MGT 201: Theory and Practice of Management
Book Analysis: Art of War as applied to PLDT
Founded on November 28, 1928, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) is the leading telecommunications provider in the Philippines. Its mission is to be the preferred full service provider of voice, video and data at the most attractive levels of price, service quality, content and coverage, thereby bringing maximum benefit to the Company’s stakeholders.
When PLDT was incorporated and given franchise to establish and operate telephone services in the country, a typhoon had just ravaged Eastern Visayas, Bicol Peninsula, and Samar. The ability to communicate amongst loved ones and across the Philippines became crucial. Sadly, phone networks then were like disconnected intercom systems and you could only call people within your own small city. Filipinos were disconnected from neighboring towns, disconnected from friends in the other island and, needless to say, disconnected from the rest of the world. It was under this scenario that the law was signed giving birth to PLDT which hoped to achieve to interconnect these “intercom” systems into a seamless nationwide network that would facilitate communication and delivery of services to people, as well as spur economic development in the countryside.
Under the American owners of PLDT, many small phone companies were acquired to speed up the rollout connection of different phone systems all over the country. The management of PLDT was then set towards linking Filipinos to each other and, more importantly to the world. By 1968, a new era of PLDT leadership was ushered in as it finally became a Filipino-controlled corporation when Ramon Cojuangco and his group of Filipino industrialists and businessmen bought the controlling stake of General Telephone And Electronics Corporation of New York. It was a symbol of national pride and a moment of triumph for Filipinos. Under Cojuangco’s leadership,