Cingular Wireless CIO plans for successes

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Cingular Wireless CIO plans for successes

• By
• Neha Borgaonkar

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About Cingular

• SBC communications and BellSouth merged in 2000
  to form Cingular Wireless.
• In 2004, Cingular purchased ATT Wireless,
  creating the largest U.S. wireless carrier with
  49 million customers and revenues of 15.4
  billion.
• Key player in the Success of Cingular was
  F.Thaddeus Arroyo, Cingulars C.I.O.

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What was the first major challenge of the CIO?

• First Challenge was blending the 1,400 different
  information systems and 60 separate call centers
  that existed when Cingular was born.
• Cingular merged 11 systems into 1 and replaces
  the 60 call centers with 20 new ones.
• Cross functional teams composed of both users and
  IT personnel played key in the consolidation.
• His key to success in managing all these programs
  are to build strong teams to work hard and to
  plan, plan, plan.

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Other Challenges

• The FCC created new regulations requiring
  wireless companies to allow customers to keep
  their phone numbers when changing carriers.
• The regulations require Cingular to make major
  changes to its billing and customer service
  applications.

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Modifications for Cingular

• FCCs regulation required Cingular to make major
  modifications to its billing and customer service
  applications.
• 70,000 employees were merged to one email
  directory.
• Merged the corporate intranets within 24 hours of
  closing.

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Cingular uses the ATT name

• On November 20, 2005, Ed Whitacre, CEO of the
  newly merged SBC/ATT, announced plans to market
  Cingulars service under the ATT brand.
• According to ATT, the company will begin the
  rebranding of Cingular Wireless to ATT.

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The End