Strengths of AT & T
AT&T organization offer a wide range of products to the public, over time the organization has diversified and divided in to specialized companies including; AT&T bell laboratories; AT&T consumer products; AT&T international; AT&T network systems; AT&T technology systems. Some of these products include home phones, wireless, U-verse and directives. This works to their advantage because usually most people would like to find all they want at a definite place. Having variety of products also enables the company to gain profit from all the products. The diversity of products also offers security to the company in that if one company falls the rest of the companies can be used to stabilize the situation. In other words, loss incurred through failure of company or product can be compensated by the profit made in other operations (McClatchy, 2011).
The other fundamental strength of AT & T is that they have made innovations over time making their products to be digitalized. Being an organization, which started in the year 1875 it, is obvious that if research had not been don and more innovations made then their products would not be relevant in the contemporary world today. From being an organization for making telephones it has widely grown and it now offers digitalized products and services such as advanced mobile services, next generation televisions and high speed internet services (Business Wire, 2006).
Weaknesses of AT & T
One of the major drawbacks for this organization is failure to offer maximum security for its customers. Goatse security, which is a hacker group, discovered some leakage in the security system of AT & T in the year 2010. This group discovered that it was possible to view emails of AT&T customers using a 3G Apple ipad without having security password. In the year 2005 AT&T made a record for being fined $25 by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for breaking data privacy (AT&T, 2016). Everyone would like their personal information to remain private. Something that AT&T Company has breached more than once. This needs to be dealt with as it can easily cause the customers to lack trust on the organization if that happens then not only does it paint a bad picture but it also cause tremendous losses to the company (PR Newswire, 2013).
Two main forms of corruption have also been associated with the AT&T organization. To begin with, there have been allegations of fraud facing the company. For instance, in the United States federal government announced a lawsuit against AT&T in the year 2005. AT & T was accused of violating the 'False claims act' when the organization allegedly facilitated and sought federal payments for a web based relay service by international callers who were not warranted for the service and wanted to use it for fraudulent purposes. AT&T has also been faced with accusation for racism. Aaron Slator- once the president of content and advertising sales was fired on 28th April, 2015 for sending racist text messages. In the same year there was protest by some people who went up to the headquarters of AT & T in Dallas and its satellite offices in Los angelos. It is believed that the protestors wanted AT & T to work with 100% black owned media (AT&T, 2016). These forms of corruption limit the interested investors and partners who could have boosted the growth of AT & T.
Two major opportunities of AT&T:
The company has attained an outstanding opportunity to get hold of the market by expanding the wireless interface by coming into collaboration with the Apple iPhone. With the emergence of Android in the present market, it is a known fact that the majority of the customers are drifting towards android operating system. Offering beneficial data schemas with the Apple gadgets will help the company again to gain the attention of the customers. And also as the sales of apple products are huge, this one strong opportunity for AT&T to achieve a strong position in the market.
In addition, with the availability of 4g LTE coverage (not just the regular 4g because the LTE is actually double the speed of regular 4g), AT&T has been able to expand their business to new heights. The newer and faster data plans with 4g LTE availability will bring new customers while keeping the old customers happy, which will increase the sales and customer satisfaction to a considerable extent. Thus, the emergence of 4G LTE will obviously have a positive impact in the company and add value to the brand. This new speed of LTE is changing the game in mobile carriers because it is the newest and best internet and cellular reception out there right now and whoever has it will be dominating the mobile carrier game. Now, the primary target of the company must remain to increase the 4g LTE network coverage area and this will obviously lead to increase in generation of profit (PR Newswire, 2013).
Two major threats of AT&T:
It is true that, the collaboration along the iPhone have provided an opportunity for the company, but losing the exclusive contract will prove to be a major loss. This is because a large section of customers chooses AT&T because of their contract with the Apple IPhone. Now, if the customers are able to get alternatives, then the customers might not choose AT&T. This is one of the major threats for AT&T. This is the reason to why the company must figure out something to pull in the customers, not only for their contract with the IPhone, but something else that make AT&T special.
Another threat for AT&T is their technological advancement. This aspect acts as a threat especially if the company fails to implement new bypass communication lines that can help in avoiding congestion of traffic. Then that would mean they would have a slower connection and that would mean people would be unhappy with the reception they are receiving so in the end the customers would switch carriers if this does not change soon. In addition, WiMax is another emerging telecommunication company, which has attained considerable fame within a short period of time due to its smooth network coverage, and beneficial data plans. Thus, if AT&T is not able to cope up with the competition, it may lose its present supremacy in the market.
Chart showing the SWOT analysis of AT & T organisation
References
McClatchy, (2011). AT&T honored for contributing $70K to county nonprofits. (2011, Mar 21). McClatchy - Tribune Business News Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/857948962?accountid=45049
Research and markets offers report: AT & T inc - SWOT analysis. (2011). Manufacturing Close - Up, Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/869354272?accountid=45049
PR Newswire, (2013). SWOT analysis reports: Adobe, intel, samsung market research. (2013, Jun 05). PR Newswire Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1364880532?accountid=45049
PR Newswire (2013). Free research report on micron technology, inc., procter & gamble co. (the), cisco systems, inc., AT & T, inc. and sprint nextel corp. (2013, Jan 28). PR Newswire Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1282076475?accountid=45049
Business Wire, (2006). Advanced american telephones debuts AT&T-branded 2.4 and 5.8GHz single handset and expansion phone systems; high-quality AT&T digital cordless systems offer attractive look and rich feature sets for home and small business users. (2006, Jan 04). Business Wire Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/445306216?accountid=45049
AT&T, (2016). Research Market: AT&T
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