The AT&T transformation story continues. Over the last year, C. Michael Armstrong has spent more then $110 billion trying to turn AT&T from a “staid long distance company into a hot, cable-based communications network.”[i] If he succeeds the new AT&T will pipe entertainment, phone service, and Internet connection into your home.
His transformation of AT&T is one of the biggest bets in business. “He is gambling that he can transform an American icon into an entirely new company. And he is doing it at a time when his firm’s core business is being hammered by low cost competitors.”[ii] It’s tough to turn a battleship left when it has been going right through most of its existence. The big question is can he do it and what will the impact to its employees be? One answer for sure is that we’ll have a whole new bunch of Brand U’s
For those who work in a small business, change is work as usual. Difficulties arise when large, dominant companies with static cultures must compete in deregulated, new markets, unknown markets, or electronic markets. What do they do when their employees were hired, rewarded, promoted, and nurtured for one set of abilities and behaviors and now are expected to develop new ones, perhaps being innovative, nimble and quick? This is huge because most of these large, dominant companies represent what’s known as the ‘old economy’ are morphing to ‘New Economy’ – into bricks and clicks companies.
[i] Blemenstein, Rebecca and Lublin, and Joann, “Amid All the Bets, One Stands Out: AT&T Ventures into Cable,” Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1999, p. A1.
[ii] Blemenstein, Rebecca and Lublin, and Joann, “Amid All the Bets, One Stands Out: AT&T Ventures into Cable,” Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1999, p. A1.