BEDMINSTER, N.J. -- AT&T today announced that it is streamlining its organizational structure to better serve customers and speed decision-making. The streamlining effort reflects AT&T's transformation from its previous holding company structure to a more customer- and market-focused operating model following the spin-off of AT&T Broadband in November 2002 and the earlier spin-off of AT&T Wireless in July 2001. The realignment represents an additional step on the path AT&T Chairman and CEO David Dorman set for the company when he assumed his current position in November 2002. At that time, he articulated AT&T's mission of being the preeminent networking and telecommunications services company in the world, with a relentless focus on meeting customer needs. He emphasized that today's changes are not a short-term exercise driven by near-term financial demands, but rather part of AT&T's longer-term goal of changing the company's culture by pushing corporate functions down into the business and by putting a more horizontal leadership structure in place. "This initiative is a critical component of a comprehensive transformation process we started before the Broadband spin-off last year," said Dorman. "We've benchmarked ourselves against the best companies in the world and aligned our resources squarely against our top priorities." Reducing the layers of management will enable the AT&T leadership team to make quicker decisions based on customer needs. The management realignment will result in some job changes and eliminations as it is implemented. "This streamlined structure helps us get even closer to our customers," Dorman said. "We're determined to keep leading the telecom pack today, and we're preparing now to lengthen that lead when the economy improves." Today's changes support AT&T's move to a more customer-focused approach to running the business. For example:

The realignment brings some management changes, effective immediately:

AT&T Corp.