. Their values as it appears on their website, in their marketing
material and posted on the wall in the call centers and corporate office are as follows:
1) Own It: Take the initiative. Create and seize opportunities. Lead. Be accountable
2) Achieve It: Always give 100%. Consistently exceed expectations and results for
customers, investors and ourselves. Get results
3) Examine It: Be intellectually curious. Ask questions. Get into the details
4) Share It. Work as a team Share knowledge across deparments.
5) Dream It. Thirst for more. Develop your skills. Be creative. Chart a course for
professional growth.
6) Enjoy It: Be passionate and zealous about what you do. Have fun. Celebrate the wins
7) Do It Right: Be respectful of everyone. Have integrity. Be honest. Be humble
An example of what the values are can be found in Appendix 3. Purples mission, values and
vision can be found in one of their many websites such as www.purple.us, www.goamerica.com,
www.i711.com, www.hovrs.com. Purple has many different departments in order to reach their
stated goals. Here is a brief overview:
1) IT Department
a. Internal: Goal is to maintain and support (and development) the internal IT
infrastructure. This includes domain servers, email servers, Sharepoint servers,
file servers, back up servers, network infrastructure (both LAN and WAN), MPLS
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network, Cisco IP phone system, and more. Basically it is everything not related
to Research/Development and production (VI Servers).
b. Production / Research and Development: These deals with the infrastructure that
an outside caller go through when making a video call. Purples production and
internal network are two different networks. They do however share rack space in
one of the two data centers Purple has.
2) Marketing Department: Goals is to reach out to the community and make Purple the VRS
provider of choice. From what I saw when I was first at Purple is that they were not
putting enough focus on Marketing. Purple seemed to be too evolved in RandD and
coming out with the newest greatest product and less evolved with letting people know
who Purple was. If you are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, you are going to definitely know
who Sorenson VRS is. From the time I was there they when through 3 major product life
cycles. One was called the MVP (Mobile Video Phone) the second was called the
Notebook and the final was the P3 (software based). The first two were not successful in
part of it not being very well thought out and not being marketed very well. In the VRS
business it is very hard to gain a new customer as people are usually set in their ways.
You have to make them want to use your service and the only way to do that is to reach
out to them.
3) Customer Care: To help people that are Deaf and Hard of Hearing use Purple services.
This can be anything from helping them set up their network for a Purple device or
setting up a PC to be able to use Purple software. They are also responsible for assisting
customer’s complaints.
4) Finance
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5) Shipping: Internal shipping for the company, as well as shipping devices to Deaf
customers.
6) Executive: Oversee the company.
Managers (within Internal IT dept)
I will focus on the manager structure as it relates to the Internal IT department. At the top of the chain is
Dan Luis. Dan Luis is the company’s CEO. He has been a part of the company for over 8 years. Before
becoming CEO he was the COO and President of Purple. As part of a team, Dan helped to raise more than
$100 million allowing Purple (previously Go America) to grow, acquire and further its vision. Dan holds
a Bachelors and Masters from Cal State Polytechnic.
Under Dan is John Ferron. John comes from a Financial Planning and Tax background holding a Masters
of Science in Tax and Financial Planning from San Diego State University. In 2008 he joined Purple as
the CFO and later became the president as well after the pervious president parted ways with the
company. John was the CFO and COO at Celerity before coming to Purple.
Under John is Tony LaRossa. Tony is the head of all of IT having the title of VP Enterprise IT. Prior to
Purple Tony was at Celerity as the CIO. John and Tony actually worked together before Celerity as well.
Being in charge of the IT department, Tony has 1 Senior Director (also from Celerity) and 4 Directors
under him. Under those directors is the IT staff.
When I was working at Purple I reported to Jim Sleezer. Jim is the Director of IT Operations. Jim came to
Purple in 2007 after being a manager at Intel for over 15 years. Jims team is responsible for the upgrades,
monitoring and troubleshooting of the internal IT. This also includes Interpreter work stations. When I
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first came on at Purple Jim had 7 people under him. Due to loss in business and fines from the FCC
Purple was forced to cut back. Today Jim has 2 people under him. This includes a server admin and a
helpdesk admin.
