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    A Sprint to the Finish
    A Sprint to the Finish
    A Sprint to the Finish
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    A Sprint to the Finish

    By Russell McGuire

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    About this ebook

    Earlier this year T-Mobile finally completed the acquisition of Sprint. In the days that have followed I've seen many social media posts — some celebrating this hard fought conclusion, others reflecting on the bittersweet end to one of the most innovative service providers in U.S. telecom history. In this book, we reflect back on some strategic moments in the company's history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSDG Strategy, LLC
    Release dateJul 28, 2020
    ISBN9781393562399
    A Sprint to the Finish
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    Author

    Russell McGuire

    Russ McGuire is a trusted advisor with proven strategic insights. He has been blessed to serve as an executive in Fortune 500 companies, found technology startups, be awarded technology patents, author a book and contribute to others, write dozens of articles for various publications, and speak at many conferences. More importantly, he's a husband and father who cares about people, and he's a committed Christian who operates with integrity and believes in doing what is right.

    Read more from Russell Mc Guire

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      Book preview

      A Sprint to the Finish - Russell McGuire

      Preface

      Earlier this year T -Mobile finally completed the acquisition of Sprint. In the days that have followed I’ve seen many social media posts — some celebrating this hard fought conclusion, others reflecting on the bittersweet end to one of the most innovative service providers in U.S. telecom history. I’ve received many notifications from LinkedIn to congratulate friends and contacts for their new position in the combined company. Congratulations to you all!

      But in this book, I want to reflect back a bit on some strategic moments in the company’s history. For those that don’t know, I worked for Sprint as a strategy executive from 2003–2014, but my ties to the company go way back to the 1920s. My grandfather Carl Spaid started working in telecom in 1913 in his final year of high school as a lineman’s assistant at the local telephone company in Joplin, Missouri. He continued with the company while an engineering student at the University of Missouri. In 1917 he enlisted in the signal corps of the U.S. Army. When the war ended in 1918 he was released from his service commitment and returned to the phone company. In 1925 he moved to Abilene, Kansas and joined United Telephone, the company that would become Sprint. In March 1929 (the month my mother was born) he moved his family to Kansas City and became Chief Engineer. He would later rise to become President of United Telephone of Kansas and Missouri (about one third of the entire United Telephone operation). So, it’s natural that I’ve had a healthy interest in the history of the company, and especially the strategic decisions made over the 121 years of its existence.

      In the coming pages I want to share some stories from that history. My grandfather passed away before I was born, so some of the stories I only know from a distance. Similarly, although I was involved when we took a swing at merging with T-Mobile in 2014, I had no involvement or inside perspective on the activities that led up the final deal, so that story I’ll tell from a pretty detached perspective. But there were a number of key strategic transitions that happened while I was at Sprint. I’ll tell these stories very much from my perspective. That means the lens that I was looking through and my own opinions will undoubtedly color them. Other people likely will remember the same periods differently. I don’t claim that I had complete visibility into everything that was happening (far from it), therefore my perspectives may not be completely accurate. But I hope that the stories will be entertaining and informative, especially for those wanting to learn about strategic decision-making.

      Over the coming months and years I plan on sharing more and more about tools and approaches that can help with strategic decision-making at all kinds of organizations, so if you find this interesting, please follow my blog at clearpurpose.media.

      A Sprint from the Start

      Arguably the first strategic decision in Sprint’s history was the decision by the company’s founder to enter the telecom business.

      Alexander Graham Bell invented and patented the telephone in 1876 and the Bell Telephone Company began wiring every major city for telephone service. When Bell’s patent expired, entrepreneurs started building out networks in unserved cities and sometimes establishing rival networks (at a lower price) in cities already served by Bell.

      Cleyson L. Brown was a serial entrepreneur in Abilene, Kansas. He and his brother Jacob had already started a water company. They used water power to start an electric company. And then they used their electric poles to start a telephone company. They began offering telephone service in 1899 and the Brown Telephone Company was officially chartered in 1902.

      The second major strategic decision the company made was to grow through consolidation. By 1911 the company served over 4,000 telephones in the Abilene area. That year Brown led the consolidation of other independent (not Bell) telephone companies in Kansas. The newly combined companies renamed themselves United Telephone Company. Over time the company acquired 68 water, electric, and telephone companies and in 1925 formed a holding company called United Telephone and Electric (UT&E).

      The depression was hard on many companies. United managed to survive until 1934 when a number of factors combined to cause the company to file bankruptcy, but by 1937 United had recovered and was able to emerge from bankruptcy and continue to grow. In 1939 the holding company changed names to United Utilities, Incorporated.

      Brown had hired Skip Scupin in 1921 and Scupin led many of the company’s significant projects over the years. In 1959, Scupin became president and moved the company’s headquarters to Kansas City.

      In the preface I mentioned that my grandfather worked for United. To provide a sense for the size and structure of the company during this period I have copies of portions of the annual reports from 1947 and 1954.

      As of December 31, 1947, United served 155,103 telephone lines, had 8,492 electric customers, 2,882 gas customers, 414 water customers, and had divisions focused on Petroleum and Merchandising. The telephone operations were broken into three divisions: the Eastern Group, the Central Group, and the Western Group, each of which consisted of separate operating companies. For example, my grandfather was CEO

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