Verizon: A Platform for Change The name says it all – “a platform for change.” Although steeped in an ever-changing market, Verizon has been able to not just keep up, but excel. With innovations rampant, and competition always on its heels, Verizon has to keep up in ever aspect of the game. This was a challenge for the managers but they were able to change and change and change, which was key. Verizon is a full-service communications provider, which means major competition from every side. Competing against cable providers such as Time Warner Cable, wireless providers like AT&T and Sprint, and Voice over Internet Protocol like Vonage, means that Verizon has A LOT to keep up with. It would take an innovative managerial system to fight back against all this competition, which is exactly what Verizon had. When Seidenberg and his team decided to split the wireless and wireline sections of the company, they proved just that. They needed to protect the formation of wireless as the wireline segment provided more than just sales for all types of consumers. Even more importantly, with the purchase of MCI, they ushered in a new segment in Verizon Business that would bring even more to the table, shifting orientation toward global markets. The acquisition of MCI also helped with the transitioning culture jumpstarted by the growing wireless market, which was faster in nature than the wireline culture. MCI was entrepreneurial in culture, which helped Verizon adapt to the changing conditions of the business world. Verizon was the 800-pound gorilla market, largely due to their network. They leveraged their scale as both a buyer and a seller and everything was smooth sailing, until 2007, when Apple launched the iPhone in a partnership with AT&T. The only way to combat this kind of competition was to due something drastically innovative that would change the whole culture of the business. Verizon would do that, teaming up with Google to create the Android. The two companies are at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to culture – Verizon, very clean cut and professional, committed to net neutrality; Google is more “open” - no suits, mountain-view office, and super creative. The two companies were able to overcome their differences by dividing the labor. Google would handle the operating system while Motorola took care of the hardware and Verizon took the job as the consolidator. The results had to come fast, and they did, resulting in the launch of the Droid in time for the 2009 holiday season, which eventually led Apple to team up with Verizon for their own version of the iPhone 4. With wireless growing and growing, Verizon had to adapt once more to save the segment on which the company was founded – wireline. Customers were ditching landlines and going wireless. Thus, in 2004, Verizon FiOS – a fiber-optic broadband network connecting directly to customers’ homes – was born. Not only did Verizon innovate within the product, but also in the way they offered it, in order to slow down the “customer exodus.” Once again, they came through, marketing a “triple-play” option, which would include phone, TV, and Internet service in one tight package. This was a clear win for Verizon, as by 2008, they saw wireline on the same level as wireless. Continuing on this path would force changes in the way the design team performed, but Verizon played this to their advantage as well, creating Flexview, a video-on-demand service available from all of ones Verizon devices. Flexview, along with other interactive innovations such as, widgets, general customer service functions a click away, and more specific functions from TV channels themselves (buying more channels with one click of the remote), all came out of the managements ability to look at the changes in the business and execute innovative ideas in an alarming fashion. Furthering wireless capabilites, Verizon adapted once again and began to look at 4G LTE spectrum innovations. Although the 3G launch was very slow and there were those who thought it was too early to launch 4G LTE, Verizon went ahead with it, setting up a venture forum for VCs to invest. A genius move was made at this show, taking the technology out of the phone and putting it into things like cars and refrigerators, putting Verizon’s 4G spectrums on display for the masses. This forum along with Connected Home and the Consumer Electronics Show were all innovative ways that Verizon was able to boost 4G popularity, and ultimately their popularity, continuing their managerial string of innovation. Another adaptation would target business customers, attempting to integrate wireless and wireline into one new enterprise. Although met with a ton of pushback, the management pushed it through. Due to the potential success of the vertical integration of wireless and wireline, McAdam wanted Verizon to start looking internationally with its verticals. Although blessed with a global infrastructure, Verizon wasn’t an interconnected global brand. Adapting once again, they went for venture capital investments. This time however, tapping the global economy would prove to be difficult for a US-centered company that would act more like a colonizer than a citizen of those countries.
McAdam wanted the culture of the company to be over-arching – all was to be evaluated from the perspective of “One Verizon.” In many situations, walls can be put up between segments of big businesses like Verizon. The company might be doing something good for one segment but destructive for another. For example, Home Phone Connect canabalized its sister product as it was ranking in the big bucks. McAdam wanted to make sure that Verizon was running things in a way that would be beneficial to the company as a whole. With this in mind, he declared a company-wide credo statement in 2011. A major paradigm shift in how the Verizon leadership viewed the company took place, which naturally spills over into how they wanted to the rest of the business to view itself.
All in all, by 2011, Verizon was no longer considered “the local phone company.” With excellent management, they had turned into an innovative, somewhat global supplier of multiple services, emerging as a platform for change in multiple industries.