Earthlink 2010 Annual Report Download - page 6

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Table of Contents
offices are located at 1375 Peachtree St., Atlanta, Georgia 30309, and our telephone number at that location is (404) 815-0770.
Business Strategy
Our primary business strategy is to transition our business to a leading IP infrastructure and managed services provider. We also continue to
focus on optimizing our Consumer Services segment operations, maintaining our operational efficiency and pursuing potential strategic
acquisitions.
Transitioning to a Leading IP Infrastructure and Managed Services Provider.
We are focused on transitioning our company to a leading
IP infrastructure and managed services provider. We plan to combine our existing business services with the integrated communications
businesses of our recent acquisition, ITC^DeltaCom, and our pending acquisition, One Communications, and offer a comprehensive suite of
business services under a new brand, EarthLink Business
TM
. We are focused on combining our service offerings and sales forces, expanding
service offerings that will be attractive to multi-
location business customers, promoting awareness of our new brand and integrating our
acquisitions to achieve operating synergies, cost savings and revenue enhancements. These recent acquisitions will allow us to continue to offer
a bundled package of value-
added communications services to our business customers, which we believe is an attractive means of delivering
communications solutions, thereby increasing retention rates and limiting customer churn. We believe this transition supports our long-
term
strategic direction and will further our objectives of strengthening our competitive position, expanding our customer base, providing greater
scale to accelerate innovation, providing our employees with an attractive career path and increasing stockholder value.
Optimizing our Consumer Services Segment Operations.
In our Consumer Services segment, we remain focused on retaining our
customers and building long-
term customer relationships based on customized service offerings and superior customer service. We believe
focusing on the customer relationship increases loyalty and reduces churn. Satisfied customers provide cost benefits, including reduced contact
center support costs and reduced bad debt expense. We continue to focus on offering our services with high-
quality customer service and
technical support. We also continue to seek to add customers that generate an acceptable rate of return, including through alliances, partnerships
and acquisitions from other ISPs. We also intend to continue to use cash generated from our Consumer Services operations to fund growth under
our acquisition strategy in our Business Services segment.
Maintaining our Operational Efficiency.
Our operating framework includes a disciplined focus on operational efficiency. In our
Consumer Services segment, we intend to continue to improve the cost structure of our business, without impacting the quality of services we
provide. In our Business Services segment, we intend to use this disciplined focus on operational efficiency to create synergies from our recent
and potential future acquisitions. We also plan to continue to implement cost reduction initiatives and to manage our business more efficiently,
including outsourcing certain functions, managing our network costs, consolidating or closing certain facilities, implementing workforce
reduction initiatives, reducing and more efficiently handling the number of calls to contact centers and streamlining our internal processes and
operations.
Pursuing Potential Strategic Acquisitions.
In addition to the acquisition of ITC^DeltaCom and the pending acquisition of One
Communications, we will continue to evaluate and consider other potential strategic transactions that we believe will complement our business.
We have recently entered into an agreement to acquire Saturn Telecommunication Services Inc. ("STS Telecom"), a privately-
held company that
operates a sophisticated VoIP platform that we plan to leverage on a nationwide basis as part of our Business Service offerings. Our acquisition
strategy may also include investment in additional network depth in geographic areas that complement our recently acquired fiber network or
acquiring customers within our network to create more scale.
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