Introduction This paper provides a brief resource and capability analysis for CenturyLink, Inc. (CTL). The first section provides a brief description and overview of CTL. The next section provides the current CTL financial overview amongst leading competitors and internal factors influencing the telecommunication industry. The third section provides an overview of the perceived strengths and weaknesses of CTL relative to industry competitors. The final section synthesizes data to assess CTL’s strengths and vulnerabilities within the telecommunication industry.
Company Overview CenturyLink, Inc. began in 1930 when F.E. Hogan, Sr. sold the Oak Ridge Telephone Company in Oak Ridge, LA to William Clarke and Marie Williams (Our History). In 1946, Clarke McRae Williams received ownership of the company as a wedding present (Our History). In 1947, Williams purchased the Marion Telephone Company in Marion, LA and moved base operations to Marion, LA (Our History). By 1968, the family owned business incorporated as Central Telephone and Electronics and moved their headquarters to Monroe, LA (Our History). In 1971, the company was renamed Century Telephone Enterprises, Inc. and acquired the Wisconsin based La Crosse Telephone Corporation (Our History). In 1978, Century Telephone moved to the NYSE (CTL) and quadrupled their share price (Our History). In 2009, after many acquisitions, Century Tel merged with Embarq to form CenturyLink, Inc. (CTL) (Our History). On April 1,
Corning has had a strong dedication to technology and innovation. However, heavy dependence on a single line of business of telecommunication led it to financial challenges. The case tells us about Corning’s strategic approach towards exploring new business prospects and large opportunities for its future sustainability. Corning’s road map for innovation in new market and technologies is systematic and structured. The dimension of this case is to answer the question how do entrepreneurs identify opportunities for new business ventures? According to Robert Baron, one
1. Compare and contrast the use of IT in an “information Age” company versus that in an “industrial Age” company? Is Cisco an Information Age company? Why?
The aim of the 10 ESCs is to set out the shared capabilities that all staff working in health should achieve as best practice; they should also be relevant to staff working in social services. In addition, it is intended that they will enable people using health services to develop increased awareness of what to expect from staff and services. (Armstrong D, et al, 2012:7):
Cisco’s current strategy attempts to do too much and appeal to a much too broad target market, and thus needs to consider different strategies.
I would say an excellent strategy to capture market opportunities, Cisco and its partners must continue to evolve, invest, lead and grow together.
In 1963, with the purchase of American Cable Systems and its 1,200 subscribers in the city of Tupelo, Massachusetts, Ralph Roberts founded Comcast. By 2016 Comcast is one of the nations leading providers of entertainment, communication as well as cable products and services. Nationwide Comcast has over 100,000 employees; each day the company provides over 142 million phone calls, over 136 million emails and over 12 million received voicemails. To date Comcast is the leading cable provider in 19 states nationwide. Since 1963 Comcast has continued to grow with monumental purchases as well as mergers that were blocked by the government in efforts to stop a potential monopoly. Throughout the company’s history, it has grown in three categories Cable, Phone and internet.
AT&T has much strengths and weaknesses and threats as an organization. This SWOT will serve as a tool for identifying alternative strategies for the organization and help define a growth plan. AT&T is a corporate business, their global headquarters is located in Dallas Texas, and the current chief executive officer (CEO) is Randall L. Stephenson. For more than a century they have consistently provided innovative, reliable high quality products and services and excellent customer care. They are recognized as the leading provider of IP-based communications services and businesses. They’re also the top U.S. provider of wireless, high speed internet access, WIFI, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services.
According to Stafford and Heilprin, “American Cable Communications (ACC) was one of the largest cable operators in the United States (AirThread Case).” ACC serviced roughly 24.1 million video subscribers, 13.2 million high-speed internet subscribers, and 4.6 million landline telephony subscribers. In 2007, ACC saw revenues of $30.9 billion and had net income equaling $2.6 billion. In order to adapt to the changes in the industry, ACC started aggressively acquiring smaller companies, which resulted in huge customer growth and the development of, “a strong corporate finance team with significant acumen in identifying, valuing, structuring, and executing corporate control transaction (AirThread Case).” That being said, ACC has set its sights on yet another company--AirThread Connections--with the expectation of further revenue growth and customer acquisition and retention.
Rogers Cable is the leader in Canada’s cable television market, with a over 2.3 million cable television subscribers and 500000 internet subscribers. In 1993 the Canadian government relaxed the norms of telecommunications industry followed by an application in 1999, allowing local carriers to change the content of the information passing through their networks. This led to increased competition in the market and the customers enjoyed a lot of choice. As such Rogers Cable focused completely on increasing its subscriber base and
The business case presented focuses on insatiable demand amongst a growing population for a service built on dilapidated, poorly maintained infrastructure, against a backdrop of government deregulation in the telecoms sector. As of 1992, there were a mere 78k telephone lines for the 27m people living in 4.7m households (a population set to double over the coming 24 years), with users suffering success rates of just 25%. Demand was forecast to grow to 500k subscribers by 1996. The recent deregulation of the telecoms sector (via the break-up of TPTC into TPC and TTCL) and the formation of a regulator (TCC) had
Alaska Airlines has managed to remain in the “green” as other airlines seem to be suffering in a market space that sees fierce competition. According to Sam Matthews of the Business Insider “Alaska Airlines (ALK) grew its revenue at a compound annual growth rate (or CAGR) of 7% in 2010–2014. The airline had total revenues in 2010 of $3,832 million, which grew to $5,368 million in 2014” (Alaska Airlines’ Historical Revenue and Earnings Growth, 2015). How is it possible that an airline that operates on a relatively small scale, 880 flights per day, compared to its competitors such as Delta, 15,000 flights per day, is able to be so competitive and continue to increase its revenue (Alaska Airlines company facts, 2016), (Corporate Stats and Facts, 2017)? Here is where the deployment and utilization of Information Technology (IT) enters into the picture. Alaska Airline is well known throughout the airline industry for their innovations in technology, safety and customer satisfaction. According to Alaska Airlines’ company timeline, “In 1995, we were the first U.S. airline to sell an airplane ticket online. The following year, we pioneered satellite-based GPS technology to fly more safely and precisely. In 2013, Alaska and Horizon piloted self-bag-tagging, giving
A main component of any company are stakeholders. A stakeholder is a person, group, or organization that has an involvement or interest in a company. Stakeholders can affect a company’s actions as well as be affected by them. There are several key stakeholders in Comcast who play a large role in how the company is ran. These include managers and employees, government agencies and unions, and finally the shareholders.
The globalized business environment has determined companies to develop complex strategies intended to address the challenges determined by these factors. The increased competition in most business fields requires that companies develop flexible strategies that are able to address the changing conditions of the environment. The same situation applies to the telecommunication industry.
The nature of the market structure and demand of Cisco Systems is its business market which contains fewer but larger companies. For Cisco Systems, this implies that even though they have fewer clients than other companies, they still have a good and profitable relationship with their clients. For the customers of Cisco Systems, this implies that they will receive better and faster service and products because they don’t have to compete for the attention and service of Cisco Systems.
We think we can do whatever we want to on the Internet, but can we really? In this day and age, people log on and surf the web without a second thought, and often take the freedoms of the Internet for granted. One of the most valuable things about the Internet is that it's open and equal. Anyone can access or create new websites, and as of now, each website is treated the same. Unfortunately, this freedom is being threatened and the Internet as we know it could change for good.