Summary
1. Another reason that AT&T CEO, Randall Stephenson, gave that exclusive interview to the Wall Street Journal recently was to back up an inevitable purge of high-level executives across the corporation. 2. As with his predecessor, Stephenson needs to be firmly in charge. 3. There cannot be little chiefs anymore from the original AT&T, ex-BellSouth, ex-Pac Bell, etc. – who believe they should be the head of the company.
Analysis
The problem with former CEO, Ed Whitacre, putting so much of Ma Bell back together is that it has caused tremendous power struggles. For perhaps too long, Stephenson was trying to make the whole thing work. Now he must eliminate all of those people who are standing in the way of his vision for the company. Unless there is more or less a consensus on company direction, and until everybody remaining completely views Stephenson as the person in charge, AT&T will start to lose its prominent position in the wireless space. There can no longer be battles over turf that result in such high levels of corporate inertia.
Unlike what is suggested in the source article, Verizon Wireless is now in the best position to take a large lead in the US wireless space. It is an obsession at Verizon to become the number one player. So, as AT&T is catching up on 3G network deployments, there cannot be people at the top layers of the company either not appreciating the importance of the wireless business or failing to see the urgency in preparing networks for the economic recovery.
