“Raising the Bar”
Cingular, one of the nation’s largest wireless phone providers recently announced its forty-one billion dollar purchase of AT&T wireless. The deal took place on October 26, 2004. The merge of these two major corporations opened the doors for change.
AT&T encountered some difficulties within the past year that brought up the question to sell the company. AT&T struggled to add new subscribers because of a glitch in their new software system. The system was designed to improve customer service but instead it caused more problems for the company as well as its customers. The company also faced problems losing more customers than they were gaining due to new federal rules and
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The existing Cingular employees will need to communicate clearly with the AT&T representatives and ensure that there are no questions remaining. If there is any confusion problems could arise. For example, if the current Cingular representatives do not clearly explain the current wireless plans Cingular offers, then the AT&T representatives might falsely inform the customers. This would lead to irate customers who might choose to take their business elsewhere. The merge will also empower existing Cingular employees. Management will have so much work on their hands that they will not have time to worry about and deal with every single problem that arises with the new employees as well as the customers. In the text Management by Richard Daft, Empowerment means “unleashing the power and creativity of employees by giving them the freedom, resources, information and skills to make decisions, while empowerment expands their behavior”(Daft 56). This will create better customer service. Instead of having to wait on managers to solve problems the employees can solve them, speeding up the problem solving process.
Along with advantages come disadvantages. The consolidation of the two corporations brings an end to the decreased prices that users enjoy as a product of intense competition. It would also lead to major layoffs as well as management changes. John Zeglis the chief executive officer (CEO) of AT&T recently told reporters that
Currently, per an article on IDG New Service, Verizon has weathered the storms of a few years ago and is acquiring MCI in a deal that is valued at $6.7 billion. They feel this investment will allow them to grow into a position that will make them have a strong portion of the market share for communications and should give them a wider market base globally. They should acquire advanced broadband technology and services which should put them into a better position to serve a larger base of business and government customers, which was their goal several years ago. However, they face their nemesis of governmental involvement, this time through getting regulatory approval, which could take until 2006 to be achieved. Another reason Verizon has made this aggressive buy out is that their direct competitor, SBC is trying to acquire AT&T to grow in much the same way. They must feel that it is worth the expense to hold their market share globally.
If they are able to maintain the loyalty of most of their current customers, the companies will then have a shared amount of about 100 million customers. This potential customer volume for the merging companies would greatly outnumber the customer volume of the industry leaders, AT&T and Verizon. This kind of turnout would create greater competition between the two merging companies and the two leading companies (Sprint Wireless News, 2014). Although the outcomes seem promising for Sprint and T-Mobile, there are also potential negative effects of a merger that the companies should take into consideration. Current Sprint and T-Mobile customers have expressed their fear of the possible merger for multiple reasons. The two biggest worries for telecommunication services consumers is the potential for rising costs and a reduction in provider options (John, 2016). In making a final decision, the companies, as well as the Federal Communications Commission, should weigh the advantages and disadvantages of a
When we think about what a leader and manager is, most of us will use the same meaning. But in actual fact this is incorrect. We have to look at these two terms differently. What is a manager? A manager is someone who is responsible for directing and controlling the work and staff of a business, or of a department within the organization. So what is a leader? A leader is someone whom people follow, somebody who guides or directs others. Looking at both terms they both are very different. The question is always asked is a manager can be a leader and leader a manager. The true answer is managers are not always leaders, while leaders can be
This paper is a critical analysis of the article “Spirituality as a Predictive Factor for Signing an Organ Donor Card”. The research was preformed by Anat Peles Bortz, RN, PhD, Tamar Ashkenazi, RN,PhD, and Semyon Melnikov, RN, PhD. The research was accepted for publication in 2014. The research was presented at the 25th International Nursing Research Congress Symposium in 2014 in Hong Kong. The research appears in Sigma Theta Tau International, Journal of Nursing Scholarship 2015. The research looked at two groups of people in Israel, those who signed an organ donor card
The primary business of AT&T Incorporation is telecommunication. This American leading company provides both fixed telephony and mobile telephony. Amongst other services that the company offers include broadband television subscription. Currently, AT&T Incorporation is a leading fixed telephony provider and the second largest mobile telephony provider in United States of America. AT&T Incorporation has steadily grown to become the third largest company in Texas, United States. In addition, it is the largest company in Dallas.
When companies combine/merge the whole objective is to gain new opportunities, gain market share, grow the business, to become more innovative and to improve product offerings, utilizing/sharing the existing resources and data. From the case
Our case study titled, The AT&T and McCaw merger negotiation, provides us with an opportunity to negotiate the terms of the merger between McCaw cellular and AT&T. McCaw was the largest competitor in the rapidly growing cellular telephone communications industry. AT&T was the dominant competitor in long-distance telephone communications in the United States, and one of the largest corporations. Prior to the negotiations, it had no position in cellular communications.
