|
Will Technology Save MCI?
by Carol Holding, May 6, 1997
Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that the final annual
meeting of MCI before it is acquired by BT was a somber, even
poignant affair. Though the company called MCI will disappear,
its new owners recognize the value of the MCI brand and have assured
us they intend to ensure its survival.
For the MCI brand, this event will be the third major transition
it has weathered. First, when the company left the comparative
sleepiness of the corporate market for the high visibility and
public scrutiny of the massses. Then, in the early 90s, MCI expanded
its franchise to take the high tech lead. Now, MCI is the first
major US phone company to successfully partner with an international
counterpart to offer global service.
MCI's brand essence, the accumulated stories that make up the
company's values and personality, fit the first two iterations
of the company flawlessly. The first was translating this essence
into an accessible image that would appeal to the masses while
not turning off its business customers. This is the scrappy, cheap,
resourceful, irreverent, and anti-monopoly MCI that we know and
love. This image provided the platform for the second transition
to high tech leader - what could better reflect the cutting edge
of technology than such an array of attributes?
Whether MCI can effectively morph its story this time will depend
on the culture that emerges once it is legally merged with BT.
However, when MCI's founder Bill McGowan said he would like to
be reincarnated as the Chairman of some protected, cushy telephone
monopoly, he may not have envisioned that company as having anything
to do with MCI, itself. MCI has handled past transitions with
alacrity, but will the formality and beaurocracy of BT permit
that alacrity now when it is needed more than ever to help these
two brands to capitalize on synergies and raise their combined
brand value - or will this be a battle of wills?
The solution may very well lie in focusing on what they have in
common - technology. Both BT and MCI have excellent reputations
for providing advanced networks to such leading edge companies
as Cisco. Both have had major technology wins in the consumer
markets too. And both have lived through the wrenching change
of a formerly monopolistic, now deregulated environment, albeit
from different sides. From the common goal of technology their
disparate personalities begin to coalesce. The poignancy of losing
our own thouroughly American, die-in-the-ditch MCI may be mitigated
by the emergence of a new definition of what is American, with
MCI leaving its Horatio Alger-like struggle for survival behind
for a Bill Gates' style monopoly.
back to top
other articles |
