Summary
1. The frustration level of AT&T CEO, Randall Stephenson, about the internal politics within his corporation may be at an all-time high. 2. He is also sending a message to his unionized workers on the wireline side. 3. When he says, “We tend to come at this backwards," he is making a public statement against his opponents at the executive level and on the board of directors.
Analysis
In effect, Stephenson is complaining out-loud about a company that is still too much stuck in neutral. He wants to build up outside pressure to help him fight off influential people at the corporation who continue to have a Bell-head mentality. He needs industry analysts to start clamoring for necessary change.
We have talked about the situation before in that Stephenson does not have unilateral power. That is why he is “seeking to” and not ordering an “overhaul of AT&T's marketing to make wireless the priority.” And there is so much bureaucratic inertia that something as simple as “do[ing] away with a requirement that customers have AT&T's home-phone service to qualify for discounts on TV or broadband Internet services” has not been accomplished by now. With trouble on getting movement on such commonsense and elementary matters, having the company shift in more of a fiber to the premises direction has to be a monumental task – despite the technological fact that doing video over copper lines is clearly not the right solution in the vast majority of cases.
Stephenson is talking to both high-level people and the unionized workers – when he says, "Which customer base would you rather work from?” With the former group, it is also a reminder of the large number of residential lines that are unprofitable and that could be at least partially dumped. To the latter group, the communication is to think twice about a long walkout because the business you are working for is less than half as important as wireless is right now.
Moreover, when Stephenson states, "This business cycle is going to cycle...You got to make sure that you're positioned when it cycles back out to be the leader in the industry, and to do that you have to be the leader in mobility, first and foremost," the translation is that AT&T has to be more proactive even during a recession to get ready for when the market comes back. Otherwise, it will have trouble adequately keeping up with Verizon Wireless.
One bit of criticism is that Stephenson should always avoid using the term, “future proof.”
