MICT710: Telstra Case Study - Ethics, Governance, and Data Analysis

This report delves into the ethical challenges faced by Telstra during its digital transformation, analyzing the shift from a conservative engineering culture to a fast-paced digital environment. It uses the Doing Ethics Technique to assess ethical consequences and examines the situation from the perspe...Read More

PROFESSIONAL
PRACTICE IN
IT

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report identifies the problems that are faced by the company of the scale of Telstra
which is one of the biggest communication firms in Australia. Since the company has huge
amount of resources hence they would have to think about the ways in which they can avoid
the problems that is arising in the process of change. This report shows the ethical concerns
that might arise while the changes are going on in such a big organisation. It also analyses the
situation of the company with the help of Doing Ethics Technique. The ethical consequence
that has been used within the organisation has been assessed. In the later section of the report
there must be analysis of the situation from the view of ICT professionals working inside
Telstra by using ACS code of ethics.
Contents
List of Abbreviations.............................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1

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Analysis of situation using Doing Ethics Technique.........................................................................1
Ethical consequences assessment......................................................................................................5
Analysis of situation from the point of view of ICT professionals....................................................6
Recommendations.............................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................8
List of Abbreviations
IT: Information Technology
ICT: Information and Communication Technology
ACS: Australian Computer Society

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INTRODUCTION
In the modern world of communication, it has become important for all the organisations to
adopted one of the best technological cultures within the company (Gaita, 2011). All around
the world there are many industries who have changed their working mechanism. This
change is not easier to adapt but needs to be more carefully so that no ethical concerns arises
with the change process. Since the change of working mechanism has the greater impact on
the stakeholders of the firm hence it is crucial that they take care of the problems that might
arise in this regards. The use of technology is also crucial as it helps the firm to make their
business process smoother as well as of high quality. The major benefits include
improvement in efficiency, flexibility in the operations etc. but somehow it has ethical
concerns attached with it. The major issue that arise while bringing the technology into use is
the threat of increasing cybercrimes (Chakraborty and Chatterjee, 2012). As the companies
these days have data in very large amount hence they face many kinds of ethical issues
related to information. Telstra which is one of the largest communication firms in Australia
had to make an effective relationship among the moral and ethical principles related to
communication. Policies related to IT governance needs to be taken care of so as to eliminate
ethical issues attached with it. This report evaluates the situation with the help of Doing
Ethics Technique. It also evaluates the ethical consequences that arise due to such changes
and the factors that are involved in it.
Analysis of situation using Doing Ethics Technique
It has become highly essential for an organisation to make sure that they analyse the
situations that may arise while making the changes. Along with this Telstra also needs to
analyse the current business environment situation that is prevailing in Australia and all
around the world. Since the changes bring ethical issues with it hence a company needs to
analyse it in various aspects (Danielewicz-Betz, 2012). There are various techniques using
which the analysis can be done. One of the most common is the Doing Ethics Technique.
Doing Ethics Technique
DET is the technique that helps in analysing care from an ethical point of view. The
technique throws light on asking simpler questions that will assist in analysing the most
crucial issues in this case (Grant, et. al., 2014). Prime focus of this technique is to analyse the
care ethically instead of finding the best solution.
What’s going on?
Australia’s biggest telecommunication firm Telstra was established in the year 1975 and it
has services related to telecommunication sector in their portfolio. It is present in more than
20 nations and in Australia is understood to be the Australia’s fastest mobile network. The
firm gives over 17.6 million retail mobile services, 3.5 million retail fixed broadband services
and 5.1 fixed voice services to its consumers alone in Australia (Thomas, Burmeister and
Low, 2017). For giving appropriate services to its clients, the firm has adopted a digital route.
This cited company heavily relies on innovation which results in disruption and hence
ultimately helps in gaining competitive advantage in the industry. There was change in their
conservative engineering culture. They implemented a must fasted structure which relies on

