- Major industry restructure – Definition, negotiation and delivery of service level agreements to support water industry transformation in Ireland
- Consortium major UK Telcos – Delivery of an independent assessment of cost impact of regulatory proposals for industry change to ensure correct decisions taken and appropriate budgets allocated
- Neareast Telco - Business plan and market entry strategy for Turkey to become the ‘location of choice’ for the offshore contact centre outsourcing and grow GDP by 3-4%
- Ofgem – Provided assurance to the government and industry that preparations for the introduction of competition would result in a smoothly customer and market operations
- HMG – Energy/FS – Delivering a detailed design for partner relationship and other business functions to accelerated delivery of a complex multiparty start up
- Altnet/Mobile, ESAT – Facilitated planning for a joint venture, subsequently executed, to use railway telecoms assets in Ireland to establish a national SDH network, working with senior technical, marketing and financial managers
- Major utility – Accelerating an outsource transaction, informing decision making with best practice prior to a 2,500 seat outsource.
- Major Telco – Provided advice to reduce risk after assessing the operations, cost base and key contracts of Panamanian customer operations, for business operating in a highly competitive market
- Major Telco, UK – Review of value - for-money and operation of customer service outsourcing contracts to assess scope for reducing operating cost through price reduction or more rigorous application of service credit regimes in the contracts
- nPower – Reducing the risk of repeat multimillion pound fines by the regulator for mis-selling by advising on new supplier and contract
- HMRC – Researched experience in FS and outsourcing organisations with front and back office integration, to apply it to its problems in delivering a reasonable customer experience efficiently and lower cost
- Premium TV – As part of a start up to deliver tax benefits, seconded to run customer services to ensure compliance to tax effcient model, also delivering £2m cost saving in outsource contract
- Utility – Resolved resource issues caused by business preparation workload from major change programme by procuring flexible outsourced service with guaranteed quality at costs 60% below more risky UK internal options
- HMG – Emergency intervention to assess failing outsource provider, identify and recommend improvement actions and provide a view on long term prospects to inform contractual decisions
- Barclays/GHL – Completed integration of Woolwich & Barclays mortgage customer operations, reducing cost. Led team to deliver data conversion, improved processes and new servicing, direct debit and other applications
- HMG Department of Heath – Advised on the definition, procurement and contract negotiation of a solution to meet volatile, large scale, pandemic-driven demand
- HMG Department of Health – Improved customer service through competition and innovative service design, leading strategy development and advising on procurement of £50m contract for outsourced contact centre services
- BBC – Advised the BBC on integration of BskyB services, customer and operational processes to enable it to use digital satellite broadcasting within its delivery infrastructure
- Major Tech retailer – Repairing a failing outsource deal and preparing for a future replacement solution
- Fraud investigator – Design of commercial model and contract schedules to support the replacement of incumbent service providers of outsourced ICT and contact centre services
- Ingeus – Design of target operating model to drive cost out and performance up in outsourced probation services
- Current state assessment
- Risk review of an important business operation, managed remotely, to ensure risks were being controlled
- Fixed and mobile Telecommunications
- Outsourcing contract benchmarking
- Operational impacts of a price war
Major Telco – Fixed/Mobile operation
Control of business risk due to a ‘price war’
A Telco’s portfolio of Mobile and Fixed businesses serves high-growth, fast moving emerging markets. The UK HQ manages performance with a ‘light-touch’ with local teams primarily focussed on delivering EBITDA targets. To monitor business risks, the UK HQ uses regular independent risk reviews of its local operations. David reviewed the customer operations of its Panamanian subsidiary, putting in place 12 key actions to reduce risk. The review showed there was a high level of risk due to a price war in local market and related management actions to cut in operational expenditure to meet EBITDA targets, and proposed new controls.
Operating in Panama, David’s team gathered data to assess risk, define actions required and agree findings with local management. To obtain key player perspectives on risk David interviewed the CEO, CFO and Customer service director. Concerns included:
- Prices in the operation’s largest third party contact were too high, invoices associated with it were not being properly scrutinised and supplier relationships were ‘too close’.
- A high volume of product launches creating cost and customer service issues.
- IT systems that were outdated, impairing business performance and increasing cost.
The team interviewed staff involved with the outsourced operation and conducted a survey of outsource prices in Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica. A sample of invoice payments was used to understand the way payment controls were applied. Data on the volumes of price promotions, the way prelaunch quality controls and operational KPIs were used to assess risk and impact due to sales driven change. Our work on the contact showed prices were competitive, invoices properly reviewed prior to payment and relationships were appropriate. Customer operations were well-run, despite some IT related issues and risks that needed to be addressed through investment. In summary, some of senior management’s concerns were unfounded.
Of more concern was the impact of a ‘price war’ resulting in a price decline of 46% in a year. Facing this, management met EBITDA targets through volume growth and major cuts to most aspects of operational expenditure. In making these decisions, management was able to show it had, in the short run, properly considered risk. We recommended implementation of streamline controls on promotions, allowing a response to market development with better managed risks. We alerted the centre to the intensity of the price war, and recommended specific additional controls to ensure that overly aggressive decisions by local management did increase jeopardise the viability of the business.