Taking A Look At AT & T

Strengths
AT&T is one of the largest companies in the world providing telecommunication services and other products. Due to being listed as a public limited and high investor confidence, it has wider access to funds.
Due to the financial and operational ability, AT&T has pursued a growth model through acquisitions and this has resulted in the company size getting larger. This has also resulted in the company covering a wider geographical area (for instance, expanding to Mexico).
AT&T provides its customers with a wide portfolio of services. This includes products to suit the requirements of both individual and corporate customers. It provides high speed internet which is an essential requirement to customers these days. The other competitors

This is fulfilling the duties to society as a corporate and this will also result in the AT&T brand name becoming stronger.
AT&T comprises of a set of highly talented employees. The talent management and human resources aspect has been very strong with employees showing a great willingness to continue working at AT&T. This will give a competitive edge over other rival service providers since knowledge is a critical success factor in the telecommunication industry. The number of patents owned by AT&T shows how successful they have been in the learning and growth

AT&T has adapted to this successfully by innovating their services and adding more value to customers. This early mover advantage would give sustainable benefits to the company and this is important to have in a turbulent industry.

Weaknesses
Being large has its fair share of weaknesses as well.
AT&T has to reward its employees with more attractive remuneration packages compared to other services in order to retain them. This policy has resulted in increasing operational costs which would apparently have a detrimental impact on profit and EPS.
Investment in research and development (R&D) is extremely necessary to thrive in the technology industry. However, this too would be extremely costly. Although AT&T has a high number of patents compared to its rivals, not every patent could be turned into a commercially viable product.
AT&T has lost some of its market share and customer base to cheap rivals such as Sprint and T-Mobile. This is mainly due to the introduction of low cost and prepaid plans. The retaliation has not been very convincing so far.
Control and performance evaluation is a major issue for any large company. This is especially true for AT&T since its responsibility centres are geographically