Sprint axes 4 execs; merges consumer, business sales teams

Instead of making some new year resolutions about better business strategies, Sprint is taking serious action going into 2012.

Sprint is ousting four of its top executives, according a memo to company employees written by CEO Dan Hesse that was reported by Reuters on Friday.

Those four individuals are:

• Bob H. Johnson, president of the consumer services group
• Danny Bowman, president of integrated solutions
• John Carney, senior vice president of consumer marketing
• Chris Rogers, senior vice president of corporate development and spectrum

The revelation presents a major shift in the company going forward especially as the memo also reveals that the nation's third largest mobile provider (behind Verizon and AT&T) will be merging the sales and marketing teams belonging to its separate consumer and business units.

The news also comes on the heels of the announcement that Sprint plans to launch its 4G LTE network (part of its Network Vision plan) within at least 10 cities by the middle of this year.

And, surprise, surprise. Apple's iPhone, which caused buzz at Verizon earlier this week as that telecommunications company expressed its desire for an LTE model, has something to do with this development as well...at least slightly.

Here's an excerpt from Hesse's memo concerning the reorganization:

We believe that we no longer need to support two separate business units (consumer and business), and that it is more logical now to evolve to unified marketing and sales organizations...

Because of the enormous investments we're making this year in Network Vision and in the iPhone, we need to consistently be looking for ways to be more efficient.

So instead, all consumer and business sales teams will answer directly to the chief sales officer, while all marketing efforts will be organized by the chief marketing officer.

The results of Sprint's reorganization has the potential to save money rather than make more (at least in the short run), but it is curious as to whether or not Sprint is going to end up focusing more on business customers than consumers, or vice versa.

The pitfall here would be that Sprint doesn't have enough resources to address both parties, and instead spreads itself too thin to serve either customer base efficiently.

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