Lesson 2: Obsess over the customer (My own company)

I've only been with Sprint for a little over a year, so I had to do some research about what our mission/vision statement is.  We must have one, but it isn't easily accessible and visible.  I asked another employee and they didn't know either.  As best as I can tell, our vision is "to be a world class company, the standard by which others are measured."

If this is our mission, it's difficult to interpret how a marketing plan could support something so broad.  We face numerous external challenges to our wireless businesses, as there are significant trends towards price competition.  The industry hopes to compensate for this by going away from a decade-long model of subsidizing phones for customers.  Networks have been upgraded to provide fast 4G LTE data speeds, although still not competitive with wired broadband from cable internet providers.  The main threats to my company is in trying to improve our network through our "Network Vision" initiative.  Sprint sees an opportunity to differentiate by being able to offer unlimited data to our customers when the competitors cap data consumption.  Wireless data consumption is growing at an extremely fast pace, and capacity constraints are going to be challenged.  Our particular technology can be aggregated in a way that will potentially provide breakthrough speeds over the next two years.  In time, a big opportunity exists to potentially compete with cable internet providers.  The problem is that we have to completely rip out our old equipment on every tower and replace it with our new equipment, rather than just upgrade side by side as our competitors have been able to do.  As a result, our base sees degraded performance during the upgrade process and customer satisfaction takes a huge hit.

Our company obviously provides a service that has an extremely broad customer base.  The vast majority of adults (and even children 7+) have a need to communicate with others and exchange information while mobile.  Our CEO and Chairman have both publicly advocated consolidation in the industry so we can more effectively compete with AT&T and Verizon by realizing purchasing and operating synergies with a company like T-Mobile.  Regulators have been reluctant to support a merger or acquisition, showing the political stance in Washington is still favoring four national carriers.  Our argument has been that the industry is really a duopoly, so allowing a merger will really increase competition from 2 to 3 national carriers.  If the external political environment shifts, a huge opportunity for a combined Sprint/T-Mobile will open up.