T-Mobile, Sol Communications

VoiceStream (now T-Mobile) acquired Sol Communications as part of the telecoms market consolidation. Sol had a chain of mobile phone stores across large towns and smaller cities in South Texas. The long-term strategy was to retain these stores and invest in the employees within them, as a part of T-Mobile’s strong corporate culture of People First.

Integration

The South Texas market is very family oriented and local-community focused. A permanently assigned manager was appointed to oversee the integration and subsequently run the business, as an interim manager would have been out of place for the culture and businesses of this region.

The integration overhauled the business operations, processes, and systems to use the correct blend of T-Mobile corporate infrastructure and Sol Communications’ local market understanding.

Key tasks included

• Implement full branding, technology, and process changes
• Significant 1 week employee training; management were given 2 weeks of training
• Modifying the nationwide marketing to suit the local market, such as sponsoring local events, working with individual billboard owners, and using local television and radio stations
• Temporarily closing the call center, so that it could be rebuilt into a large-scale facility that was embedded within the nationwide network of call centers