Q&A: MCI U.S. sales chief on rebuilding strategy

Now that telecommunications vendor  MCI has  emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the company has high hopes to rebuild itself in the wake of the accounting scandal that emerged in 2002, when it was known as WorldCom. Wayne Huyard, MCI's president of U.S. sales and service, talked to Computerworld's Todd R. Weiss Tuesday to lay out some of the company's strategy for rebuilding its reputation and its business.

Will it be a hard for MCI to get customers to stick with it -- or to attract new customers -- after the accounting scandal?

No, I don't think so. And here's why: The No. 1 thing we hear from customers is that "your service and your network quality and reliability actually improved during the bankruptcy period." We've also been very high-touch (keeping in contact with existing customers during the interim). We've had account teams working with all our customers. They know us well. In terms of the business decision-maker, the scandal and the fraud, that's all history. I think that there is an opportunity, though. ... Some companies just have a policy of not (giving) large pieces of their business to companies in bankruptcy, whether that's MCI or not, whether there was scandal or fraud or not. I really feel like there's going to be opportunity now to realize the business that we weren't realizing during the bankruptcy because of that dynamic.

What can MCI offer customers to make them feel comfortable about choosing the company today?

There's not many companies that can offer a worldwide IP network end-to-end solution, and so we're always a part of those conversations when they occur for serious consideration on the user's part.

Is MCI at a disadvantage compared with other telecommunications companies because you don't have a dedicated wireless division? Will this limit future growth?

We see an opportunity in wireless to provide a wireless data capability and wireless access to the worldwide global IT network. We see less of an opportunity to be a wireless carrier for cell phones and other devices. It's a very competitive market. We don't necessarily see it fitting the convergence services we provide. Would it be ideal if we had a wireless unit? Would it impede our access by not having it? No. We see it more as adjunct and not central to our near-term strategy. We're really focusing on building a robust and reliable IP network and building products and services on it, then (managing) those networks for people.

All of this is part of a postbankruptcy plan for the company?

Yes. We've quadrupled our investment in product development, and much of our investment has been going into simplifying and streamlining our service delivery. Some of it is by necessity because, as it is now famous, WorldCom through all of its acquisitions never really integrated a lot of systems that needed to be integrated. We still have a lot more work to do.

Will MCI be able to pull off this kind of recovery? Are the right tools and offerings in place?

We feel like the market migration to this new (convergence-based) world is really going to grow in four quarters, five quarters or six quarters from now. And we're going to really be working to accelerate it and to lead our customers to it. We're going to go actively to our frame-relay customers and say, "We'd like to migrate you to private IP, and here are all the great reasons to do that."

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright Computerworld, Inc.