David Young

IT / Telecoms Consultant, Programme Manager and Business Coach

Network and Operational Rationalisation & NOC move – European telco

Summary:

Finding the end of dramatic growth spurt (the dot-com boom) this Next Gen telco needed to rationalise business investments, radically reduce monthly spend and become far more efficient with the use of their own resources. David was contracted to ‘turn-around’ existing operations. He achieved this by launching Network Rationalisation Programme and focusing on:

  • Build of a CEO sponsored programme framework to include commercial drivers (and negotiation levers), communications, supplier management and IT development with senior management stakeholders.
  • Generation of a technical strategy
  • Review of current customer contracts and likely / desirable new business locations – a strong focus on the UK was found
  • Review of current technical designs – leading to migration to Cisco based central Signalling System (SS7) soft switch and outsourced MPLS architecture
  • Review of current cost base and radical reduction through supplier management and negotiation and a move of operations from Zurich to UK
  • Review of service issues – leading to the development of programme management process and governance for customer facing projects
  • The set-up of effective working practices to report against key metrics and recover the business plan

    • Specific Achievements:

  • Re-build of a UK NOC in line with operational move from Zurich. This was a major achievement itself given the timescale for the overall turn-around.
    • David negotiated a building location, local network & IT specialists and construction contractors for the new operations centre
    • He encouraged all planning and design to be done in-house to encourage buy-in to the transformation
  • The development of a governance process gave staff a feeling of control over previously unmanageable projects
  • Instant savings through supplier re-negotiation gave a strong sense of relief to senior stakeholders who started, once again, to become positive with their staff
  • Suppliers became keen to help (rather than writing off their debt)
  • Gained very positive feedback from sponsor and senior stakeholders

    • Key Skills Deployed:

  • Senior stakeholder management (Cxx level)
  • Global Supplier Management and Negotiation
  • Coaching [internal teams]
  • Programme Governance, development and reporting
  • Operational Process development and re-engineering
  • Organisational design and implementation
  • Hand's on Technical Management

    • Outcome:

    An instant saving of approx $1M per month was delivered along with a controlled and cost effective ability to serve new customers. As well as instant savings, the business was given the tools to keep Opex low in coming years, de-risk future business and enjoy improvements in customer retention.

     

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