Verizon is reportedly set to slash thousands of jobs as it looks to enact an aggressive operational strategy under newly named CEO Dan Schulman.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Verizon will cut approximately 15,000 jobs as it looks to restructure operations. A follow up report from Fierce Network indicated those cuts are targeted at Verizon’s enterprise operations that are focused on private and neutral-host networks.

The reported cuts come just over a month after Verizon abruptly fired long-time CEO Hans Vestberg and installed Dan Schulman as head of the carrier. Schulman served on Verizon’s board and had previously headed up PayPal and former mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Virgin Mobile USA.

“I believe in Verizon and its future, and I am honored to be chosen to serve as CEO,” Schulman said at that time. “Verizon is at a critical juncture. We have a clear opportunity to redefine our trajectory, by growing our market share across all segments of the market, while delivering meaningful growth in our key financial metrics. We are going to maximize our value propositions, reduce our cost to serve, and optimize our capital allocation to delight our customers, and deliver sustainable long-term growth for our shareholders."

Schulman later provided a few clues to those plans as he presided over his first earnings call as CEO.

“We are going to take bold and fiscally responsible action to redefine Verizon’s trajectory at this critical inflection point for our company,” Schulman noted in a statement tied to the earnings release. “We will rapidly shift to a customer-first culture, one that thrives on delighting our customers. These will not be incremental changes. We will aggressively transform our culture, our cost structure, and the financial profile of Verizon in order to put our customers first, compete effectively, and deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders.”

Schulman added that this included a bigger focus on using AI to power his plans in overhauling Verizon’s operations.

“We have barely scratched the surface of how AI powered innovation can transform our customer experience,” Schulman said during his prepared remarks. “I intend to use AI as a key tool simplify offers, improve the customer experience, and reduce churn through smart, consistent, and more personalized marketing and offers, and we will leverage AI throughout the company to make it easier for our employees to delight our customers and to dramatically improve service while reducing costs.”

However, Schulman’s AI enthusiasm was quickly countered by his stating that there would also be parts of the Verizon business that could be cut.

“We have parts of our business that are costing us billions of dollars of margin and I think we can think much more clearly about how do we invest in growth areas and divest or exit those that are not that for us and are actually hemorrhaging margins for us,” Schulman said, before adding ominously, “you can probably imagine what we're thinking about and talking about on that.”

Schulman also indicated that a big part of the carrier’s focus would be on bolstering its broadband footprint to support churn-reducing converged services.

“When you combine mobility with fiber, you see churn rates that are almost 40% less than what we see with our traditional mobility,” Schulman said of that impact. “Thinking innovatively about how we bundle together broadband writ large, and that includes fixed-wireless and fiber with our mobility to drive both incremental broadband revenues as well as incremental mobility revenues, will definitely be on the plate. So expect us to continue to invest in our broadband footprint, in our fiber footprint, as well as our fixed-wireless as well.”

Verizon recently moved to shore up funds to pay for its pending $20 billion purchase of fiber broadband provider Frontier Communications that was initiated under Vestberg’s watch, and more recently announced plans to acquire fixed-wireless broadband provider Starry in a move to expand the carrier’s multidwelling unit (MDU) aspirations and a more recent agreement with Tillman affiliate Eaton Fiber to expand fiber services outside of Verizon’s core markets.

Verizon Business impact

While not singled out by Schulman during the earnings call, Verizon’s Business unit has struggled to produce expected returns.

Verizon Business includes the carrier’s wireless and wireline services targeted at enterprise and public-sector customers, and includes services such as its ThingSpace IoT, 5G edge, private 5G, security, managed SD-WAN, and Virtual Network Services (VNS).

The carrier early last year slashed the value of that operating unit as part of a five-year strategic planning review, having found a notable operational downturn that resulted in Verizon recording a $5.8 billion impairment on that operating unit.

Verizon specifically cited “secular declines as well as continuing competitive and macroeconomic pressure, in wireline revenue across its customer groups.” Those came despite an earlier shakeup of the unit’s management team.

Verizon Business has since been aggressive in attempting to grow, touting numerous customer wins across its network-as-a-service (NaaS) and private 5G operations. That includes a deal announced just this week that it had constructed a new 100 Gb/s optical fiber ring that will serve as the core broadcast, content creation engine, and corporate network for Washington, D.C.-based Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE).

GlobalData in a recent report noted that Verizon Business during an “Innovation Session” for enterprise, small business, and public sector customers had shown a number of new innovations and touted success of its network offerings. This included 5G network slicing, global IoT, next-generation wireless, and cybersecurity targeted at business operations.

Verizon claimed it had more than 100,000 users of its 5G network slicing service just nine months after launching the capability and 25 “engagements” in 13 states for its newly launched first responder service.

“Each of the technology areas has generated genuine market momentum and opportunity for Verizon Business,” the report stated.

However, despite the potential, the report added that “although the event was valuable, Verizon Business could position itself more effectively at future events by placing greater emphasis on advantages the company holds over competitors, its customer support capabilities, and the ways the company goes beyond merely providing technology and supports business outcomes.”