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digital technologies. Telstra has focused on their consumer’s interest and hence they build
their application 24/7 Telstra as well as crowd support platform.
After adopting such technologies, the interaction among firm and clients got better because
the technology gives them the choices for resolving their queries and the same time when it
get generated. This can be done form any place. It has certain disadvantages associated with
it and it is having a negative impact on their company and its consumers. Their prime concern
is related to the security and privacy concerns associated with the people with the help of this
platform (Koslowski, 2013). Adding to this there is also an issue of job loss. As this model
promotes automation which is a primary reason for having a loss of jobs. An infrastructure
that is based on digital mediums enhances the threat of cyber-attacks or becoming a cyber-
war victim. The cyber criminals can easily attack on the data and hence data breached can be
possible.
What are the facts?
There are few of the fact available which is as follows:
 The cited firm has adopted a digital model by building a mobile application 24/7 and
a crowd support platform.
 Such devices assist the consumers in resolving the issues at the time it is generated as
well as it enhances the consumer’s service experience.
 It also raises privacy and security issues because of the crowd support platform.
 Utilisation of this platform enhances the chances of data breach as the numbers of
hackers are increasing day by day. They can easily collect the data related to company
and its stakeholders.
 Such an infrastructure has enhanced the company’s vulnerability especially against
the attacks done by the cyber-criminals.
 Telstra is also promoting automation hence can result in the loss of jobs for the
employees.
What are the issues?
The issues that may arise while the changes are done are:
 The risks related to data breaches have enhance because of use of such platform. This
increase is substantial the possibility of attacks have increased multi fold where they
can easily collect the private data related to clients.
 Client’s security is at risk because of the platform as well as they have also come
under the threat to cyber-attacks.
 Because of the Crowd support platform, the firm is pushing the automation at their
first priority hence resulting in huge amount of job losses.
 Since the company is planning to store data on the cloud mediums hence the data is
more vulnerable to the cyber-attacks related to cloud computing.
Who is affected?

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There are various stakeholders that get affected with it, they are as follows:
 Telstra itself: With the use of such an application, they came under the threat of
cyber-attacks. They have done so as to increase their efficiency as well as to improve
the Customer Relationship Management. This was also done for increasing the service
speed. The adoption of technology in the year 2010 was able to minimise its full
expenses as well as fulfil he needs of its clients. Further there are several issues
related to the technology that can be dangerous for the company like the employee
dissatisfaction. Since the data related to the company is stored at various platforms
and hence the chances of attacks have also enhanced. Telstra faced a huge amount of
criticism for not addressing to the issues of data privacy and security especially
related to the crowdsupport platform. This company was also criticised for the loss of
jobs due to bringing automation within the organisation. In the larger time period it
was seen that due to these issues and certain more there was a decrease of 37% in
their profits in the year 2017.
 Customers: Another biggest stakeholder on whom its attack can be fulfilled is their
clients. Taking use of 24/7 mobile application platforms of the company their
personal queries are resolved easily and at faster speed but it has also enhanced their
data threats. This is because of the fact that security of the platforms is not well and
hence data can be easily stolen. The cyber-attacks have become more common due to
the fact that it gives easy access to the hackers that are in search of loop holes in the
network. Data related to their clients are at risks.
 Governments: It has also affected the government as it has somehow responsibility
towards safeguarding their citizen from any kind attacks (Woods and Howard, 2014).
Since government has the role in the Telstra hence their responsibilities becomes
bigger.
 Cybercriminals: They are not the stakeholder of the firm but they were highly
interested in the servers of Telstra. This is due to the fact that there is large amount of
data available with the users. With the introduction of digital mediums the work of the
cyber-criminals has become easier (Yoon, 2011). If the data gets into the hands of
wrong person, then there is a surety that they can take use of this data for
blackmailing the stakeholder of the company.
What are the ethical issues and what were its implications?
The ethical issues and their implication can be understood by the help of several theories. For
example:
 Deontology: This theory suggests that any ethical situation must rely upon the action
rather than the consequences resulted through the action. The cited firm’s actions
must be focused towards improving the experience of their consumers based on the
services they are providing. This theory justifies the platforms even when there is
breach of privacy possible hence the actions of the company according to this theory
cannot be considered to be unethical (Singer, 2011).

