To say that Lucent Technologies has gone into a slump would be stretching it a bit. But the company, which provides systems and software that network operators and other service providers use to offer wireless and wireline access, certainly hit a bump in the first quarter of 2000.

Lucent's 1999 fiscal year was the strongest in the company's history; revenues grew 20 percent to $38.3 billion. But in Q1 2000, Lucent suffered a 23 percent drop in profits due to manufacturing-capacity constraints and deployment issues. The troubles left many people asking how Lucent and its CEO, Rich McGinn, would rise to the challenge.

Now, by all accounts, Lucent is once again on the fast track. Lucent's products are in hot demand. The company expects the global market for the communications networks it sells to exceed $1 trillion by 2005. The company is re-energized and ready to continue its growth. And the man leading the charge is CEO Rich McGinn. His vision and aggressive style have renewed the company's focus.

'My management style is creating a work environment that is customer driven and focused on results,' McGinn says. 'I believe in setting stretch goals and rewarding those who achieve those goals. Our management team is the best in the industry and has one of the industry's broadest sets of skills and experience across a broad range of disciplines.'

For Lucent, ensuring its share of this lucrative market, especially in the fiber-optic-cable domain, means making significant investments. The company has initiated a two-year, $1 billion program to provide additional fiber capacity to meet the growing demand for fiber used in high-speed optical networks.

Lucent asserts that it has led the industry in the shift to new applications-based fiber with its TrueWave and AllWave fiber products. This success has led to new customers in the Asian and European markets, including Unicom, Jainrong, Fujian Provincial PTA, Viatel, and Metromedia Fiber. The company has also expanded its undersea-fiber business with new fiber offerings and contracts with customers such as Pathnet, Tyco, Global Crossing, and Africa One.

In addition to new customers, acquisitions also play a key role in Lucent's strategy. Having acquired Ascend Communications in June 1999, Lucent claims to be the market leader in data networking for service providers. Expertise from International Network Services, a 1999 acquisition, helped Lucent's Network Care Professional services organization grow more than 45 percent last quarter. And Kenan Systems, which Lucent acquired in February 1999, brought software that handles half a billion billing records each day. Lucent sees these and many of its other acquisitions as sources of strength.

So, what are the company's weaknesses? 'Our competitors would say we are behind in OC192,' says a Lucent spokesperson. However, only weeks after Lucent launched its 10-Gbit/sec product line in February, the company announced six customer agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Lucent expects to announce many more contracts shortly. 'A year ago, our competitors were saying we did not have a data-networking offer,' the spokesperson says. 'As a result of our acquisitions of Ascend, Xedia, and Nexabit, we are now the leader in data networking for service providers.'

Indeed, it seems that Lucent thrives on, rather than shrinks from, competition. 'Competition is something we welcome and embrace at Lucent,' McGinn says. 'Competition spurs creativity, innovation and drives everyone toward peak performance.'

McGinn cites Lucent's Bell Labs as a prime example of this peak performance. 'As far as technology is concerned, Bell Labs wrote the book on technological advances,' he says. 'From the transistor to nanotechnology, Bell Labs leads the way on cutting-edge innovation and works every day to preserve its golden reputation.'

Lucent is getting back on track via an aggressive recovery plan. The company is accelerating optical manufacturing for the second quarter and adding more than 300 technicians and testing personnel to help meet demand. In the wireless area, previously delayed network deployments will happen within the year. In software, Lucent is implementing shorter development cycles and developing nearly 20 new products and services. And in optical fiber, Lucent is boosting production in Atlanta, Denmark, and China. According to the company, the market remains strong and is growing at about 14 percent a year. But Lucent expects to grow faster in fiscal 2000--around 17 percent.

In a major 2000 announcement, Lucent decided to spin off its private-branch-exchange (PBX), business-cabling, and local-area-network (LAN)-based data businesses. The as-yet-unnamed spin-off will have about 34,000 employees worldwide, while Lucent will be left with about 116,000. Lucent expects to complete the spin-off by the end of September.

With its eyes on the prize--that $1 trillion communications-networking market--Lucent is poised for the future. McGinn's aggressive style and strategic vision have branded him a Mover and Shaker for 2000. 'I'm honored to be classified in this group,' he says. 'But the same could be said of all the people of Lucent.'