Orange: The Future is now 'The Agenda'

Having seen its fortunes fall into decline, the newly-appointed CEO at Orange U.K., Tom Alexander, has promised a revamped strategy--labeled The Agenda, that will see its iconic branding, "The Future's Bright," etc, unceremoniously dropped. Apart from this, the new Orange UK boss will focus on building its broadband business, cut layers of middle management, do away with overseas call-centres and revive its sales portfolio by including laptops.

The France Telecom-owned operator has stated that it plans to combine its mobile and fixed-line broadband arms to develop new services and products. This will also see the company roll out 450 new 2G base stations to improve coverage and ramp up investment in its HSDPA network, which will offer speeds of 7.2Mb/sec in 30 U.K. cities, and 14.4Mb/sec in the five biggest cities in the next 18 months. Alexander is also expected to axe several hundred managers from a workforce of 12,500 and increase U.K.-based call-centre staff to improve customer service.

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