US West was the Denver-based telecommunications giant, one of the so-called Baby Bells that resulted from the break-up of AT&T in 1983. With 59,000 employees, US West provided a full range of telecommunications and Internet services – including wireline, wireless PCS, data networking, directory, and information services – to more than 25 million customers nationally and in 14 Western states. Prior to its merger with Qwest in 2001, US West was an industry leader in the Internet era – including high-speed broadband where it provided 40 percent of the nation’s high-speed digital subscriber lines (DSL) with a service area that accounts for just 10 percent of the U.S. population.
Key achievements under Sol’s leadership:
“He obviously knows his industry pretty well and he’s very much a full-service telco man. He’s got a record and talks well about what he’s achieved.”
“From Accenture’s global perspective-and based on our work with companies in the Fortune Global 500, Telstra is undertaking an industry-defining transformation program. This is one of the most significant, comprehensive and customer-focused IT and business transformations ever undertaken, and that Accenture has been involved with…this is one of the most complex and comprehensive business transformations, spanning multiple product domains and supporting all network upgrades concurrently. Also; the program is not just about an integrated customer care and billing technology-it also supports the introduction of new, next-generation products, simplifying processes and improving the cultural approach of the organization.”
“The role we are normally asked to play sees us doing a lot of systems integration work, we do network work, we do a lot of strategy work, we do a lot of business work. But at Telstra we’re bringing all of that together and it’s unique.”