Worldcom, Up Until Its Bankruptcy Term Paper

First, the decreasing subscription of land-line telephone service due to the proliferation of cellular technology. Since 2001, there has been a steady decline in market share of land-line telephones as more and more users chose to use cell phones as their permanent phone provider. WorldCom, with its specific focus still on land-line services has created a multitiered strategy to promote land-line use. They emphasize new packages that are more affordable than older packages, with shorter time commitments, as well as more land-line services than previous offers. WorldCom believes that this strategy promotes greater diversification of land-line services across many different platforms that will increase the overall usage and service provision for American consumers. The second major issue that impacts WorldCom's future strategic vision is the emergence of VOIP services as a mode of land-line phone services. VOIP (Voice over IP) are internet-based telephone services that utilize the internet connections to create a virtual land-line platform. This service has become increasingly popular because it is low-maintenance and much cheaper than traditional landlines. In order to decrease the market share erosion for VOIP providers, WorldCom has created a long-term strategy that attempts to destroy the credibility of VOIP through attacking its inconsistency. WorldCom, at a corporate level, believes that it can maintain and even increase its current market share by reducing costs and increasing user friendliness through its platforms.The final strategic challenge to WorldCom is the proliferation of smaller and decentralized landline providers throughout the United States. When WorldCom dominated the marketplace of landline telephones, there were only four major competitors for overall market share. Today there are more than dozen popular services that all compete with WorldCom and at&T for overall market share. WorldCom has used a leaning approach with their current corporate strategy to cut costs. They believe that if they provide more efficient servicing platform they can maintain their current user base and expand into competitor strength regions that have less flexibility and more tenuous infrastructures.

Overall it is evident that WorldCom has suffered tremendously as a result of their illegal disclosure and accounting practices. They suffered complete negative publicity and branding in the wake of their scandal and now must attempt to resurrect its brand through its parent company. Either of these initiatives will be extremely hard in the much tighter competitive landscape of landline phones.

Lawson, Stephen. www.infoworld.comInfoWorld, January 06, 2006.

Lynne W. Jeter (2003). Disconnected: Deceit and Betrayal….....