Bellsouth Analysis
Introduction
Bellsouth hired ABC incorporated to do an extensive business examination. ABC provides clients with unbiased expert analysis. The reports are based on primary research from company panels and consumers. ABC gathers information on market growth, competitors, and products. The company interprets data and produces forecast and recommendations. Business analysis help companies around the world create new business plans, ideas, and opportunities. This report will pinpoint critical problems and give recommendations. It is ABC's professional opinion that Bellsouth incorporate diversity in all business plans and take steps to educate employees on multi-cultural communications.
Background
In 1983 BellSouth was formed as part of the breakup of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) by a court order. At that time AT&T was the world's largest corporation in telecommunications. AT&T was accused of always beating out the competition by using unfair trading practices and suppressing the secrets of other corporations. AT&T was broken up to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice within that year. This “Break-up” lead to twenty-two local phone companies to operate the local phone services in the United States. AT&T fled the operation of local telephone service in the United States being the umbrella for the local phone corporations to pick up where it had left off. When this happened, the new corporation named John L. Clendenin chairman. . (BellSouth Corporation - Company Profile 2006)
A four-year contract was signed in 1985 to buy telecommunications technology from Canada's Northern Telecom Inc. Within that the same year the Georgia Public Service Commission allowed a $27 million rate increase for Southern Bell. BellSouth earned $1.42 billion in this one year largely due to the FCC releasing the band that all Bell operating companies sell cellular telephones through subsidiary companies.
BellSouth was the twelfth largest corporation in the United States, with132, 000 employees, $13.4 million telephone lines and $11 billion in assets. BellSouth was also the most profitable of the seven regionals, with a promising future because it was located in one of the largest growing areas of the world. Six of the ten fastest and largest-growing counties in the U.S. were in BellSouth's main territory. Southern and South Central already were increasing in profits, their combined monetary assets having grown forty seven percent and their combined yearly net income having grown 65 percent in the four years before the AT&T court issued breakup. Together they had spent a little over $15 billion on new facilities and plant modernization in the six years before BellSouth's birth. (2006)
BellSouth remains to this day to be one of the leading telecommunications corporations in the world. Lead by CEO F. Duane Ackerman, It has recently merged with its mother company AT&T in 2006 and is to have the largest database ever assembled by one entity. USA Today posted in an update "On May 15, BellSouth said it could not categorically deny participation in the program until it had conducted a detailed investigation. BellSouth said that internal review concluded that the company did not contract with the NSA or turn over calling records."(USA TODAY, 2006) And with that said BellSouth still strives on leading the world into new ways of communication and to record breaking levels within new technology.
Key Problems
With Bellsouth and AT&T merging and becoming an international firm, there are a multitude of potential issues and hurdles to overcome. Clientele diversifies automatically when a company becomes globalized. Globalization is the ability of a corporation to take a product and market it throughout the world effectively (Webster's Dictionary, 2015). An international company that increases sales will have to deal with other cultures. Cross-cultural