Mike Gibson is the director of Networking. His team (which now only consists of two employees as well)
is responsible for the entire maintenance and monitoring of both the internal and external network. Mike
was with HOVRS when Purple acquired them. He comes from several years of networking experience
and currently has a CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert)
Tim Lewis is the director of RandD as well as software development. He was a senior manager of
i711.com when Purple acquired them. Tim’s department is actually on the east coast in Purples Maryland
office. I was not able to find past information on Tim. I do know that at one time Tim had 8 people under
him and now has three, this again because of major cuts by Purple.
Analysis
From working at Purple first hand it saddens me to say that I do not think they are a very good
company. Like I said before it is one thing to have your core values and mission and it is another
thing to live by them. On the outside Purple appears to be a company that is in it for the good of
the Deaf Community, but when you look at in from the inside they are in it to make money. Lets
face it, if the FCC didn’t reimburse for this service, Purple would not exist. Purple partook in a
lot of questionable billing practices such as
a) billing for internal minutes, ie: a deaf employee in Rocklin using Purple VRS to call a
hearing employee in Arizona.
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b) hiring outside all Deaf advertising companies to market for Purple making them use
Purple VRS.
After ignoring several warnings from the FCC, Purple was forced to pay back over $18 million
that were inappropriately paid to the company (www.fcc.gov). This came after the FCC clearly
defined what is and what is not reimbursable under a Declaratory Ruling. Purples original
position was to fight the ruling. This led to the FCC freezing all future funds. Purple was forced
to acknowledge the debt, agree to pay back the debt and agree not to fight the decision in order to
receive future funds. This occurred back in March of 2010. The following week Purple moved
forward with major layoffs. This was due to
a) Having to pay back a large amount of money
b) Not being able to bill for the internal minutes. Some managers at Purple believe that this
was accounting for 33% of Purples income.
What I don’t understand it how you lead a company with no honesty and no integrity. Purple
strives itself on being respectful, honest and having integrity. The decision that the top
executives were making does not follow the stated values and beliefs. How can you be an
employer of choice if your employment is based on self generating income? Many people lost
their jobs because of poor decision making. Purples stock has gone from $6.00/share to
$0.10/share and now under the pink sheets. In my opinion you can run a shady company for only
so long. Eventually being dishonest will catch up to you.
Currently Purple is very top heavy. This is especially true inside the IT department. There is a
VP, a senior director and three directors. I was asked to come back and cover for two weeks
because the only system admin they have went on vacation. Not really looking too good as a
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company when one of your employees takes a two week vacation and you are not able to survive
without bringing in outside help. Anyways the company is very thin now. Many people are
having to work many overtime hours to still meet the demands of the company. This is bad for
the customer that Purple serves and does not make for a great working environment. Even the
people that are still here are very worried that they are going to be next.
Every company Purple took over were successful, profitable companies. Purple took over these
companies tried expanding too fast and tried expanding in ways that were not honest in my
opinion. In order to be successful in an organization you have to run it with integrity and
honesty. Purple had the potential to be great and instead they are a barley surviving company that
in my opinion will not be around by the end of the year.
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Appendix:
Appendix 1: Purples Vision, Mission, Values posted throughout the company
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Appendix 2: Values to make Purple successful
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Dan Luis
CEO
John Ferron
President and CFO
Tony LaRossa
VP Enterprise IT
John Lee
Senior Director of
IT
Mike Gibson
Director of
Networking
Reuban Smith
NOC
Rob Ray
Network Engineer
Jim Sleezer
Director IT
Operations
Korey Evers
Server Admin
Tim Lewis
Director Software
Dev
Igor Far
Helpdesk Admin
Frank Warton
Software Engineer
Naudi Tarsment
Software Dev
Appendix 3: Overview of IT dept (as of 4/12/2010)
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References
Vision, Mission and Values Purple Communications. Retrieved 4/12/2010.
http://purple.us/Pages/VisionMissionValues.php
Cater McNamara. Basic Definition of Organization. Retrived on 4/11/2010
http://managementhelp.org/org_thry/org_defn.htm
Jerry Nelson (2009). Purple Communication. History and overview of State and Federal Relay,
June 2009
Finance, Purple Communication . (2009). Yahoo Finance Purple Communication . Retrieved on
4/12/2010. http://www.finance.yahoo.com/news/Purple-Communication
Purple Communications Acknowledges Debt. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved on
4/14/2010. http://www.fcc.gov/nr030910.pdf
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