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 Utilitarianism theory: This theory is bit different from that of deontology as it totally
judges on the consequences and not on the actions that is taken in the process
(DesJardins, 2011). Although the action of utilising new technology was beneficial
for both users and company still it is not perfect in regards to the company ethics.
This is because of the security and privacy concern brought by the technology. As this
theory judges the morality of the situation hence it does not understands the process to
be ethical. This theory suggests being unethical because of the consequence like
vulnerability to the data breach, at the same time because of the job loss that this
technology is generating.
 Virtue theory: It is a theory which judges the situation based on the honesty and
character. The decisions that are taken by the firm enhance the consumer’s experience
and at the same time it fulfils their requirements. Since the decision was beneficial for
both company and clients hence this theory suggests the action to be ethical.
 Contract theory: This theory judges the action to be ethical or unethical based on the
legitimacy of the actions taken (Burmeister, 2013). The cited firm’s actions relied on
digital disruption for giving high quality services to its clients. Since the company is
also destined to protect the privacy rights of their consumers and are taking various
efforts on this issue hence this theory underlines it to be ethical. Their ultimate aims
were just to provide high quality services to its clients at the same time bringing
disruption in the market.
Even after the fact that there are many steps that were taken by Telstra for enhancing cyber-
security, it is not capable enough to restrict large number of cyber-attacks that can be possible
on their systems.
What can be done regarding this?
There are various types of solutions which can be applied in the case of Telstra. For
addressing the security and privacy concerns, the firm can rebuild its digital framework were
more focus should be put on the concerns related to data breach. They can rebuild their
security infrastructure with the use of firewalls. They can also spread awareness in their
consumer bases so that their must not be breach because of the wrong practices of their
clients.
What are the options?
 Telstra can rebuild its digital disruption model and discard the old ones and they can
be back to their previous method.
 Telstra can enhance its investment related to cyber-security infrastructure so as to
protect themselves and their stakeholders from any kind of data piracy.
 The cited firm can spread the awareness related to the cyber security issues in-
between their stakeholders so that no such situation even arise.
Which option is best-and why?

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Among the options available it is better that the company invests in its infrastructure
related to the cyber-security. Telstra considers the fact that there is potential threat in
utilising such digital framework. Company must take precautionary actions for protecting
the data. This will also help the company in managing its digital image which provides
them competitive advantage over their rivals in the industry.
Ethical consequences assessment
IT governance
It is said to be as the basic framework having formal nature which can assist Telstra by giving
them a structure for making sure that their goals supports the IT investments. It helps in
making effective and appropriate utilisation of information technology in their business
which will help them in achieving their goals (Bunge, 2012). The Governance related to IT
suggests the ways in which the IT infrastructure will be placed with the firm so that no issues
related to competition, selection and business benefits can arise. It aligns decision making,
strategies and the IT infrastructure in the same plane. The framework suggested by it will
help in reducing the concerns related to privacy and security.
Issues in IT governance
There are various principles that need to be followed by Telstra within Australia related to the
IT governance. Certain rules need to be followed in this regards:
 Responsibility: It professionals are responsible for the utilisation and performance of
the IT infrastructure. Each and every aspect related to IT infrastructure needs to be
checked by them on regular basis so that no issues arise in the business.
 Strategy: It is crucial to align IT infrastructure along with goals hence managing the
ethical complication while using the technology needs to be maintained. For this
proper investment in the IT infrastructure is needed.
 Acquisition: The acquisition of IT network must be made as per the influence of
internal and external factors. Before enhancing the investments the timely evaluation
of IT structure must be made.
 Performance: There must be balance between the resources that company has and its
capacity to deliver while ensuring user’s security.
 Communication: All the rules relative to IT infrastructure must be communicated
among the stakeholders so as to avoid the confusions while the whole process is going
on (Tinetti and Basch, 2013).
 Human behaviour: The structure must be made as per the requirement and trainings
must be provided to the users.
Technologies that provides them competitive advantage
There are various types of technologies that have been used within the Telstra and all of it
provides them the competitive advantage over the others.
Telstra is offering consumer service facility named 24/7. Users can avail its services with the
use of mobile technology and it is available on both iOs and Android Platforms. Using this

