Section 1-STRATEGY Our goal at Verizon is to become the number one leader in this age of digital technology. This goal can be accomplished by following these key imperatives:
• Grow Revenue- An increasing percentage of our revenues are coming from growth products and new markets. We have to push on that accelerator by keeping our customers, driving faster innovation and rapidly entering new markets.
• Take share from our competition- Great companies are full of people who come to work every day focused on beating the competition. We need to be that kind of company. That means local accountability, fast and flexible responses, and a relentless focus on delivering value to customers.
• Improve Profitability/Increase Margins- There is no trade-off between revenues and costs at successful companies. Profits feed growth. We have the scale and the structure to drive profitability as well as revenues.
• Increase Productivity- Productivity is not just about margins. It is about the customer and the behavior of employees. We need the discipline to drive out bureaucracy and focus all our energies on actions that create value for the customer.
• Provide the best customer experience- Verizon is better positioned than just about anyone in the industry to deliver great communications for customers, no matter where they are or what network they are using. This is an area of real opportunity for the company that truly establishes itself as the best service company. Let’s make Verizon that company.
• Strengthen our Culture- We have great people and great values. Our job as leaders is to translate that into performance. That means owning our strategy, motivating our people and focusing on winning.
Section 2- Core Competencies Verizon’s competence in digital technology gives us an advantage in the voice, audio and data industry. A few products that the company offers that is exclusively belongs to Verizon are the fiber optic network (FIOS), digital subscriber line (DSL) and fiber to the premise (FTTP). FIOS is operated over a fiber-optic network that brings internet, telephone, and television. “Verizon has attracted consumer and media attention in the area of broadband Internet access as the first major U.S. carrier to offer fiber to the home/premises, and has received top ratings from Consumer Reports among cable television and Internet service providers.” (Verizon Fios, 2010) Verizon is the first and only national company in the U.S. to bring a 100% fiber optic network straight to the customer’s door. DSL is “a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network.” (Verizon DSL, 2010) FTTP utilizes fiber optic cables and associated optical electronics instead of copper wire to connect a customer to the Verizon network. (Verizon, 2010)
Section 3-Industry Dynamics Here I would like to explain how the strategy outlined in Section 1 is the perfect strategy to be the leader in digital technology. Growing revenue is very essential. We will do this by offering special promotions on our unique existing products and publicizing through print, radio and television media. We also can increase growth via introducing new products and/or adding services to our existing products. The second point illustrated in the strategy section is to take share from our competition. By showing our customers we are the leaders in the industry and are able to offer top of the line products that no other company is able to offer will entice them to want our business. There are a host of telecommunications companies around that are able to offer similar services to which we offer these our indirect competitors. According to (Kander, n.d.), “while it has been stressed that is much more important to try to keep customers rather than focus on gathering prospects, it still is important to recruit new customers, and especially to take them from your competitors. As long as you develop your product (or service) to the finest quality and introduce it to your prospects in an efficient way, it will become all the easier to convert them.” Third, as a company we need to improve profitability and increase our margins. This point almost ties into the first with growing revenue. As previously mentioned, expanding our product line to existing and new customers is one way of achieving this goal. Customers who currently enjoy our services will remain loyal and rave about them to family and friends. As a company we also should primarily focus on our latest and greatest products. As stated by (Hall, 2008), “unique products command higher prices and greater profits.” Let’s define the term productivity. Productivity is defined in economics as the measure of the production output per unit of production input. This refers to the ration of output and input in the production process. (Miller, 2008) Content employees in the workplace will more than likely be more productive. This in turn will most likely leave employees motivated to work and increase productivity. The last point of discussion would be providing the best customer service experience. Research shows that 43 percent of consumers surveyed abandoned a provider to which they declared themselves loyal because of a negative experience with a staff person, and 30 percent of respondents reported that having the feeling they are not treated as valued customers by the staff has been the main reason for taking their business elsewhere. (Ward, 2010) With providing our customers with outstanding service, going the extra mile to make the customer feel special will gain their loyalty and will make it harder or highly unlikely to switch to the competition.
Section 4-Technology Sourcing and Internal Innovation A way to source our technology may be to collaborate with other telecommunications companies. Collaborating our FIOS technology with other companies could be an option to generate revenue and profits. Being as though, “other service providers currently only use fiber optics deployment to the network backbone and use existing copper or coax infrastructure for the end user.”(Verizon FIOS, 2010) FIOS is still expanding and not available in some areas due to franchise agreements. Collaborating with companies who may have access to these areas may be profitable. Implementing FIOS technology is expensive and has slowed down the development across the country. If the costs of the technology are shared with another firm it would be possible to expose the technology to more individuals and reduce the financial burden to our company. This would all be accomplished with licensing our product. In licensing our product we still retain a moderate amount of control through restrictions in the license agreement.

Section 5-Product Development Strategy The company wants to continuously develop products to complement our products that our currently available. We want to construct products that are going to appeal to our customers and provide them the highest quality possible. One way to ensure that we provide our customers with a product they want is to ask them. Who else would be able to provide better information than the customer their self? By listening to what the customer desires or needs the better chance of producing a “winning” profitable product. The sooner we are able to beat the competition by putting our product on the market first, will increase our chances of us being successful. As we would like to be the first to implement the best technology to the public, we also want to be sure we do this in an efficient manner. By no means, do we want to launch a successful product and the development costs outweigh the profits.

Section 6- Strategy to protect innovations In order to protect our strategy, the protective method that would be used is trade secrets. Patents offer little protection from a technological standpoint. According to our text, “a trade secret is information that belongs to a business that is generally unknown to others. This would be used to protect any marketing strategies, firm information and manufacturing processes. A trademark would be used to protect the company’s logo.
Conclusion
Following the outlined strategic plan will secure our company with the number one position in the telecommunications industry for digital technology. From us increasing revenue, product innovation to providing our customers with the best customer experience we ultimately are destined to be the leader of the industry.

REFERENCES
Halas, R. (2002). Business strategy: Top 5 ways to improve profitability. Retrieved from http://www.essortment.com/career/businessstrateg_svfx.htm
Hall, D.(2008, August). Five Ways to Increase Profit Margins. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_68/s0808036519428.htm
Kander, J. (2002) Assesing market share and the competition. Retrieved from http://www.helium.com/items/291707-assessing-market-share-and-the-competition
Miller, S. (2008). How to Increase Productivity. Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Increase-Productivity&id=1032644
Ward, S. (2010). 4 ways to Provide Customer Service That Outshines Your Competitors. Retrieved from http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/a/shinycustserv.htm
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