Management Science

(a)the organization chosen and the nature of its business:

AT&T, a midsized organization, is a telecommunications giant in the wireless industry. Ultimately the company unleashed a plethora of possibilities that enabled other corporations to follow AT&T's example by strengthening the competition. AT&T transitioned the paradigm shift to cohabitate today's advanced technology with yesteryear's concept of bridging the gap of people and distance with a small communicative device. As the years progress, the organization continues to search new developments that would increase speed, optimize quality management, and expand consumer growth, while simultaneously making their products more affordable for the average working class consumer who desires more flexibility when "on the go."

(b) identification and discussion of the situation and objective function
In the midst of AT&T's overwhelming successes within the wireless technological interface, current competition raised the standard of wireless communication in terms of what consumers are willing to utilize as a wireless/internet service provider and how the organization will meet consumer needs on a daily basis. The problem I discovered when conducting research on the company is; lack of stability in terms of their pricing strategy (i.e. constant fluctuation, and elimination of beneficial services that are consumer approved) with wireless phone service. Instead of implementing services that are better for organizational growth in terms of consumer satisfaction, they offer products and services outside of the realm of competitive advantage, and are disadvantageous for consumers especially during times of economic recession where all consumers are looking for more cost effective options. AT&T also offers over- priced talk packages for prepaid and contract plans. It is my belief that the organization does not offer a competitive pricing strategy, instead, the prices are more expensive than most cellular phone companies, thus resulting in new organizations that offer innovative pricing methods that are enticing to current and former AT&T consumers. Organizations such as AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile engage in price gouging consumers for the most common services such as; data, talk, and text, whereas smaller entities such as; MetroPCS, Cricket, and Virgin Mobile offer the same services at a price that are more affordable for everyone. AT&T emphasizes that what makes their organization more competitive is the fact that they offer more coverage all over the world. Today's consumers, however, needs more selling points to seal the deal, such as the freedom to communicate with others without focusing on roaming, overages, and/or insufficient minutes to make and complete a call.

Below is a small comparison of my position on AT&T's and MetroPCS:

Prepaid services examples;

$60 monthly unlimited talk and text. (Not including data packages, e.g. surfing the internet, purchasing and downloading ring tones and games, those packages are sold separately or included in the $74.99 plan.).

$2 unlimited: includes a daily access fee of $2 dollar on the days phone is used: refill package of incremental value ranging from $15, $ 25, $50, $75, $100.

If a consumer desires to use the 4G network, he or she may have to purchase a phone that is equipped with 4G capabilities, and may have to anticipate additional charges and fees, and possible plan changes in order to utilize the whole 4G experience. In addition to uneconomical talk and text plans AT&T provides, the organization offers inflexible data packages that most consumers are unable to comprehend the benefit unless they are tech savvy, for example their data package incremental value range from $5, $19.99, etc. per KB or MB. An average consumer may not mentally comprehend the length of a KB and MB and will be more than likely to mismanage this package as a result, which is another factor that is costly and ineffective for the consumer.