From 1984 until 1996 AT&T was an integrated telecommunications services and equipment company, succeeding in a newly competitive environment. In 1995 On September 20, AT&T announces that it is restructuring into three separate companies: a services company, retaining the AT&T name; a products and systems company (later named Lucent Technologies) and a computer company (which reassumed the NCR name). Lucent is spun off in October 1996, and NCR in December, 1996. Three years later AT&T announces general availability of its local residential telephone service in New York with a bundled plan called "AT&T Local One Rate New York." This is AT&T's first general reentry into the consumer local telephone business since the breakup of the Bell System. It occurs under the provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Telecommunications Act triggered dramatic changes in the competitive landscape. SBC Communications Inc. established itself as a global communications provider by acquiring Pacific Telesis Group (1997), Southern New England Telecommunications (1998) and Ameritech Corp. (1999). In 2005, SBC Communications Inc. acquired AT&T Corp., creating the new AT&T. With the merger of AT&T and BellSouth in 2006, and the consolidated ownership of Cingular Wireless and YELLOWPAGES.COM, AT&T is positioned to lead our industry in one of its most significant transformations since the first
This organization encourages the development of a comprehensive work environment where all employees are respected and can achieve at their fullest potential. AT&T has a very strong culture and their values are not only shared with management, but by all employees. While mergers are known to affect an organization’s culture, AT & T has proven success with at least three mergers. In October of 2004 AT&T completed a merger with Cingular to become AT&T wireless. In November of 2005, SBC and AT&T finalized their union and with that AT&T Corporation became AT&T Incorporated. The organization became the largest phone company in the United States when they acquired SBC, serving 13 states in the western and southwestern part of the U.S. Their latest acquisition came in Mar of 2006 when Bellsouth was purchased ("AT&T Inc." Notable Corporate Chronologies Online Version, 2006). With the merger of Bellsouth, AT&T picked up another nine states in the Southeast to provide available service in a total of 22 states (Reardon, 2006). The merger of AT&T and BellSouth, along with the consolidation of Cingular Wireless, will continue advancement in the communications and entertainment industry, where they will continue to invent new resolutions for consumers and businesses. These accomplishments prove that AT&T has a successful organizational culture.
AT&T is a leader in telecommunication services, including cell phones, wireless, U-verse, digital TV, high speed internet, DSL, and home phone. AT&T currently employs over 280,000 people worldwide. AT&T is now ranked #7 on Fortune 500 list, where its main competitor, Verizon, is listed as #13. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, AT&T Inc is the largest U.S. local and long distance phone service provider and second largest wireless service provider, with over 87.0 million wireless customers. AT&T was created in 2005 after SBC Communications acquired AT&T Corp.
Over the next four years, AT&T took action to succeed in changing the environment. It invested 35 billion dollars upgrades to its infrastructure. By mid –2000 AT&T had evolving networks- data, broadband and wireless. IN January 2005, AT&T bought SBC for 16 billion dollars and this created the industry’s premier communications and networking company. And just recently AT&T has merged with Cingular to created even more ties to what you like.
The hierarchical organization for Wal-Mart does not work in my opinion, because of the high turnover rate of employees working for this organization. I previously was employed by Wal-Mart and lasted three years. In those three years it was almost like a revolving door of employees getting hired and fired by the company, management included. Although Wal-Mart is one of the most successful retail store chains in the world, in order to climb the corporate ladder and maintain is a very hard job to do.
As a consequence of the governments intervention, the AT&T lawsuit settlement, as well as the shift in the telecommunication industry, it was clear that AT&Ts local telecommunication business was slowly moving away from a monopoly franchise environment. It was moving towards a more competitive environment characterized with more consumer choice and greater competition. Companies such as IBM saw the divestiture of AT&T as an opportunity to provide new telecommunication equipment and services, which would allow them to gain a higher market share. AT&T's stock had up till then been regarded as a stable utility-type stock because of its steady growth and consistent dividend yield. However, AT&T should have kept in mind that they would not have as much market control in the future as they did prior the divestiture, much due to the intensifying competition and regulatory environment changes.
AT&T Inc. is the largest provider of wireless telecommunication services in the united states of fixed telephone and the second largest of mobile telephones. This makes the company, a multinational telecommunication corporation in the USA.
AT&T was broken up into the Bell companies in “1974 by the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust suit against the monopoly” (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Today AT&T has become a competitor vying for control of the telecommunications industry. “In monopolistic competition, there are many firms vying for control of one market. Each firm offers a different type of product, as opposed to perfect competition in which all offer the same product. Each firm, then, has a monopoly in the market of their own product”(Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation) AT&T in 1988 began purchasing stock in Sun Microsystems to begin its diversity in product services. Throughout the 90s AT&T continued purchasing more computer companies and cell phone companies to gain market share in the growing telecommunication industry (CyberStreet). Good pricing structures align with costs. AT&T Wireless realized that the marginal cost of a cellular minute was small compared to the cost of acquiring and maintaining customers. Their switch to a flat fee “One-Rate” plan was a huge success, stealing heavy users away from the competition. Prices increased for light users and many became hooked on the cellular lifestyle (Lake Partners Strategy Consultants, Inc. [LPSCI], 2001-2004). AT&T has seen that the ability to change quickly in the ever-evolving telecommunications market will help in gain market share. Its ability to see the value in keeping customers rather