The headlines from Sprint Nextel’s quarterly results yesterday almost seemed like they weren’t news at all – more subscriber losses, lower revenues. Same old story, isn’t it? Of course, it’s going to take more than a few quarters to get this disaster fixed.
In a conference call with analysts, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse seemed to put to rest any questions that a spin-off or sell-off of the iDEN business is imminent. He said that would present significant complexities, although, as you can imagine, nothing is ever completely off the table in terms of strategic moves. In its press release announcing first-quarter results, the company said it is exploring "de-levering, disposition of non-core assets," but it’s not clear what it means by "non-core" assets.
Meanwhile, the company is working to reinvigorate its Direct Connect service using iDEN while starting to roll out the Direct Connect on CDMA (QChat) in a few markets. It will probably have Direct Connect using CDMA in about 80% of markets by the end of the year.
We could spend a lot of time re-hashing how Sprint got into the jam it is in today, but there were a couple nuggets that suggest Hesse is on the right track. For one thing, he’s trying to create a "flatter" organization so more people are reporting directly to him, leaving fewer levels between him and the customer. SVP and Acting Chief Marketing Officer John Garcia noted that the ad in which Hesse appears for Simply Everything was one of the highest-rated ads the carrier has run in a long time. The idea is to signal to the existing customer base that change is in the air. It’s a new way of thinking in some ways as the industry moves away from the emphasis on net adds (or subtractions, in Sprint’s case) to one that focuses more on keeping current customers happy.
The other ray of light is this notion of the Now network. Hesse mentioned that the carrier is clarifying its brand position. Customers want information now, not when they get to the office or home, and the carrier is positioning the Now network as the one that delivers that. That makes more sense to me than the whole "power" message we were hearing last year. I never did hear a really good explanation for that one. With Now, at least it signals the immediacy at which people want to get their information.
Sprint recently announced an initiative called “Sprint Care Consistency” with the purpose of building a consistent foundation for customer care operations.
The market thus far has overlooked the opportunity to apply unlicensed mobile access’ (UMA) proven consumer architecture to certain types of business
