Clearwire Sends a Clear Message
March 17, 2009
There has been a change in leadership at wireless carrier, Clearwire.
And, according to most press accounts, it is a seismic shift of sorts.
Bumped up to co-Chairman, and out of the Clearwire CEO slot, is Benjamin Wolff. He is being replaced by Telecom industry veteran William Morrow, a
former Vodafone executive,and past President of Japan Telecom.
I don’t know either party, but I do know business – and I know how to grow a business.Though the PR spin says otherwise, I see this move coming as the
result of pressure from investors of Clearwire.
By media accounts, Mr. Wolff was a “deal man”, and with other carriers announcing LTE plans for 2010, perhaps the 4G opportunity that Clearwire has (had)
may be vulnerable. After all, once the PowerPoint charts are done and the cash/M&A consummated, it does come down to execution (not the other ex—as in
excuses).
This change is clearly a shift from deals to execution. We see this all the time across many industries. Once a razzle-dazzle “deal guy” runs out of deals, and it is
time to grow organically, this type of leadership change often occurs. There are those situations where “strip and flip” is a strategy for a deal person to generate
a quick buck. A lot of bad M&A can be found in strip-and-flip deals, as can those by buyers who can’t execute either or really did not know what they were
buying.
In Telecom, our most recent poster boy for the “Telecom Deal Maker” trophy was Bernie Ebbers. He’s the former CEO of WorldCom, and is now semi-
retired at a Federal facility. As you may recall, Bernie was always one deal ahead of reality and was not transparent about the true condition of WorldCom to
investors by way of accounting gimmicks and fraud with the WorldCom CFO. In short, Bernie did not get the integration work done. Once the smoke
cleared, WorldCom had never grown organically and sold for pennies on the dollar to Verizon.
My opinion back then (and today–especially in light of our current economy) was to let WorldCom go bankrupt.
It will be interesting to watch Clearwire in the months to come as it moves into serious execution mode. There will be a change in culture. What that change will
be remains to be seen, but if I were to bet, I would imagine it will be focused on acquiring customers, organic growth, cost levering and demonstrating results
from operations.
What I will watch for is not as much the top line growth for the sake of top line growth–anyone can lower price for top line growth. I will watch for the quality
of growth in their margins, customer loyalty, service reliability, and churn.
A new chapter opens at Clearwire – an enormous opportunity and a challenge. Best wishes to Mr. Wollf for past contributions,and good luck to Mr. Morrow
and the Clearwire organization–may all your contributions be of value.
Written by Dave Rusin - Telecom Executive
Posted by wbrache | Filed Under American telecom, Telecom USA, Telecommunications companies, Telecommunications news
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