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Bell announces new business structure

5/12/2003

Montreal, - Bell Canada Enterprises today announced a new business structure that aims at simplifying BCE and Bell Canada's operations by creating business divisions that reflect the three major customer segments it serves and integrates the corporate functions of BCE and Bell.

"Our goals are clear - to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace by building a Bell Canada that is a powerhouse of performance, product and service innovation, is simple to deal with, and has the highest productivity in the industry," said Michael Sabia, CEO of Bell Canada and BCE Inc.

Effective June 1st, Bell Canada will create three customer segments to replace its current structure:

The consumer markets group will include Bell's residential wireline service, its Mobility services, its ExpressVu satellite TV service, its Sympatico Internet services and its retail operations.

The small and medium business division creates a unit which is totally dedicated to this customer segment.

The enterprise division will focus on large business customers, governments and institutions.

The consumer markets group will be led by Pierre Blouin, group president, who had been CEO of Bell Emergis. The business markets group will be led by John Sheridan, now group president (and who was currently president and COO of Bell Canada, a position which will be deleted), and will also include Karen Sheriff, president, small and medium business, who had been chief marketing officer at Bell Canada and Isabelle Courville, president, Enterprise, who comes over from Bell Nordique, where she was president and CEO.

"Our new structure… will facilitate our ability to provide customers a full range of communications services through a single point of contact," said Sabia.

The company will transition to this new structure in the coming weeks. Sabia went on to say that Bell will move towards taking a more integrated approach to managing its IS/IT, technology, network operations and productivity initiatives.

The integration of functions between BCE and Bell will move BCE closer to the operations and challenges of its core asset, said the company release. It will also serve to simplify BCE's structure, helping investors better understand the company's focus going forward.

The changes also mean that, come Monday, 16 presidents and vice-presidents, on top of the 21 management positions that were eliminated in late December, are gone. The old divisions of Bell Ontario and Bell Quebec are also history.

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