An Overview Of AT&T – The Multinational Telecommunications Company

Introduction

AT&T is a telecommunications company based in Dallas, Texas, Unites States. The multinational company first originated through Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexandre Bell, Thomas Sanders and Gardiner Greene Hubbard after Bell patented the telephone. AT&T Inc. is a modern media company whose mission is to inspire human progress through the power of communication and entertainment. AT&T bring together the four key elements that define a modern media company: premium content, director to consumer relationships, advertising marketplace and high-speed networks. The company comprises of 4 distinct business units: AT&T Communications, WarnerMedia, AT&T Latin America and Xandr. AT&T Latin America was named among the World’s Top 25 Best Workplaces and on June 14th, 2014, AT&T became the world's largest media and entertainment company in terms of revenue after acquiring WarnerMedia. They are a Fortune 10 company and have recorded 35 consecutive years of quarterly dividend growth. AT&T also are extremely concerned with their social responsibilities and enforce this throughout the organization. For example, they donated $31 million in 2018 and volunteered 1.5 million hours through employee programs. In addition, they are also one of the largest corporate purchasers of renewable energy in the US and have developed a Climate Change Analysis Tool to allow them to make smarter, climate informed decisions. AT& T produced a turnover of $29,450,000 in 2017. The company employ 268,220 employees as of 2018, provide voice coverage in over 225 countries and data coverage in more than 210 counties.

Corporate Governance

AT&T’s primary objective is ‘to become a modern media company and deliver on our mission to inspire human progress through the power of communication and entertainment’. They are achieving this by working on the performance of their communications business, starting up an advertising business and continuing to create great entertainment. They also are concerned with paying down their death, investing in growth whilst maintaining a steady dividend for their shareholders. Over the past 5 years the organisation has invested over $105 billion into enhancing the network due to the belief of strong governance systems being the key in managing network reliability and customer data security. They consider their commitment to good corporate governance promotes the ‘long-term interests of shareholders, strengthens Board and management accountability and helps build public trust in the company’. The company frequently updates its corporate governance practices in line with evolving concerns highlighted by the stockholders. They also disclose online reports including issues such as sustainability and the proxy statement to increase transparency to their investors. AT&T want their engagement with their stockholders to be meaningful and to understand their perspectives and this can be achieved by good governance processes. All of this is analyzed by Yahoo Finance who ensure that AT&T along with many other companies, are conducting their operations in and orderly and honest way.

CEO: Randall L. Stephenson

Inserting image...Randall (57) began his career in Southwestern Bell Telephone in 1982. During the years of 2001 to 2004, he operated as senior executive vice president and chief financial officer. He then became chief operating officer and preformed this role from 2004 to 2007. Randall was appointed to AT&T’s board of directors in 2005 and now serves as their chairman of the board, chief executive officer and president of AT&T as of 2007. Randall L. Stephenson earned $28.4 million in 2016, $1.8 millions of which was his salary. His pay ranks 12 out 204 companies in 2016 according to the Wall Street Journal.

Board of Directors

There are currently 13 directors on the Board of Director, 9 men and 4 women in AT&T Inc, only one of which who is an insider, Randall L. Stephenson (CEO). Corporate governance guidelines require majority of a board to be independent and through analyzing the current NYSE independent director standards, the company identifies the remaining 12 directors independent. AT&T Inc however are involved in business relationships with companies in which the board of directors serve as Executive Officers, but all transactions made are in the ordinary course of business for each organisation. With AT&T’s combination of directors, shareholders are ensured that the board of directors collectively have the competence and professional judgement to make the important and difficult decisions for the business. In addition, each director specializes in different areas of business which brings a great variety of expertise to the board. For example, Debra L. Lee’s expertise fall under the entertainment and media industry while Michael B. McCallister has an in-depth experience of the health care sector. AT&T believe this diverse selection of directors brings many skills and viewpoints to the boardroom in turn benefiting the company. The board of directors meet at least 4 times a year and do so without the presence of any managerial bodies. The majority of the directors also serve on separate boards in the company for example the audit committee, but they do not receive separate payments for being members on the committees. Out of the 12 directors excluding Mr. Stephenson, 8 of them are or previously were CEO’s in other companies, the remainder 4 being either co-founders, chairmen or professors.

Corporate Social Responsibility

AT&T truly values the corporate social responsibility (CSR) of the company and their approach strongly relates to the strength of their communities and the world and the long-term success of AT&T Inc. In addition, not only are they employing CSR practice in their company they also have principles set out for suppliers to follow to ensure they conduct a fully socially responsible organisation. AT&T are devoted to the people and doing what they can to help those who struggle. As of 2017, the company has managed to donate over $139 million and more than 5.4 million hours of time through donations and employee programs to support communities. Not only that, they have a passion for making our roads safer and to raise awareness about distracted driving. Their ‘It Can’t Wait’ campaign which stemmed from this need to raise awareness has seen over 33 million pledges to never driver distracted since its beginnings. They also believe online safety is an extremely important issue in today’s world and has provided on their Digital You website resources to educate customers on this issue.

In conjunction with the education of using the internet, AT&T has recognised the problems of the internet and the consequences of it being used incorrectly by its users. The #LaterHaters movement was established to allow young people to boost positivity online and offline by providing them with the tools to reinforce this back into the online world. In 2018, the company celebrated the 10th year of the Aspire program which provided $450 million to aid student’s success and prepare them for their careers ahead. Meanwhile, AT&T ' invested approximately $200 million and 16 million hours training’ into their employees while making contributions of around $23 million on their tuitions.

In terms of the environment, by 2025, AT&T believe through improving the efficiency of their network and delivering sustainable customer solutions, they can create carbon savings worth ten times the footprint of the firm's operations. ’AT&T’s wind projects are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking more that 530,000 cars off the road or providing electricity for more than 372,000 homes per year’. Furthermore, in 2018 the company set themselves a goal for ’zero waste’ in 100 facilities by reducing waste and focusing on recycling and composting.