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application, person from Telstra can interact with others on the crowdsupport platforms. This
helps in finding solutions for the users of the company at the same time it is generated. This
provides competitive advantage to the company as it helps in providing better customer
service which is very essential in the modern day firms.
Company also takes use of the outage management system that is capable of accurately
forecasting the duration and size of the outage, finding costs and raise alarms regarding the
systems that is used in the organisation. This also helps in having competitive advantage over
the rivals as the proper strategies can be made using the technology. Appropriate calculation
of costs helps in managing financial position of Telstra which is crucial in the amount of
competition that is present in the market. As Telstra was highly concerned about making cost
cuts hence the technology will be extremely helpful.
Telstra is also using Internet of Things which is highly beneficial for connecting all the
devices within the firm. It is considered to be as the future of the business technology. As
Telstra is moving towards automation hence IOT can be very beneficial which will help them
in having edge over their competitors.
Analysis of situation from the point of view of ICT professionals
For doing this analysis ACS code of ethics could be beneficial. The analysis is as follows:
 The primacy of Public Interest: It is crucial for every employee that that they put the
public interest at the first priority (Australian Computer Society, 2014). In this case, it
is seen that even when the technologies are providing better services to the users but
there is a higher chance of data breach which violates their legal right. Hence it is not
ethical.
 The enhancement of quality of life: It can be seen that the technology is enhancing
their experience regarding their services which results in their enhancement of life.
But as the automation is making the job cuts hence it is degrading their life standards
which is negative in this regard and hence cannot be considered ethical.
 Honesty: While providing the services company is not providing details regarding the
chances of data breach to its customers hence it fails in the ethical test.
 Competence: The technology gives the edge to Telstra in the industry hence it is
ethically justified. This also increases the sustainability opportunity of the firm.
 Professional Development: Since the new technologies is bringing automation hence
may result in job loss. This violates the code of ethics.
 Professionalism: Since it helps the employees to understand the problems related to
the clients and they are able to solve it hence it increases professionalism.
Recommendations
In the scenario that is faced by the Telstra, the first recommendation is that company must
take use of effective data protection software that could help in maintaining the authenticity

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in data as well as ensuring that no hackers could attack on the systems. The application 24/7
should be protected with the help of firewalls. Apart from this it is also crucial that company
should start training their employees which could help them in managing the unintentional
data breaches. Along with this crowdsupport system must be removed as well as the
crowdfunding. This is because both are the sources from where the data can be stolen. Instead
a more protected support platform must be provided. Encryption will help the firm in
restricting the data theft which can happen while there is sharing of data.
Conclusion
From the above report it can be concluded that Telstra is one of the biggest
telecommunication company which provides high quality services to its clients. It is has
transformed its way of doing business by implementing technologies in their business. Such
changes may result in various kinds of disruptions. With the introduction of application like
24/7 as well as crowdsupport architecture it is possible to solve the queries related with
people but this has also raised various types of security and ethical issues for Telstra. This is
clear from the analysis done by doing ethics technique. Telstra must utilise best of safety
support architecture so as to reduce the vulnerability of the data related to customers.

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REFERENCES
Australian Computer Society, (2014) ACS Code of Professional Conduct. [Online]. Available
from: https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/rules-and-regulations/Code-of-Professional-
Conduct_v2.1.pdf. [Accessed on: 5 June 2018].
Bunge, M., (2012) Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Ethics: The Good and The Right (Vol. 8).
Springer Science & Business Media.
Burmeister, O.K., (2013) Achieving the goal of a global computing code of ethics through an
international-localisation hybrid. Ethical Space, 10(4), pp.25-32.
Chakraborty, S.K. and Chatterjee, S.R. eds., (2012) Applied ethics in management: towards
new perspectives. Springer Science & Business Media.
Danielewicz-Betz, A., (2012) Interrelation between Work Ethics and Business Ethics: A
Cross-Cultural Perspective.
DesJardins, J.R., (2011) An introduction to business ethics. McGraw-Hill.
Gaita, R., (2011) Philosophy, Ethics and a Common Humanity: Essays in Honour of
Raimond Gaita. Routledge.
Grant, R., Butler, B., Orr, S. and Murray, P.A., (2014) Contemporary strategic management:
An Australasian perspective. John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd..
Koslowski, P. ed., (2013) Contemporary economic ethics and business ethics. Springer
Science & Business Media.
Singer, P., (2011) Practical ethics. Cambridge university press.
Thomas, G., Burmeister, O.K. and Low, G., (2017) Issues of Implied Trust in Ethical
Hacking. In Proceedings of The 28th Australasian Conference on Information Systems,
December(pp. 4-6).
Tinetti, M.E. and Basch, E., (2013) Patients' responsibility to participate in decision making
and research. JAMA, 309(22), pp.2331-2332.
Woods, D. and Howard, E., (2014) An Active Learning Activity for an IT Ethics
Course. Information Systems Education Journal, 12(1), p.73.
Yoon, C., (2011) Theory of planned behavior and ethics theory in digital piracy: An
integrated model. Journal of business ethics, 100(3), pp.405-417.

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