choose I to research the decision that AT&T and Bell South made to merge their firms. In late 2006, these companies made an almost effortless conclusion that working as a whole would benefit each of them in massive ways. AT&T bought out Cingular wireless also, which with all of these combined efforts has made them one of the leading wireless companies in the world. Throughout this paper I plan to explain information regarding this merge with reliable information I found from AT&T itself and websites such as wikapedia.com, bellsouth.com, and other journalist article sites.
Bell South primarily operates well, in the south and was Atlanta based. It provides a numerous amount services such as credit cards, cable TV, satellite TV, electricity, Internet access, and banking. Right before the decision to merge, Bell South was valued at an eighty-six billion dollar company. Bell South was one of seven original telephone companies in the United States, so therefore it must have had a must have been doing something right to operate for so long. With this as admiralty, AT&T offered them with a proposition of unification. Bell South was faced with a tough competitor that also provided the same services in all their business territory. So basically Bell South decided, if you can't beat them, join them. And with good reasons, they joined forces because instead of possibly going out of business from AT&T, they made business from AT&T.
AT&T before the business unification had an estimated one hundred and sixtyone billion revenue. Once AT&T bought out Cingular, it was known as the company with the "most coverage area" as they claim. With owning Cingular now, AT&T is the leading wireless service provider. As I read online, AT&T states that joining forces with Bell
South makes it possible to reach customers in broader area as well as enable both companies to have more resources combined to satisfy more customers. Also, although AT&T doesn't include this, I think some of the decision was based on eliminating competition.
However, there are reasons as to why these companies combined are favorable. Both companies have respectable names; they're known for their admirably good service, customer appreciation, and cheap rates. Sometimes when you strive to be the "best", partnering up with others who share the same interests can be beneficial. These companies took the opportunity to join up and eliminate other competition together by servicing a broader area, combining technologies and supplies, sharing and customers, unifying two creditable business names into one.
I can think of a couple objections as to why these corporations shouldn't have merged. The reasons I can conclude, for society, is that it just offers less options of different services, if for some reason someone doesn't want to do business with this new firm. It's almost a monopoly type business now, sure there are other service providers now, but they lack the coverage and area availability that the new AT&T offers. If for some reason a dissatisfied AT&T customer doesn't want to be a part of their business any longer, they would have a tough choice in switching. If South Bell alone was still around and this customer lived in Georgia, they would have the option of joining them, and getting the service maybe South Bell had offered when it was operating on its own.
Investors are also affected by this corporal transformation. Those who had stocks regarding Bell South had to cash out of them or lost money. But I suppose since the corporations combined make more of a profit, those people with stocks on AT&T will make more of an earning.
Also since AT&T is the obviously "bigger" structured company, they are most likely more in control on how things are run now. The complete industry might be changed and employees might have different treatment and/or salary. Bell South might have to change the way that they operate to comply with AT&T's standards or vise versa. The businesses would have to compromise on their service and operating goals. And maybe one company paid more than the other? This question I did not find while researching, but it is a topic I would like to know more about. I also would want to know whether or not since the corporations combined, if they had to be fair about the salaries offered to the newly allied employees.
Also what if one company charged more or less for their service than the other? They would be forced to reach some sort of an agreement on the way that their prices are set. I suppose even if their prices were lowered, gaining more customers would make-up for loss profit per customer.
I couldn't come to a decision as to whether or not merging these two firms was a good decision with taking the firms involved, employees, the investors, and industry. Although I myself am satisfied with the service I receive being a customer of this merged
firm, I am sure there are people out there that are not. Both have good arguments, but I believe more people are affected more beneficially, but there are still some negative arguments.