AT&T restructures business units

AT&T said it hopes to be able to respond faster to customer needs as a result of changes to its organizational structure announced Wednesday.

AT&T said it hopes to be able to respond faster to customer needs as a result of changes to its organizational structure announced Wednesday.

Following its spin-offs of AT&T Wireless Services in 2001 and of AT&T Broadband last year, the carrier is shifting from a holding company structure to a traditional single-company organization, said spokeswoman Sue Fleming.

AT&T now has two main units, AT&T Business and AT&T Consumer. The moves made Wednesday address the top level of organization and will be followed by changes further down in the company. Some jobs will be eliminated as those changes play out, but details have not yet been worked out, she said.

AT&T Wednesday integrated all product management groups into a single unit and moved the billing operations team into its customer service organization, according to a company statement. It also integrated all the sales teams of AT&T Business into one group. The government sales team previously was separate, Fleming said. Chris Rooney, who previously was president of AT&T Government Solutions, will lead the sales organization.

In addition, customer care functions such as billing and customer support will be consolidated in both AT&T Business and AT&T Consumer, each of which will have a single unified customer care group.