Earthlink 2011 Annual Report Download - page 52

Table of Contents
Leverage our existing customer relationships.
We are focused on leveraging our existing customer relationships, favorable brand image
and experience in providing IP communication and managed services, in order to profitably grow our business services revenue. We believe that
upselling our new suite of products and services to existing customers is an important opportunity for revenue growth and customer retention.
This includes selling managed security and IT services to our existing network connectivity customers, as well as selling network connectively to
existing managed security and IT services customers. In addition, certain of our business service revenues have been declining due to
competitive pressures in the industry, and we expect revenues from certain aspects of these businesses to continue to decline. We are focused on
managing this decline by executing on opportunities to leverage these customer relationships by proposing our new technology platform.
Provide a superior customer experience. We are committed to providing high-
quality customer service and continuing to monitor
customer satisfaction in all facets of our business. We believe focusing on the customer relationship increases loyalty and reduces churn. We
believe that our customizable communications portfolio, blend of access technologies for connectivity and new portfolio of cloud, managed
security and IT services are key differentiators that can help us build long-
term customer relationships. With our recently launched nationwide
service, we also launched myLink
TM
, a new, secure customer portal, which provides customers with a centralized tool for 24/7 self-
service
applications, reporting and management features. We are focused on creating a customer-
focused organization that will provide a consistent
nationwide approach to offering and supporting EarthLink products and services.
Successfully integrate acquisitions.
We are focused on successfully integrating our acquisitions in order to realize synergies and cost
benefits and increase the scale and scope of our product offerings. This includes the integration of operating support systems, networks, sales
forces, marketing channels, product offerings and personnel. To date, we have consolidated and integrated network operations centers, sales
platforms and certain billing platforms, as well as launched a nationwide product portfolio. We are currently involved in the integration of
additional billing platforms, financial systems and other operating support systems. We believe that our competitive positioning with current and
existing customers will be strengthened by our ability to continue to successfully integrate recent and other potential acquisitions, especially
integrating our new IT services capabilities.
Selectively pursue potential strategic acquisitions.
In addition to our recent acquisitions, we will continue to selectively evaluate and
consider other potential strategic transactions that we believe will complement and grow our business. Our acquisition strategy may include
investments or acquisitions of new product and services capabilities, data centers, network assets or business customers to achieve greater
national scale.
Challenges and Risks
The primary challenges we face in executing our business strategy are successfully transitioning from a traditional communications
provider to a managed IT services provider, providing products and services that meet changing customer needs on a timely and cost effective
basis, responding to competitive and economic pressures, managing the rate of decline in certain revenue streams, successfully integrating our
acquisitions to achieve expected synergies and cost savings, implementing operating efficiencies and adapting to regulatory changes and
initiatives. Our future success for growth depends on the timing and market acceptance of our new products and services, our ability to market
our services in a cost-
effective manner to new customers, our ability to differentiate our services from those of our competitors, our ability to
maintain and expand our sales to existing customers, our ability to strengthen awareness of our brand, our ability to ensure effective training and
product knowledge of our sales force and the reliability and quality of our services. The factors we believe are instrumental to the achievement
of our business strategy may be subject to competitive, regulatory and other events and circumstances that are beyond our control. For a
complete list of all risks and uncertainties inherent in our business, please refer to the
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